498 San Francisco (Mare Island) Navy Yard This yard, 20 miles north of San Francisco, was established in Sept. 1854 as a base for the Pacific Squadron. A detachment of Marines arrived at the yard in December 1862. Successive commandants of the yard: Capt. Robert B. Cunningham, July 16, 1858. Capt. Thomas O. Selfridge, May 27, 1862. Record Group 181. --Some correspondence of the commandant with the Secretary of the Navy and the bureaus is available, but not all the series are complete for the war period and there are no letters received from the Bureau of Ordnance. A file of letters from the commandant to the successive officers commanding the Marine guard begins in July 1863. Logbooks containing a daily record of activities are available for Feb. 1861-Aug. 1862. Washington Navy Yard In 1799 a site for this yard was acquired in the District of Columbia (on the Anacostia River, an eastern branch of the Potomac), and early in 1800 a superintendent was appointed. Although the yard declined in importance toward the middle of the 19th century as a yard for the building and repair of naval vessels, it developed a specialization in ordnance work under the supervision of Lt. John A. Dahlgren. At the outbreak of the Civil War the commandant and nearly all the other officers at the yard resigned to join the Confederacy. During the war the yard repaired vessels, conducted an ordnance laboratory, and served as a base for the Potomac Flotilla. Successive commandants of this navy yard: Capt. Franklin Buchanan, May 26, 1859. Henry B. Hibben, "Navy Yard, Washington; History From Organization 1799 to Present Date," S. Ex. Doc. 22, 51 Cong., 1 sess., Serial 2682; Taylor Peck, Round-Shot to Record Groups 45, 181. --The few volumes of records of the Washington Navy Yard in Record Group 45 consist of letters sent to the Secretary of the Navy, Jan. 1858-June 1868; miscellaneous letters sent, July 1864-June 1869; letters received from the Secretary of the Navy, Nov. 1861-June 1866; telegrams sent, Nov. 1862-Oct. 1863; telegrams received, Nov. 1862-Sept. 1863; orders issued, Nov. 1860-Feb. 1865; and a record of work performed, June 1861-Aug. 1872. Record Group 181 contains correspondence and other records of the yard. Records in Other Custody. --A daybook, 1861-68, showing articles ordered and supplied, is in the New York Public Library. XI. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR The Department of the Interior was established by an act of Mar. 3, 1849 (9 Stat. 395), which brought together unrelated functions pertaining to the internal affairs of the country that up to then had been charged to other departments of the Government. The President was authorized to appoint a Secretary of the Interior, who was to supervise the Patent Office, the General Land Office, the Office of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, the Office of the Commissioner of Pensions, the Office of the Commissioner of Public Buildings, the Census Office, the Board of Inspectors and the warden of the U. S. Penitentiary for the District of Columbia, the accounts of marshals, clerks, and other officers of courts of the United States, and the agents of lead and other mines of the United States and their accounts. The assignment of other activities to the Department in later years considerably enlarged its operations. The Secretary of the Interior conducted correspondence with the Governors of States and U. S. boundary commissioners regarding the survey of boundaries between States and Territories of the United States. Though the supervision of Territories was not transferred from the Department of State until 1873, the Secretary of the Interior for years before that date had supervised the expenditure of funds for Territorial libraries and for public buildings in the Territories. An act of Feb. 5, 1859 (11 Stat. 379), made him responsible for receiving, arranging, safekeeping, and distributing public documents and for keeping copyrighted materials and a record regarding them. The 1860 census was conducted under the control of the Secretary of the Interior. From the Department of State there was transferred (act of Feb. 20, 1861; 12 Stat. 141) the work of compiling the Official Register. The Superintendent of Public Printing, who was appointed in 1861 to head the Government Printing Office, reported to the Secretary of the Interior. The Secretary also supervised the Government Hospital for the Insane (St. Elizabeths Hospital), the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb (Gallaudet College), and the care of transient patients in District of Columbia hospitals. Still other functions came to be performed by the Department during the war. The President assigned to it responsibility for suppressing the African slave trade and for colonizing free Negroes in Africa and elsewhere. An act of Feb. 13, 1862 (12 Stat. 338), gave to the Secretary of the Interior the task of procuring and distributing cottonseed and tobacco seed. Agents appointed by the Secretary obtained these seeds in occupied areas of the South and distributed them in those other areas where they could be used. Early in 1863 a Returns Office was set up in the Secretary's Office for filing contracts made by the Government. In 1862 the enactment by Congress of legislation for land grants to Pacific railroads required still other duties. The places of confinement of persons convicted by Federal courts were to be designated by the Secretary of the Interior (act of May 12, 1864; 13 Stat. 74). The places of confinement of juvenile offenders convicted in any U. S. court were also to be designated by the Secretary (act of Mar. 3, 1865; 13 Stat. 538). The Secretary of the Interior had supervision of Federal interests in the District of Columbia. During the war the District consisted of the cities of Washington and Georgetown and Washington County (the area within the District outside of those municipalities). The city of Washington was governed by a mayor and city council under a charter granted by Congress, which had exclusive legislative control over the District. The population expanded greatly during the early part of the war, and large military forces were soon encamped in and around the city. Negroes from the South who had sought refuge in Washington became dependent upon public support, as did many others who were attracted to the city. Congress had provided for many different kinds of services and improvements in the District, including accommodations for courts, a penitentiary and a jail, an auxiliary police force under the control of the mayor, public squares and other open spaces, streets and avenues, street lights, shade trees, sewers and drains, an infirmary, firehouses, an armory, and bridges across the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. The jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Interior was limited during the war to work on public lands and on streets that had been in whole or in part improved by the Government. The Secretary was also responsible for preventing improper appropriation and use of public streets and lands. Wartime conditions resulted in legislation by which new duties regarding District matters were designated for the Secretary. The Metropolitan Police, organized under an act of Aug. 6, 1861 (12 Stat. 323), reported annually in writing to the Secretary. The extension of the Capitol and the control of the Potomac River waterworks were transferred from the War Department to the Interior Department in 1862. The supervision of the "Long Bridge" over the Potomac River, however, was shifted to the War Department in 1863. The act to incorporate the Washington and Georgetown Railroad Co., May 17, 1862 (12 Stat. 388), stipulated that the Secretary of the Interior should determine its route between the Washington Navy Yard and Georgetown. He was also required by a joint resolution of Mar. 3, 1863 (13 Stat. 827), to approve the location of a telegraph line to be constructed in the District by the Independent Line of Telegraph, a New York corporation. The Secretary was to approve the installations of the Union Gas-Light Co. before it could sell gas (act of Apr. 8, 1864; 13 Stat. 43). The jail, formerly under the control of the marshal of the District, was by an act of Feb. 29, 1864 (13 Stat. 12), placed under a warden to be appointed by the President and to report to the Secretary of the Interior. Besides his administrative functions the Secretary of the Interior had judicial duties. Cases were referred to him from the Pension Office, the General Land Office, and the Office of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. This business included private land claims and relations with the Indians as well as pension cases and bounty land claims. During the war attorneys were employed by the Department in Washington and elsewhere for legal purposes (S. Ex. Doc. 24, 38 Cong., 2 sess., Serial 1209). OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR In 1861 the Secretary of the Interior headed an immediate staff consisting of a chief clerk, 3 disbursing clerks, 9 other clerks, 3 messengers, 12 watchmen, and 3 laborers. Also subordinate to him was a clerk in charge of the distribution of congressional documents, under whom there were an assistant, a messenger, a packer, and two laborers. There were also a clerk and two assistants concerned with correspondence regarding the suppression of the African slave trade. Moses Kelly, the chief clerk continued from the previous administration, was replaced late in 1861 by Watton J. Smith. W. W. Lester was acting chief clerk from Jan. 10 to Mar. 4, 1861, while Kelly was Acting Secretary. Smith's resignation took effect on May 2, 1863, and he was succeeded on the next day by Hallet Kilbourne, who was transferred from the Census Office. Kilbourne resigned on Feb. 15, 1865, and was succeeded by George C. Whiting as acting chief clerk. Until the appointment of the Assistant Secretary, the chief clerk had general charge and supervision of the business of the Department under the direction of the Secretary and acted as Secretary in the latter's absence. Specialization of functions had developed among the clerks in the Office of the Secretary from its early days. By 1852 different clerks were assigned to correspondence relating to judicial expenditures, land matters, pensions, bounty lands, applications, and miscellaneous matters. There were also a bookkeeper and assistant to the disbursing agent, a recording clerk, an endorsing and registering clerk, and a copyist (S. Ex. Doc. 128, 32 Cong., 1 sess., Serial 627). Other clerks were added as new functions were acquired; in June 1865 a clerk for public works was employed. Some of these clerkships developed after the war, as the work of the Office of the Secretary expanded, into divisions, which took charge of the records that the clerks had accumulated. The divisions of the Secretary's Office eventually performed much work that logically belonged to the bureaus and offices of the Department, and in 1907 the divisions were abolished and their functions were distributed among the Department's bureaus and offices. At that time the old division files were closed, and a modern system of filing and indexing was instituted. To relieve the Secretary of some of his onerous duties, recommendations that had been made before the war for the appointment of an Assistant Secretary of the Interior were renewed in 1861 by Acting Secretary Kelly and Secretary Smith. On July 8, 1861, Smith stated that the current business of the Department prevented him from giving adequate attention to the legal cases presented for his consideration and requested authority for the appointment of an assistant qualified in the law. Such authority was provided by an act of Mar. 14, 1862 (12 Stat. 369); and John P. Usher, an attorney of Indiana, was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Interior on Mar. 22, 1862. He served until he became Secretary; and he was succeeded on Jan. 29, 1863, by William T. Otto, who continued as Assistant Secretary until 1871. Because of many postwar changes in the organization of the Office of the Secretary the records of the Civil War period and later records relating to the war are described below by the principal functions or subjects to which they pertain rather than by the divisions that created or maintained them. Successive Secretaries of the Interior during the war period: Jacob Thompson, Mar. 6, 1857. Moses Kelly (acting), Jan. 10, 1861. Caleb B. Smith, Mar. 5, 1861. Wilhelmus B. Bryan, A History of the National Capital From Its Foundation Through the Period of the Adoption of the Organic Act (New York, 1916. 2 vols.); Allen C. Clark, "Richard Wallach and the Times of His Mayoralty," Columbia Historical Society, Records, 21: 195-245 (1918); Edward M. Douglas, Boundaries, Areas, Geographic Centers and Altitudes of the United States and the Several States (U. S. Department of the Interior, Geological Survey Bulletin. Washington, 1932); Henry B. Learned, "The Establishment of the Secretaryship of the Interior," Amer ican Historical Review, 16: 751-773 Annual reports for the Department, 1861-66, under the title of Report of the Secretary of the Interior (Washington, 1861-66), were published as the following congressional documents: 1861. S. Ex. Doc. 1, 37 Cong., 2 sess., Serial 1117. 1862. S. Ex. Doc. 1, 37 Cong., 3 sess., Serial 1157. 1863. S. Ex. Doc. 1, 38 Cong., 1 sess. Serial 1182. 1864. S. Ex. Doc. 1, 38 Cong., 2 sess., Serial 1220. 1865. S. Ex. Doc. 1, 39 Cong., 1 sess., Serial 1248. 1866. S. Ex. Doc. 1, 39 Cong., 2 sess., Serial 1248. Miscellaneous Records Record Group 48. -- Functions not performed by other units of the Office of the Secretary came to be assigned to the Patents and Miscellaneous Division, which acquired the records relating to these functions. This Division was also known at different times as the Miscellaneous Division and as the Pensions and Miscellaneous Division. Most of the outgoing letters of the Civil War period are in a series of so-called "miscellaneous" letter books. These contain copies of letters, telegrams, and circulars addressed to officials of the Department, heads of the other departments, Congressmen, committees of Congress, the President, district attorneys, marshals, presidential secretaries, Territorial Governors, and other individuals. The letters concern appointments, the census, claims, colonization of Negroes, District of Columbia affairs, procurement and distribution of cottonseed, jails, Pacific railroads, the U. S. Penitentiary for the District of Columbia, the maintenance of prisoners in the penitentiary at Albany, N. Y., public buildings and public works, the telegraph in the District of Columbia, the medical care of transient paupers, Territorial affairs, wagon roads, and arrangements for the care of criminals under the act of May 12, 1864 (already cited). Separate series of letters were also maintained for District of Columbia affairs; public buildings |