(8 vols.), relates in part to claims for subsistence furnished by loyal citizens (claims under the act of July 4, 1864; see above), and to claims of former prisoners of war for the commutation of rations. The letters referred to the Commissary General by other Government agencies, 1862-67 (26 ft.), are in a separate series; these are controlled by registers and (from 1865) by indexes. The postwar correspondence includes letter press copies (1 vol.) of endorsements, 1890-94, to inquiries from the Second Auditor of the Treasury for information about the cost of rations during the Civil War at various camps, posts, and stations.

The "provision books," which cover the entire period of the war, show the amounts of provisions on hand at stated periods at particular posts or in the charge of accountable officers; there are indexes to these affecting volunteer subsistence officers, 1861-67 (4 vols.). Of economic interest are statements, 1861-87 (6 vols.), of the cost of the ration, as reported monthly by subsistence officers; and 2 "quotation books, " 1865--compendiums showing the daily changes in price quotations for specific subsistence commodities at different purchasing depots.

Fiscal records of the war period comprise estimates of appropriations, "blotters" (daily record) of money transactions with commissaries and contractors, records of expenditures, copies of requests made to the Secretary of War (for funds to be placed to the credit of officers and for money to be paid from the Treasury in settlement of claims), and registers of accounts and returns received from subsistence officers. In 2 "stoppage books" are recorded paymasters' reports of stoppages of payments to commissioned officers for subsistence stores, 1861-70.

Records concerning contracts include copies of contracts (incomplete, 10 ft.) let by the Office of the Commissary General of Subsistence during the war for fresh beef, beef cattle, rations, and other subsistence; registers of bids accepted, 1863-71 (3 vols.); registers of contracts for complete rations, 1863-95 (2 vols.), with a name index for 1863-71; and registers of beef and fresh meat contracts, 1820-94 (4 vols.).

Personnel records include a register of appointments, assignments, transfers, and duties of Regular Army commissaries of subsistence, 185394; records of examinations for appointment to commissary offices, 185465 (13 vols.); reports of the proceedings of the board that examined the qualifications of commissary officers, 1864-65 (1 ft.); papers relating to the issuance of commissions, 1862-65 (1 ft.); "carded" personnel records of volunteer commissary officers, 1861-65 (2 ft.); a register of commissary officers of volunteer troops, 1861-65; monthly lists of officers on duty in the Subsistence Department submitted by Army departments, posts, and stations, 1863-67 (2 ft.). Other personnel records may be in Record Group 92 (see below).

National Archives, Preliminary Checklist of the Records of the Office of the Commissary General of

Subsistence, comp. by Roland C.
McConnell (Washington, 1946).

Record Group 92. --After the abolition of the Office of the Commisary General of Subsistence in 1912 and the transfer of its responsibility for subsistence to the Office of the Quartermaster General, the latter Office removed many documents from the Commissary General's general correspondence files for interfiling with Quartermaster General's records in its consolidated subject file. The materials belonging to the Commissary

General's Office for the Civil War period that are now in this file are believed to be extensive, but they must be sought by subject.

Record Group 217. --The records of the Commissary General of Subsistence pertaining to claims, with the exceptions noted above, were transferred to the Auditor for the War Department (Third Auditor) in the Department of the Treasury in Apr. 1907 in order to facilitate the settlement of claims growing out of the Civil War. They were transferred to the General Accounting Office in 1921 and are now considered part of this record group. Among them are a 1-volume index to special and confidential letters received in the Claims Branch of the Subsistence Bureau, ca. 187395; a register of claims received by the Bureau for subsistence furnished the U. S. Army and for commutation of rations, 1863-77 (8 vols.), with additional entries made in the office of the Third Auditor; and a register of claims, 1864-77 (21 vols.), under the act of July 4, 1864, with information on the loyalty of claimants.

U. S. MILITARY TELEGRAPHS

On Apr. 27, 1861, Col. Thomas A. Scott was "appointed to take charge of the railways and telegraphs between Washington City and Annapolis"; and on May 23, 1861, he was "appointed to take charge of all Government railways and telegraphs or those appropriated for Government use" (see also U. S. Military Railroads). On Nov. 25, 1861, Capt. Anson Stager was "assigned to duty as general manager of the Government telegraph lines"; and on Dec. 1, 1861, the Secretary of War reported to the President the establishment of a "telegraphic bureau. "

An act of Jan. 31, 1862 (12 Stat. 334), authorized the President to take possession of railroad and telegraph lines if in his judgment the public safety so required. Under this act, all telegraphic lines were taken over on Feb. 26, 1862. Edward S. Sanford, president of the American Telegraph Co., was made "military supervisor of telegraphic messages throughout the United States"; and Stager was made "military superintendent of all telegraphic lines and offices in the United States." This "possession and control" was "not intended to interfere in any respect with the ordinary affairs of the companies or with private business." By AGO General Order 38, Apr. 8, 1862, commanding officers were required on the requisition of Stager (then Colonel), or of his assistants, to detail troops as necessary for the construction, repair, and protection of military telegraph lines.

In Sept. 1862 Stager officially transferred to the assistant superintendents, U. S. Military Telegraphs, in the several military departments "the military telegraph lines and property. . . of which they were previously in nominal charge. "Until Apr. 1863 Stager's headquarters were in Washington; after that, in Ohio. "It is my duty as commanding officer of the Military Telegraph Department," he wrote in his annual report for 1863, "to exercise general supervision of all its lines, to give such orders and directions to the subordinate officers in this branch of the public service as may... be necessary. . ., and to supervise the purchase of all the material which the wants or exigencies of the various departments may demand." The public, he believed, had "but a faint conception of the magnitude of the uses of the army telegraph." From a "close estimate" it appeared that in fiscal year 1863 at least 1, 200, 000 telegrams were sent and received over the military lines. Reporting from Cleveland on fiscal year 1864 operations, Stager estimated that a monthly average of 1,000 men had "been

engaged in the military telegraph service within the several departments" and that 600, 000 more telegrams had been transmitted than during the previous fiscal year.

The importance of the U. S. Military Telegraphs lies partly in the fact that before the Civil War there never had been in the United States "a use of the telegraph as an agency for disseminating intelligence upon the battlefield; connecting the different armies, much less placing the Commander in Chief of the Army himself, at Washington, in touch with all of the commanding generals of the Army, as this agency enabled President Lincoln to do." The Senate Committee on Pensions in its report on "Relief of Telegraph Operators Who Served in the War of the Rebellion," Aug. 7, 1904 (S. Doc. 251, 58 Cong., 2 sess., Serial 4592), found it "surprising that so important an arm of the service during that war should have been organized on a civil basis and its members only regarded as employees of the Quartermaster's Department. "As Col. William B. Wilson testified before the committee, "No solemn act of Congress authorized its formation; no dignified Presidential paper proclaimed its advent, nor did any formal 'general order' define its status. It took its place as a right, moved with the rapidity of thought and the silence of night." Soon after the war the telegraph equipment was sold or otherwise disposed of and the employees were discharged, "only a few confidential operators being still retained for cipher correspondence with commanders of important districts." During the war about 15,000 miles of military telegraph lines had been constructed and operated and the military telegraph "corps" had consisted of some 1, 200 operators.

Annual report of Col. Anson Stager, Chief, U. S. Military Telegraphs, fiscal year 1865, and the wartime annual reports of the Quartermaster General, appended to those of the Secretary of War; S.

Doc. 251, 58 Cong., 2 sess., Serial 4592, which contains a "Compilation of Documents" concerning military telegraph operations during the Civil War as published in the Official Records... Armies.

Record Group 92. --The administrative records of the U. S. Military Telegraphs do not appear to be extant. There are, however, an alphabetically arranged set of cards showing the service histories of employees of the telegraph lines, 1861-65, and some certificates of service prepared pursuant to S. Rept. 1927, 58 Cong., 2 sess., Serial 4575, "Relief of Telegraph Operators Who Served in the War of the Rebellion." There is some reason to believe that the agency was linked administratively with the War Department Telegraph Office and thus was subject to the direct control of Secretary of War Stanton or Assistant Secretary of War Thomas A. Scott. The records of the Secretary and those of the Adjutant General and the Quartermaster General contain materials relating to the agency and its operations. As explained elsewhere in this Guide, the Chief Signal Officer was unable during the war to get control of the telegraph system; his files, however, should be examined for records concerning the relationship of signal and telegraphic operations.

U. S. MILITARY RAILROADS

Early in the Civil War the problems of railroad and telegraphic communications were so closely related that on May 23, 1861, Col. Thomas A.

Scott was given "charge of all Government railways and telegraphs or those appropriated for Government use" (see U. S. Military Telegraphs). When Scott became Assistant Secretary of War his assistant, Capt. R. N. Moreley, was given the management of the military railroads and, to facilitate his work, was made a disbursing officer of the Quartermaster General's Office. Moreley reported to the Secretary that the business in the first 6 months of the war was "to repair and reconstruct what the enemy have destroyed--at times and places difficult to procure material and under circumstances unfavorable to an economical expenditure," but that activities were confined largely to Washington, Annapolis, Alexandria, and Fortress Monroe.

An act of Jan. 31, 1862 (12 Stat. 334), authorized the President to take possession of telegraph and railroad lines in the United States "when in his judgment the public safety may require it" and "to place under military control all the officers, agents, and employés belonging to the telegraph and railroad lines thus taken. . . so that they shall be considered as a post road and a part of the military establishment." The act gave to the Secretary of War and his agents immediate control and supervision of "the transportation of troops, munitions of war, equipments, military property and stores, throughout the United States." Secretary Stanton, in appointing Col. Daniel C. McCallum "military director and superintendent of railroads in the United States" on Feb. 11, 1862, authorized him "to enter upon, take possession of, hold and use all railroads, engines, cars, locomotives, equipments, appendages, and appurtenances, that may be required for the transport of troops, arms, ammunition, and military supplies of the United States, and to do and perform all acts and things that may be necessary and proper to be done for the safe and speedy transport aforesaid." McCallum characterized his organization as "a great construction and transportation machine, for carrying out the objects of the commanding generals," to be managed "solely with a view to efficacy in that direction.

When the director assumed his duties, the 7-mile road from Washington to Alexandria was the only railroad in Government hands. The ultimate extent of the jurisdiction of the U. S. Military Railroads is indicated by the fact that at different times during the war 17 railroads were used as military lines in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania; 19 in Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, and Arkansas; and 4 in North Carolina.

On Sept. 16, 1862, Brig. Gen. Hermann Haupt pointed out in a letter to Major General Halleck that "the Department of Military Railroads, excepting perhaps for the immediate vicinity of the capital, is without a head, "and that the department should be reorganized to "procure information, put it in shape to be readily accessible, secure system and uniformity in administration, correct abuses, and promote efficiency." Haupt's office in the War Department at this time was known as the Office of Construction and Transportation of U. S. Military Railroads. The field organization was improved when Secretary of War Stanton, on Oct. 19, 1863, by special order issued at Louisville, Ky., appointed John B. Anderson "General Manager of all Railways in the possession of the Government, or that may from time to time be taken possession of by military authority, in the Departments of the Cumberland, the Ohio, and the Tennessee." Officers, agents, and employees of the railways were put under Anderson's "general direction and control, subject to the approval of the Quartermaster General,"

In Dec. 1863, however, McCallum himself examined the condition of the railroad lines that supplied the armies then encamped near Chattanooga,

Tenn.; and on Feb. 4, 1864, General Grant appointed him general manager of all railways in possession of the Government in the departments named above and the Department of Arkansas, which together constituted the Military Division of the Mississippi. In that division McCallum reorganized the administration of the U. S. Military Railroads into two distinct departments, a "transportation department" and a "construction corps. "The transportation department included divisions or subdepartments responsible for (1) managing the movement of trains; (2) maintaining road and structures--keeping the roadway, bridges, buildings, and other structures in repair, building new structures, and rebuilding old ones when necessary; and (3) maintaining rolling stock--keeping in order the locomotives and cars and managing the shops where such work was done. In the Division of the Mississippi the transportation department at its maximum strength employed about 12, 000 men.

As the war went on, both Union and the Confederate forces came to understand better the nature, capacity, and value of railroads; and the Federal Government made extraordinary preparations to counter the destruction of track and bridges by the enemy. The small construction corps, about 300 men in 1863, was the beginning of an organization that afterwards numbered in the East and West nearly 10,000. In each department of railroad construction and repair skilled workmen were grouped in divisions, gangs, and squads and were supplied with abundant materials, tools, mechanical appliances, and transportation.

With few exceptions the military railroads were operated under orders issued by the Secretary of War or by army commanders; and it became the duty of the Director and General Manager to make the military railroad organization "sufficiently comprehensive to permit the extension of the system indefinitely." After the war, however, by Executive order of Aug. 8, 1865, the railroads were returned to their former owners.

Col. (later Bvt. Brig. Gen.) Daniel C. McCallum served as Director and (later) General Manager, U. S. Military Railroads, from Feb. 11,1862.

Record Group 92. --After the war the records of the U. S. Military Railroads were transferred to the Quartermaster General's Office and were to some extent intermingled with the records of that Office. The extant identifiable records, however (more than 100 ft.), afford fairly complete documentation of Federal control of railroads during the Civil War. They are, moreover, important for the history of railroad companies used as military lines, especially those in the South. The books of letters sent from headquarters, the incoming correspondence (or "document files"), and the volumes of compilations of reports received from the field cover the entire period of the agency's existence, and all are registered or