From the above statement it will be seen that the accounts for only about one-fourth of the expenditures by the officers of this department during the administrative examination and analyzation which the law requires them to receive in this office before being reported to the Treasury for final examination and settlement.

The clerical force of this office, though a number of temporary clerks have been employed in addition to the regular and authorized force, is insufficient to examine the accounts with promptness.

The number of officers making reports and returns is very large. There are not less than 1,000 regiments or parts of regiments in the service. Each of these regiments has a regimental quartermaster, who is in charge of valuable property, of which he is required by the regulations to make monthly and quarterly returns. Under the law of last year he is required also, if he receives or expends any public money, to send in monthly accounts.

From the inexperience of many of these officers they fail to render their accounts and make their returns punctually and those received require correction.

From the regimental quartermasters alone thus over 12,000 accounts and sets of returns are to be expected annually.

The brigade quartermaster and the quartermaster of the Regular Army, who act as chiefs to army corps or armies in the field, or who are in charge of the important depots for the purchase and manufacture of supplies, are charged with the expenditure of large sums of money, and their accounts are very voluminous. There are now nearly 300 of these officers, whose accounts will number in a year 3,600.

Every officer commanding a company in either the Regular or Volunteer Army is responsible for the clothing received by him for issue to the men of his command, and is required to make quarterly returns thereof. As in an army of 1,000,000 men there will be not less than 10,000 company commanders, there should be 40,000 clothing returns received and examined in this office.

The correspondence with officers who fail to make their returns withined by the regulations, and with those whose returns are imperfect or incorrect, involves much labor.

After consultation with the experienced officers and clerks who have heretofore performed this duty, I consider that it will require an addition to the force of this of 120 clerks to examine in a reasonable time the mass of accounts and returns which have accumulated during the past year, and to keep up the correspondence necessary to settle the accounts promptly hereafter, and to compel officers to make their returns regularly and correctly.

The labor now imposed upon certain officers of this department is too great. It is physically impossible to examine properly all the papers which must be submitted to the heads of certain branches of the office. The consequence is delay in the transaction of public business. The subjects of the most pressing importance are attended to, while others are laid aside and sometimes overlooked. The great duty of this department is to provide for and supply the wants of the Army. This has been accomplished. Its second duty, of no less importance, is, by proper examination of the reports, returns, and accounts of its officers, to enforce a strict economy in the disbursements of public money and a strict accountability for the public property in charge of its officers.