C Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. ELECTROTYPED BY L. JOHNSON & CO. C. SHERMAN & SON, PRINTERS. : PREFACE. As a companion-book of reference for facts, statistics, and other data, in constant demand, the National Almanac for 1863 took a long stride in advance of any preceding work of the same general description. It therefore proved to be a most acceptable and popular book, the sales amounting to fifteen thousand copies. But just as that volume surpassed its predecessors of the same type, as a source of popular information, the present volume is believed to be in advance of the first. It has been the subject of more labor and more care; its scope is much broader, and its statistics, to a very large extent, are much better and fresher. It is, therefore, anticipated with confidence that it will meet with a still more favorable reception by the public. As examples of the freshness and value of the matter of this volume, the reader should turn to the tables, now first published, showing the operations of our Internal Revenue system; or to the pages exhibiting the condition of our Navy, and its captures during the war; or to the full and recent presentations of the affairs of the great Bureaus of the Interior Department. Referring to the first of these instances, the reader will find copious tables, showing the results of our system of Internal Taxation, still so new to the present generation of Americans. They exhibit in detail the amount of Internal Revenue paid during the last fiscal year by every article and class of articles subject to duty; they also show the amount contributed to the national Treasury by classes of individuals, as Bankers, Brokers, Doctors, Lawyers, Brewers, Distillers, Dealers, Peddlers, etc.; they exhibit, further, the proportions of taxes paid by the great interests of the country, Manufactures, Agriculture, Railroads, Banks, etc.; and, still further, the proportions paid by the several States, and by the great geographical and political divisions of the country. The tables on these subjects are not only important and valuable to all citizens, from the tax-payer to the law-maker, but they are exceedingly curious and instructive in their relation to the resources of the United States. They are, moreover, so recent that, at the date when this is written, they have never been made public in any form, not even for the purposes of the Government. With regard to the second instance, turn for proof to the statements exhibiting the name, the description, the tonnage, the guns, and the whereabouts, of each of the ships of our magnificent Navy; the distribution of the fleet actively cruising; the condition of the vessels in course of construction; what the Navy is doing, and what it has done, in the way of captures. Pursuing the examination to the third instance, let the reader examine the details under the head of the "Interior Department;" the information concerning our rich inheritance of public lands; the progress of American genius, as shown in the tables concerning the Patent Office; the facts concerning the important and growing subject of Pensions; the interesting tables giving the numbers and location of the Indian tribes; and the valuable tables showing the nativities of the free population of the United States. 3 Let it be borne in mind that the examples here referred to are examples only; for the book is full of just such fresh, original, and valuable matter. Another illustration of the value of the contents in this volume will be found in its ample information concerning the VOLUNTEERS of the Armies of the United States. Hitherto our Army Registers have been confined mainly to the Regular Army; but, by means of a large correspondence and careful compilations from voluminous official records, the National Almanac is enabled to present to the people of the country a mass of information relating to the Volunteer service which has never been approached in completeness by any single publication on the subject. The tables under this head (for which see the several States, and the title "Volunteers" in the Index) give the number and description; the arm of the service; term of service; the names of the original commanding officers; the number of men; the date of muster or departure, and other interesting details, of every regiment, or separate organization, of every loyal State and Territory, during the two memorable years of volunteering, 1861-63. Nowhere else can this magazine of information concerning the Volunteer Armies of the United States be found in one volume. As a permanent and compact record of the marvellous development of the military power and resources of the United States, it is worth more than the price of the whole volume. An earnest and, to a large extent, successful effort has been made to give completeness and uniformity to the information concerning the governments and the supreme judiciary of the several States. Under each table of State officers, the time and manner of their election or appointment is given, from authentic sources; also, the numbers and constitution of the State Legislatures, with their time of meeting; and, with respect to the judiciary, the manner of selecting or appointing the judges, their tenure of office, and the times and places for holding terms of all the Supreme Courts. The affairs of the organized Territories of the United States are treated with more than usual fulness, because they are objects of special interest at this time, and because recent legislation had so far obliterated old boundaries as to require an entirely new statement of their existing lines, present areas, population, and condition, for public information. The financial affairs of a country at war being important topics of study and discussion, great attention has been given to that subject in this volume. In the case of the Treasury statistics, they are in all essential particulars brought down to a period one year later than any tabular matter hitherto attempted in a work of this kind. So, too, with regard to the financial affairs of the States. While in some of these the information furnished is no later than usual, the editor has succeeded in procuring from nearly all the great States either full particulars or abstracts of their revenues, expenditures, and debt, and of the condition of their banks, a year later than usual. The Bank returns of the States will be found, in all important cases, to be nearly a year later than the most recent returns published by the General Government. Statistics are divisible into two principal classes: viz.: (1) those which exhibit the present condition and relations of the objects or affairs to which they refer, and (2) those which develop progress or movement. Holding this in view, the editor has been careful (wherever it could be done) to combine the two classes so as to show both the present condition and relations, and the progress or movement, of the subjects of which they treat. Thus, taking our State Prison statistics as an example, the figures given not only present the affairs of those establishments at the dates of the most recent published reports, but also show, comparing the second year of the present war with the first, that crime has decreased everywhere throughout the United States to a very remarkable ex tent. Similar data are furnished for comparisons of the progress of those unerring indices of thrift and comfort,-the savings-banks of the New England States. The additions to the number of depositors and to the amount of deposits during the war, are as extraordinary as they are gratifying to record. Data of the same kind are furnished for comparisons concerning our Public School systems, our great public charities, hospitals, correctional institutions, &c. Several of the articles on special subjects, by contributors to this volume, are of a character to invite close attention. That on National Burdens and Resources is a mine of statistical wealth that will prove the richer the more it is explored; that on the Public Libraries of the United States is a very desirable exposition of a subject concerning which our bibliographical literature has been very deficient; that on Population as affected by Immigration presents some startling figures connected with our vital statistics; that on Agriculture will repay perusal by the laborers in the greatest of all the great interests of our country; and that on Mortality and Sickness in the Armies of the United States, with its illustrative diagrams, is upon a subject of the deepest interest and importance. The Record of the Events of the War during the past year is divided into two articles, -the first being a narrative of the operations of each Army or Military Department, and the second being a record of the prominent events of the year, both military and civil, in chronological order. These two, with the Record in the Almanac of 1863, make a full Diary of the events of the war from the beginning of the rebellion. As the present year will be one of extraordinary political interest, there is added to the usual contents of the volume a very full and complete series of returns of the last General Elections in all the States and Territories, by counties and Congressional districts, and also of the Presidential elections from 1848 to 1860. One of the most marked improvements in this issue of the National Almanac will be found under the head of "Foreign Countries," extending from page 552 to 627,-seventyfive pages, concerning the sovereigns, governments, ministries, areas, populations, finances, armies, navies, commerce, navigation, and affairs generally, of nearly all the countries of the world,-a volume of interesting and valuable matter, otherwise inaccessible to the great body of the public. It is no part of the purpose of these remarks to attempt even a general outline of the contents of this volume: in a work of such multifarious details so compactly condensed, such an outline could not be drawn within the limits of any reasonable preface. The object is simply to present examples of the freshness and value of the mass of the matter, and of the improvements in and wider scope of the subjects introduced. Hence it is not at all improbable that the subjects not mentioned here are quite as important as those adduced as examples. Those who would get a fair idea of the extensive and varied character of the contents of this volume of the National Almanac must examine the body of the book, or, at least, carefully consult the Index. And those who would have a knowledge of the toil and of the vexatious cares of its preparation can reach it only through practical experience in making such a book. There are twelve pages in one set of tables, which involved the sending and receiving of nearly seven hundred letters, the contents of about three hundred and fifty of which are condensed in the twelve pages referred to. In that case the postage alone cost nearly twenty-four dollars, or about two dollars a page. In the preparation of the whole work, about twelve hundred letters were sent, and about thirteen hundred letters and packets received; and from *This was not prepared originally for the Almanac. |