of Europe have their own ambulances and store wagons, you quote from Major Delafield, and say Jefferson Davis knows them. With the report of Major Delafield before him, Jefferson Davis, when Secretary of War, assembled a board, not of quartermasters, but of medical officers, to devise and determine a model for ambulances and transport carts for the medical service. This board consisted of five members. Three of the members presented models. All these were adopted by the board and by the Secretary of War, ad the Quartermaster's Department was ordered to conform to these models. Many hundreds were constructed and issued to the army. They are the two-wheeled vehicles which are now the subject of ridicule, and the heavy four-horse ambulance which stows away the wounded men in cells, after the model of a honeycomb. Most of these, from faults of design, not of construction or material-for they were made by the first makers of the country, under the same careful restriction and inspection as the army baggage wagons, of whose workmanship and material there is no complaint-have broken down and been abandoned. They are condemned by their inventors, who are still in the medical corps, and the Quartermaster's Department is now, with approval of the Surgeon-General, supplying in great numbers a light four-wheeled ambulance drawn by two horses, which is approved by the medical officers and by the army. For transport of medical stores, besides the extraordinary supplies sent after a battle, the orders now in force allow one six-mule four-wheeled baggage wagon to every full regimental train in the Army. If they are not filled with medical stores it is not the fault of the quartermaster. A great mistake was made when the bands were abolished. These bands were of value to the soldier in camp, in bivouac, on the march, and they gave a trained, enlisted, disciplined, officered body of men to each regiment, whose duty during and after an action it was to take care of the wounded-a true ambulance corps, regularly enlisted and capable also of doing something else when not engaged with the wounded. From a mistaken notion of economy they were disbanded, and now comes up a cry for a special ambulance corps to be enlisted, officered, and paid to do nothing else but attend to the wounded. This will cost more than the unfortunately discarded bands. And was their ability to make music an objection? Would they be less efficient in action that they had, when not needed to carry stretchers and bear off the wounded, regaled their comrades with sweet sounds? And when the tug of doubtful battle comes, will these men, this new ambulance corps, be permitted to remain in the rear attending to the wounded while the army is being beaten in the front? Should not every able- bodied man, for the few hours of desperate conflict which vary the months of inaction, be compelled to do his best to beat back the enemy, and thus to make it possible, after the conflict is over, to carry succor, food, and medicine to the unfortunates who, if we are driven from the field, fall into the hands of traitors, to receive such treatment as was given them before the quartermaster's extra ambulances reached the field of Manassas?

There have been purchased and issued to the Army since the rebellion broke out more than 3,500 ambulances. Did any nation ever make such provisions for its soldiers? The expenditures of the Quartermaster's Department for building hospitals can be counted only in millions. There are several hastily constructed hospitals, which have cost from $100,000 to $200,000 each, and many more are now being erected. There have been issued to the army in the past