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round the coast by some good sea boat of sufficient
vent any unnecessary detention or delays.
I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,

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W. W. S. BLISS, Assistant Adjutant General.

Captain JNO. SANDERS,
Corps of Engineers, Matamoras.

QUARTERMASTER GENERAL'S OFFICE,
Washington city, June 24, 1846.

SIR: I have to-day received your letter of the 21st instant. It is my desire, as I believe it is that of every one here, to render the most efficient aid to General Taylor's operations. You were right to act at once, without waiting for special authority from Washington. You are acquainted with the Rio Grande, and I desire you to purchase or charter such boats as you are confident will render efficient service. If you consider pilots necessary, employ

them.

The three boats, Utica, New Haven, and Swiftsure, were specially recommended to me by Captain Page, of the ocean steamer McKim, who is a seaman as well as an old steamboat captain. Had he not been placed in command of a sea steamer, he would have purchased those boats for the Rio Grande. If you consider them unsuited to that river, I will thank you to request Major Tompkins not to buy them. After a confinement of several days to my room I am out to-day, but not well.

I will return the map in two or three days.
I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,
TH. S. JESUP,
Quartermaster General.

Captain JOHN SANDERS,

U. S. Engineers, Pittsburg, Pa.

Extracts from a letter of Captain J. Sanders, engineer corps, to the quartermaster general.

"PITTSBURG, July 2, 1846.

"I have the honor to report that I have completed my purchases of light draught steamboats on account of your department, for the transportation of military stores on the Rio Grande. I send herewith a descriptive list of the same.

*

"Allow me, general, to take this occasion of expressing my acknowledgments not only for the ready and cheerful assistance and hearty co-operation which you had the kindness to extend to me in the discharge of this duty, but also for that which I have re

ceived from the hands of those (if I may be permitted to say so) highly zealous and active officers, Colonel Hunt and Major Tompkins, of your department. I shall most assuredly take the liberty of reporting the same to my commanding general. "I have the honor to remain, &c.,

"JOHN SANDERS,
"Captain Engineers."

QUARTERMASTER GENERAL'S OFFICE, Washington city, July 5, 1846. CAPTAIN: I have received your letter of the 2d instant, and in reply have to assure you that for the support which you have received from this department no extraordinary credit is due. You were employed on an important duty, and it would have been criminal in any officer of the department not to have given you all the aid in his power. Apart from all considerations of duty, however, I am disposed to sustain General Taylor to the utmost; and as far as the means, the energies, and the credit of the department shall enable me, he may rely on all that I can accomplish for him. I sustained him for more than two months by using appropriations for the service of his army which the President would have been impeached for using. It was contrary to law to divert them from the objects to which Congress intended they should be applied, but I considered that the situation of the army caused an overruling necessity which justified the course which I adopted. I shall never forget how faithfully and ably General Taylor sustained me in Florida.

It has occurred to me that many of the obstructions to the navigation of the Rio Grande might be removed by a good dredging machine. In Florida I availed myself of the steamboats on the St. John more than double the distance I could have used them without dredge boats. If you think a dredging boat and machine. can be made advantageous, you are authorized to purchase, or cause to be prepared, a suitable one, and cause it to be put in operation as soon as possible.

I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,

Captain JOHN SANDERS,

Corps of Engineers, Pittsburg, Pa.

TH. S. JESUP, Quartermaster General.

Note by the Secretary of War.

The passage in the foregoing letter which relates to diverting appropriations was first brought to my notice while preparing the documents to answer the resolution of the House of Representa

tives. General Jesup being absent, has been written to for an explanation.

The following certificates-one from the Second Comptroller, and the other from the requisition clerk of this department-will show that no appropriation has been overdrawn, and that in settling the accounts the appropriations for this department have been applied to the objects for which they were intended by Congress.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT,

Second Comptroller's Office, February 8, 1847.

All requisitions on the treasury from the Secretary of War, calling for money to be placed in the hands of the disbursing officers, come directly to this office from the War Department.

It is my duty, as Comptroller of the Treasury, to examine such requisitions, to see if they are "warranted by law."

No requisition is permitted to pass unless there is a balance on the books of this office to the credit of the appropriation on which it is drawn, sufficient to meet it.

The amount of the requisition, if passed, is charged to the officer in whose favor it is drawn, and he is required strictly to account for its expenditure, by the production of vouchers, showing the application of the money to the purpose for which it was appropriated.

In no case has an appropriation been overdrawn on a requisition passed at this office, nor has any account been admitted and rassed at this office where the money has been applied to a purpose different from that for which it was appropriated. ALBION K. PARRIS,

Comptroller..

FEBRUARY 8, 1847.

Being the clerk in the office of the Secretary of War whose duty it is to make out requisitions for money on the Treasury Department, I hereby certify that in no instance, since the troops were ordered into Texas, has a requisition been issued by the Secretary of War on a request or draft from the quartermaster's department, where there was not sufficient money to the credit of the appropriation to pay it.

NATHAN RICE,
Requisition Clerk.

Since the foregoing was prepared, I have received from General Jesup a reply to my letter to him asking an explanation of the passage in his letter to Captain Sanders. Both my letter and his reply follow.

W. L. MARCY.

WAR DEPARTMENT, February 10, 1847.

SIR: A resolution has been passed in the House of Representatives, as you may have observed by the newspapers, calling upon

the President to furnish to that body, among other matters, the correspondence with the quartermaster's department in relation to transportation for the army.

In your letter of the 5th of July last, addressed to Captain Sanders, sent out from the Rio Grande by General Taylor to procure boats for that river, there is a paragraph first brought to the notice of the President and myself while preparing to respond to the resolution, which, unexplained, may be used to sustain a grave charge against the department. The paragraph to which I refer is as follows: "I sustained" (you say in your letter to Captain Sanders) "him" (General Taylor) "for more than two months by using appropriations for the service of his army which the President would have been impeached for using. It was contrary to law to divert them from the objects to which Congress intended they should be applied, but I considered that the situation of the army caused an overruling necessity which justified the course which I adopted. I shall never forget how faithfully and ably General Taylor sustained me in Florida."

The exigency and circumstances to which you refer are not set forth, and I cannot explain them to the President. I recollect that when the troops were ordered into Texas the appropriation for transportation was found insufficient for that purpose, but it is my impression that the deficiency resulting from the unexpected emergency was supplied by a transfer from other appropriations, which was made by the President pursuant to lawful authority. If anything beyond this was done, it was not made known to the President. If an overruling necessity" required the course you adopted, it is regretted that it was not reported to the President for his direction, and, if unavoidable, his explanation to Congress on the earliest occasion. I cannot but think that the paragraph which I have quoted is capable of some explanation that will change its apparent character, for the accounts in relation to the appropriations for your department have all been adjusted at the treasury, and it does not there appear that any part of any one appropriation has been permanently diverted from objects to which it was designed by Congress.

I hope this communication will be received by you in season for a reply, which may, if necessary, be laid before Congress before its adjournment.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Major General THOMAS S. JESUP,

W. L. MARCY,

Secretary of War.

Quartermaster General U. S. A., New Orleans, La.

NEW ORLEANS, February 18, 1847.

SIR: I have received this moment your letter of the 10th instant, and I hasten to reply to it. The circumstances to which I alluded

in my letter to Captain Sanders are these: The appropriations for the active service had mostly been exhausted. There were large balances of other appropriations subject to my control. Congress was in session, and the President could not make a transfer. Without consulting you, I applied large amounts of those balances to the active service. Not having access to the records of my office, I cannot say what amounts they were, or to what officers remitted; but Lieutenant Colonel Hunt received here one hundred and five thousand dollars of those balances, and applied the whole to the support of General Taylor's army.

In

General Taylor had complained of the quartermaster's department. I had received the impression that he believed he was not cordially supported by the officers of the department. writing to his confidential agent I wished to show him that I was ready to support him, not only by performing all my ordinary duties, but by assuming any responsibility the exigency of the service might require.

When I remarked to Captain Sanders that you or the President could be impeached for acting as I had acted, I alluded merely to the illegality of applying appropriations to objects different from those for which they had been made by Congress, and to the want of legal authority in either to sanction what I had done.

I did not consult you on the subject of using those balances, because you could not have given me any legal authority to use them. I considered the necessity of the case as it existed sufficient for my own justification, should my conduct in the matter ever be questioned. I intended no reflection either upon you or the President, nor did it occur to me that my remarks could be so understood by any one. I wished to convince a brother officer, with whom I had been on the most friendly terms for years, that the impressions which I supposed he entertained were unfounded, and that in his case I had a personal as well as a public motive for sustaining him to the ut

most.

I am much gratified that you have afforded me the opportunity of this explanation, and I am, sir, with high consideration and respect,

Your obedient servant,

TH. S. JESUP,

Quartermaster General.

Hon. W. L. MARCY,

Secretary of War, Washington City.

{No. 83.]

HEAD-QUARTERS, ARMY OF OCCUPATION,
Camargo, September 1, 1846.

SIR: Before marching for the interior, I beg leave to place on record some remarks touching an important branch of the public. service, the proper administration of which is indispensable to the efficiency of a campaign. I refer to the quartermaster's department. There is at this moment, when the army is about to take

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