WAR DEPARTMENT,

OFFICE OF THE PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL,

Washington City, December 6, 1862.

Honorable EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War:

SIR: In obedience to your personally expressed wishes I now submit, as briefly as possible, a statement of the operations in my office since I have had the honor to hold it.

The great necessity that existed for aiding the Government in reducing the large number of desertions and thereby strengthening the army in the field is well expressed in the following extract from Order 92, dated July 31, 1862, which created a commissioner of the War Department, by order of the President:

The absence of officers and privates from their duty under various pretexts, while receiving pay, at great expense and burden to the Government, makes it necessary that efficient measures be taken to enforce their return to duty, or that their places be filled by those who will not take pay while rendering no service. This evil, moreover, tends greatly to discourage the patriotic impulses of those who would contribute to support the families of faithful soldiers.

On the 31st of July my appointment, by order of the Secretary of War, was issued in the following words, Order Numbers 95, of the War Department.*

Immediately on receipt of this appointment I entered upon the duties assigned to me, and going first to the Eastern States, by your directions, made arrangements with the Governors of those States, the military officers stationed there, and other persons specially appointed by you for the arrest of all officers and soldiers found absent without leave.

On the 4th day of August the President's proclamation calling for 300,000 men appeared, and was soon followed by the announcement that an equal number in addition would be raised by drafting, if not furnished by volunteering. These announcements gave a new impulse to volunteering, for which arrangements were made on a scale of unprecedented magnitude. The system of paying bounties then inaugurated served as an inducement to thousands of men to enter the service who had no inteng in it, and to numerous frauds upon both the Government and the soldiers.

Very soon after the organization into regiments of the new forces was commenced it became apparent that desertions were on the increase, and that vigorous and decided measures should be adopted to check the evil.

The difficulty experienced in the attempt to establish necessary discipline was not surprising in view of the fact that a large army was being raised from a population which, however imbued with military instincts, was unused to the habits of war, a people who for upward of half a century had lived in the enjoyment of profound peace (except during the brief interlude of the Mexican war), and who were entirely surprised by the sudden outburst of an infamous rebellion which plunged them at once into a civil war of the most terrible character.

The difficulties encountered in organizing these forces suggested to you, sir, the propriety of establishing an additional power, subordinate to and yet co-operating with both the regular and volunteer military systems, to aid in perfecting and maintaining the discipline of the Army.

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* See paragraph II, p. 294.

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