small payments to one or two persons, and where Regular Army officers were employed, the agents were bonded officers, their bonds covering any liabilities they would have power to incur.

By this mode of conducting business it resulted that vouchers were filed in the Treasury, and credit taken therefor, before the money actually reached the claimant, and in some cases, not numerous when compared with the great number of claimants paid, it happened that a claimant could not be found and his money was returned to General Balloch, while, at the same time, his receipt for the money was already in the Treasury and credited to General Balloch. Some cases of this kind were unavoidable. In this manner payments of bounties to colored soldiers, sailors, and marines were made from 1867 to 1872, and it is the concurrent testimony of the Treasury officials that frauds and complaints of nonpayments very greatly decreased, and that the system was far better and more efficient than any pursued before, and still pursued in the same kind of payments to white soldiers. In proportion to numbers, notwithstanding the much greater difficulty of identification of colored claimants, the losses which fell upon claimants, by frauds or otherwise, in the payments to colored soldiers by the Bureau, and to white soldiers through the Pay Department, where in favor of the former.

It is now proper to take up, in order, the charges under the eight headings in the letter of December 4, 1873.

Heading 1. "Claimed by colored claimants, who allege that they have not been paid their pay and bounty, although the records of the Treasury Department show settlement of their claims, and vouchers have been filed by the late Bureau as evidence of payment of $33,888,39."

This Court did not consider it necessary to summon before it the one hundred and seventy-four claimants referred to, to ascertain whether or not they had actually received the amounts claimed to be due them, since even if their allegations could be fully established it would not necessarily follow that fraud or wrong-doing had been committed. If it could be shown that the amounts thus due had actually been sent to make these payments and had thus passed from the possession of General Howard and his chief disbursing officer, and such portion, if any, as had been returned, because the claimants for it could not be found, had been then accounted for properly, the responsibility of General Howard or his chief disbursing officer would be discharged.

To this investigation, therefore, the Court proceeded, with the following results:

Of these one hundred and seventy-four claimants who allege that they have not been paid, eighty were said to have been paid through the agents in Kentucky. Major B. P. Runkle, of the Army, was the principal payor, without giving bonds, as other officers of the Army on the same duty are now.

An investigation made by General Howard and by a board of officers instituted by him first exposed wrong-doing in this connection, and on the Commissioner's recommendation Runkle was tried by a general courtmartial, and on conviction was cashiered, heavily fined, and sentenced to imprisonment. The fine and imprisonment were afterward remitted by the President.

There seem to be only seven of the one hundred and seventy-four claimants who were paid by General Howard himself. He has established in all of these cases that the money was sent for their payment in the usual manner heretofore explained, and such as has been received back, because of the impracticability of finding claimants, has been duly accounted for. In all the other cases the same fact is found, except in a few which can be readily explained. There is no evidence of anything improper in this transaction, and the Treasury officials testify that all these cases can be settled in the usual manner by them, and were actually in process of settlement at the time when this Court met.

Heading 2. "Defalcation of St. Clair Mandeville, $8,503.29."

Mandeville was appointed agent of the Freedmen's Bureau in 1867, on the recommendation of General Joseph A. Mower, commanding the Fifth Military District. This recommendation was couched in very strong language, and bore the highest testimony to the character and fitness of Mandeville. He gave bonds for $10,000 to “General Howard, Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, and his successors in office."

On the 1st of November, 1839, Mandeville died suddenly of cholera, following an attack of yellow fever. His clerk died two days before, of yellow fever. General Mower immediately took charge of his office. There was found in his safe about $9,000. This was supposed to be public money, and was taken charge of as such by officers detailed by General Mower, together with all his papers. Shortly afterward Mr. Sauvinet was appointed agent in Mandeville's place, and was directed to make a full examination of the books and records. He did so, and gave as his opinion, from such examination of books, that a number of claimants, whose claims amounted to $17,000, had not been paid, although the books indicated that they had. There seems to be no evidence whatever that these persons were not paid, and it appears that only ten or

twelve ever stated that they had not been. (Beeman, p. 150.) Nevertheless, the $9,000 found in Mandeville's safe were used in making payments, but, so far as can be ascertained, not to those who, according to Mr. Sauvinet, had not been paid.

The widow of Mandeville maintains that the money found in the safe was Mandeville's own property. Suit was brought by order of General Howard, and subsequently assumed by the Department of Justice, against the sureties on his bond, and is now in process of trial. It is not by any means established that Mandeville was a defaulter, or that any money was lost to the Government or the claimants by his acts; but the issue of the suit against his sureties will determine the question, and make good to the United States the alleged defalcation if it should be found to have occurred. Ten of the cases, covering about $2,000, used in making up the amount of Mandeville's alleged defalcation, are also em. braced in the list of the one hundred and seventy-four cases above referred to, so that the sum of $2,000 has thus been twice used in making up the amount for which General Howard is held responsible.

Heading 3. "Defalcation of O. C. French reduced to $3,814.54." French was appointed agent of the Freedmen's Bureau at Natchez, Miss., on the recommendation of General A. C. Gillem, commanding Fourth Military District. Part of the money for which he has failed to account has been paid by one of the sureties on his bond and by himself. Judgment has been obtained against French and his other sureties, with little question that the whole amount will be recovered.

Heading 4. "Defalcation of Maj. B. P. Runkle, $673.24."

Runkle was an officer of the Army, regularly detailed by the Secretary of War as agent of the Freedmen's Bureau.

He was guilty of wrong-doing in the performance of his duty; was so reported by General Howard; was arraigned and tried therefor, and dismissed from the service. His pay was stopped some time before to make good his accountability to the Treasury for this special sum, $673.24, and if any money has been lost through him it is not due to the negligence or want of action of “General Howard.”

Heading 5. “Acknowledged by George W. Balloch' to have been paid to Runkle' to reimburse the latter for mistakes, &c, $1,331.03."

It is shown by the testimony of “General Balloch,” and nowhere contradicted, that he lent this sum out of his own private means to "Runkle" to pay up what had been erroneously paid by "Runkle," and that this sum is a personal debt owed to him by "Runkle," and in no sense an

Heading 6. "Due by late Bureau for illegal double payments and certain accrued interest, several thousand dollars."

This charge is very vaguely stated. "General Balloch," in his letters to "General Howard," dated December 27, 1871, and January 3, 1874, submits accounts for certain interest arising on the investment of sums of $334,875 and of $279,875 in United States bonds, in which appear the items of $1,338.56 and $1,496.25 for reimbursement for double payment of bounties-that is, to pay to the rightful claimant money which had been paid erroneously but in good faith to wrong parties. These items are admitted by "Balloch" himself. Their legality or propriety may be a matter of question. According to the testimony of the Second Auditor of the Treasury, a payment made in good faith, although made to wrong parties through deception practiced on the disbursing officer, would, as has hitherto been the case, have been passed to the credit of the disburs ing officer on satisfactory proof that such deception had been practiced, and that the payor had not been careless or negligent in taking the proper precautions.

These second payments by "General Balloch" could have been lawfully made from the regular bounty-fund. The first payment being made to wrong parties did not discharge the obligation to pay the right claimants, and for credit for the wrong payment General Balloch should have looked to the practice stated by the Second Auditor.

It could now, however, be easily settled by the Treasury Department in accordance with the practice testified to by the Second Auditor, and stated heretofore in this connection.

Heading 7. "Irregular bounty-fund, $121,000."

The history of this irregular bounty-fund is as follows: During the war some of the States sent money to officers serving in the South to buy substitutes to fill up their quota under the draft from among the colored people. A portion of the money thus sent was retained in the hands of officers who had been superintendents of negro affairs by an order, “No. 90," made by "General B. F. Butler," commanding Department of “Virginia and North Carolina,” dated August 4, 1864, and was, by the President's order of June 2, 1865, turned over to the disbursing officers of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands. Shortly after the organization of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, in 1865, when these two officers became agents of the Bureau, "General Howard," ascertaining that the money thus held by "General Butler's" order was still in their hands, instructed them to turn it over to "General George W. Balloch," chief disbursing officer of the Bureau.

The two officers were "Col. Orlando Brown," assistant commissioner for the State of Virginia, and “Capt. Horace James," assistant quartermaster of volunteers. The first turned over to him $84,334.81; the latter, $21,584.17; total, $104,918.98. "Captain James" was authorized to expend $7,491.43 of the $29,075.60 originally in his hands for the purpose mentioned in "paragraph 2," Order "No. 90," above referred to. Both of these officers sent with the money a list of persons to whom it was due. The amount due on 66 Brown's" list was $83,320.84; on James's list, $29,075.60; total, $112,396.44. Total amount of money received by "Balloch" from these officers, $105,918.98, being a deficit in amount needed to pay, according to the lists, of $6,477.46. This deficit was made up by "Balloch" from interest on the United States bonds, in which all but a very small fraction of the amount turned over by "Brown" had been invested, viz, $84,300. "On March 2, 1867," an act of Congress was passed (see act) constituting the Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau the trustee of this fund, and authorizing him to invest it for the sole benefit of the soldiers themselves or their rightful heirs, &c., in United States bonds. The only provision of that law, or any other on the subject prescribing the accountability for the expenditure of this fund, directed that on the discontinuance of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, the Commissioner should account for the balance left in his hands to the Treasury of the United States. "General Balloch," into whose hands, as chief disbursing officer of the Bureau, this money came, believed that he must render an account of it to the Treasury precisely in the same manner that all other money in his hands was accounted for, and, accordingly, did render accounts—abstracts and vouchers with his other accounts-for disbursements from January 1, 1866, to May, 1868, to the Third Auditor. He was informed positively by the Third Auditor that this "irregular fund" was in no sense public meney, nor classed under any head known to the Treasury Department, and could not be audited by that officer. The accounts were then transferred to the Second Auditor's Office, when the same decision was rendered, and confirmed by the Second Comptroller. (See evidence of "Balloch." "Vinson," "Rutherford," and "French.") The Second Auditor declined to audit the accounts for the same reason given by the Third Auditor. It seems, however, from the evidence of Mr. Vinson, clerk Third Auditor's Office, that he did examine the accounts and vouchers rendered to his office on this fund, covering a period of more than two years, and that they were regular accounts, sustained by proper vouchers, and in all respects such accounts as would have been allowed if the office