58. Contracts will be made with the lowest responsible bidder, and purchases from the lowest bidder who produces the proper article. But when such lowest bids are unreasonable they will be rejected, and bids again invited by public notice; and all bids and advertisements shall be sent to the bureau.

59. When sealed bids are required, the time of opening them shall be specified, and bidders have privilege to be present at the opening.

60. When immediate delivery or performance is required by the public exigency, the article or service required may be procured by open purchase or contract at the places and in the mode in which such articles are usually bought and sold, or such services engaged, between individuals.

61. Contracts shall be made in quadruplicate; one to be kept by the officer, one by the contractor, and two to be sent to the military bureau, one of which for the office of the Second Comptroller of the Treasury.

62. The contractor shall give bond, with good and sufficient security, for the true and faithful performance of his contract; and each surety shall state his place of residence.

63. An express condition shall be inserted in contracts that no member of Congress shall be admitted to any share or part therein, or any benefit to arise therefrom.

64. No contract shall be made except under a law authorizing it, or an appropriation adequate to its fulfilment, except contracts by the Secretary of War for the subsistence or clothing of the army, or the Quartermaster's Department, which shall not exceed the necessities of the current year.

65. It is the duty of every commanding officer to enforce a rigid economy in the public expenses.

66. The commander of a geographical district or department shall require abstracts to be rendered to him, at least once in each quarter, by every officer under his orders who is charged with the care of public property or the disbursement of public money, showing all property received, issued, and expended by the officer rendering the account, and the property remaining on hand, and all moneys received, paid, or contracted to be paid by him, and the balances remaining in his hands;

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and where such officer is serving under any intermediate commander, as of the post, regiment, &c., the abstracts shall be revised by such commander; and both the accounting officer and the commanding officer shall accompany the abstracts with full explanations of every circumstance that may be necessary to a complete understanding, by the commander of the department, of all the items on the abstracts. These abstracts, where the accounting officer is serving in more than one staff department, will be made separately for each.

67. The commander of the department shall promptly correct all irregularities and extravagances which he may discover. He shall also forward, as soon as practicable, the money abstracts to the bureau of the War Department to which the accounts appertain, with such remarks as may be necessary to explain his opinions and action thereon.

68. All estimates for supplies of property or money for the public service within a department shall be forwarded through the commander of the department, and carefully revised by him. And all such estimates shall go through the immediate commander, if such there be, of the officer rendering the estimate, as of the post or regiment, who shall be required by the department commander to revise the estimates for the service of his own command.

69. The administrative control exercised by department commanders shall, when troops are in the field, devolve on the commanders of divisions; or, when the command is less than a division, on the commander of the whole.

70. No land shall be purchased for the United States except under a law authorizing such purchase.

71. No public money shall be expended for the purchase of any land, nor for erecting armories, arsenals, forts, fortifications or other permanent public buildings, until the written opinion of the Attorney General shall be had in favor of the validity of the title to the land or site, nor, if the land be within any State of the United States, until a cession of the jurisdiction by the Legislature of the State.

72. No permanent buildings for the army, as barracks, quarters, hospitals, storehouses, offices, or stables, or piers, or wharves, shall be erected but by order of the Secretary of War, and according to the plan directed by him, and in consequence of appropriations made by law.

And no alteration shall be made in any such public building without authority from the War Department.

73. Complete title papers, with full and exact maps, plans, and drawings of the public lands purchased, appropriated, or designed for permanent military fortifications, will be collected, recorded, and filed in the Bureau of the Corps of Engineers; of the public lands appropriated or designated for armories, arsenals, and ordnance depots, will be collected, recorded, and filed in the Ordnance Bureau; of all other land belonging to the United States, and under the charge of the War Department for barracks, posts, cantonments, or other military uses, will be collected, recorded, and filed in the office of the Quartermaster General of the army.

74. A copy of the survey of the land at each post, fort, arsenal, and depot, furnished from the proper bureau, will be carefully preserved in the office of the commanding officer.