Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 10.
Frank Moore, Ed.

No. Lxv.--The Joint Resolution to print the Official Reports of the Armies of the United States.

In the Senate, on the twenty-sixth of January, 1864, Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, introduced a resolution to provide for the printing of the official reports of the operations of the armies of the United States, which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Military Affairs. On the twenty-seventh, Mr. Wilson reported it back without amendment. The Senate, on the twenty-first of April, proceeded to its consideration. The resolution made it the duty of the Secretary of War to transmit, from time to time, to the Superintendent of Public Printing, copies of all official reports, and of all telegrams and despatches, not theretofore published by order of either House of Congress, relating to the movements, engagements, and operations generally, of the armies of the United States, which in his judgment the public interests might not require to be kept secret, commencing with the first of December, 1860; all such reports, telegrams, and despatches were to be arranged in chronological order, with a caption or title prefixed to each separate engagement, movement, or operation. It was to be the duty of the Superintendent of Public Printing to print the usual number (one thousand five hundred and fifty) of such reports, telegrams, and despatches for the Houses of Congress, and five hundred copies for the War Department. The resolution passed without a division.

In the House, on the twelfth, Mr. R. M. Clark, of New-York, moved to amend the joint resolution so that it would provide that the Secretary of War be directed to furnish the Superintendent of Public Printing with copies of all such correspondence, by telegraph or otherwise, reports of commanding officers, and documents of every description, in relation to the rebellion, to be found in the archives of his department since the first day of December, 1860, to that time and during the continuance of the rebellion, which might be, in his opinion, proper to be published; which said correspondence, reports, and documents should be arranged in their proper chronological order; that the Superintendent of Public Printing should cause to be printed and bound, in addition to the usual number, ten thousand copies of such correspondence, reports, and documents in volumes of not exceeding, as near as might be, eight hundred octavo pages each, which should be distributed by the Secretary of the Senate as follows: five hundred copies to the War Department, one complete copy to each State library of every State in the Union, and five complete copies to public libraries in each congressional district of the United States, to be designated by the representatives of that Congress from such districts; and of the remaining copies three thousand should be for the use of members of that Senate, and six thousand for the use of the members of the House of Representatives; that it should be the duty of the Secretary of War to cause a complete index to the matter contained in such volume to be prepared and inserted therein; and that all resolutions adopted by either House of Congress at that session directing the printing of any of the correspondence, reports, or documents, as contemplated, be rescinded.

The substitute was adopted, and the resolution as amended passed without a division. The Senate, on the sixteenth, concurred in the amendment of the House, and it was approved by the President on the nineteenth of May, 1864.

No. Lxvi.--The Army Appropriation Bill for 1864.

The House of Representatives, on the twenty-first of March, 1864, on motion of Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, proceeded to the consideration of the army appropriation bill, reported from the Committee of Ways and Means. Mr. Harding, of Kentucky, moved to amend it by adding a proviso, “that no part of the money hereby appropriated should be applied or used for the purpose of raising, arming, equipping, or paying negro soldiers;” but it was rejected — yeas, eighteen; nays, eighty-one. The bill was then passed without a division.

In the Senate, the bill was taken up on the twenty-second of April, and several amendments reported by Mr. Fessenden from the Committee on Finance agreed to. On motion of Mr. Wilson, the bill was amended, so as to provide that officers employing soldiers or servants should receive no pay or allowances for servants, but should be subject to deductions from their pay, of the pay and allowances of the soldiers employed as servants. Mr. Wilson then moved to amend the bill by adding five new sections, providing that enlistments thereafter made in the regular army during the continuance of the rebellion might be for three years. That all persons of color who had been or might be mustered into the military service of the United States should receive the same uniform, clothing, arms, equipments, camp equipage, rations, medical and hospital attendance, pay, and emoluments other than bounty, as other soldiers of the regular or volunteer forces of like arm of the service, from the first day of January, 1864; and that every person of color who should thereafter be mustered into the service should receive such sums in bounty as the President should order in the different States and parts of the United States, not exceeding one hundred dollars. That all persons enlisted and mustered into the service as volunteers under the call dated October seventeenth, 1863, for three hundred thousand volunteers, who were at the time of enlistment actually enrolled and subject to draft in the State in which they volunteered, should receive from the United States the same amount of bounty, without regard to color. That all persons of color who had been enlisted and mustered into the service of the United States should be entitled to receive the pay and clothing allowed by law to other volunteers in the service, from the date of their muster into the service: Provided,