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Browsing named entities in a specific section of The Annals of the Civil War Written by Leading Participants North and South (ed. Alexander Kelly McClure). Search the whole document.

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7th (search for this): chapter 52
after several hundred witnesses had been examined, and was sent to the penitentiary for a term of ten years. A radical reform in this branch of service was, of course, the most substantial fruit of.the department's investigation. The responsible officers of the War Department were all overworked. From the Secretary down there was no exception. Each crowded at least three years proper work into one year, and some of us four or five. It was all I could do, though working night and day, Sundays and all, and with one, two, and at times three and four stenographers to help me, to keep ahead of my work. Again and again I urged the organization of a special bureau to have charge of the execution of the acts of Congress against fraud and malfeasance, and in a measure combine the duties and powers of the Judge Advocate and Inspector General. For this was what my own office had grown into, and there was more work than a dozen officers could thoroughly accomplish. It is a curious anom
16th (search for this): chapter 52
and, heaven knows! it will not be myself who will disturb them; there is stench enough in the air without this carrion. I was unfortunate enough (or fortunate, as some might have it, though I did not see it in that light) to have so commended myself to the Secretary of the Navy by my work for the War Department that, February 6th, 1864, he applied to Secretary Stanton for my detail to him for temporary service. Receiving my orders, I reported to Mr. Welles a few days later; and, on the 16th, was officially commissioned as Special Commissioner of the Navy Department. Mr. Welles had some suspicion that there were abuses in his navy yards needing correction, but no very definite information. A contractor, named Henry D. Stover, had been convicted by courtmartial of an attempt to defraud the government in some trifling matter of sheet copper,.and I was ordered to visit and confer with him in Fort Lafayette. I found him uncommunicative and evasive, and soon departed. Upon reflect
17th (search for this): chapter 52
naval supplies, were crowded out of competition by these dishonest middlemen, and a general demoralization of public officials prevailed. My experience in the War Department made me wary about beginning a campaign against such a rich and formidable ring of contractors as I immediately discovered to exist, without full assurance of the support of the department. This came in the shape of the following letter: Navy Department, Washington, February 18th, 1864. Sir:--Your letter of the 17th instant is received. Unless otherwise directed, from information which you shall obtain, you can pursue the course deemed most advisable from your experience. The department has no political object in these inquiries. The Secretary has directed me to carry forward this matter in conjunction with yourself, and I have never been in political life. You may rest assured, and such information may be given to witnesses, that the guilty will be exposed and punished without regard to influence or pos
21st (search for this): chapter 52
remptorily moved on, and that venerated jurist, Judge Samuel Nelson, turned a deaf ear to the excuses of counsel, and ordered the District Attorney to open for the prosecution. Out of the forty-eight indictments one had to be selected on the spur of the moment, and the court would only permit us to introduce testimony about seven others, to show the scienter, or guilty knowledge. Accordingly, eight cases of palpable forgery were designated, the trial proceeded (May 17th, 1864), and, on the 21st, the jury, after deliberating only twenty minutes, brought in a verdict of guilty. The court promptly sentenced him to ten years imprisonment, at hard labor, at Sing Sing, and the rich Kohnstamm made his exit from the busy scene of his tradings and his triumphs. So unexpected, but so welcome, was this result to the Secretary of War that, upon receiving the news, he telegraphed back a characteristic message, which, as I recall it, was as follows: War Department, May 21st, 1864. Colonel H
February 18th (search for this): chapter 52
e time to make political capital out of an alleged expression of his in a letter to me, that a certain naval court-martial was organized to convict. The only thing Mr. Fox ever said (in response to my particular request that the court to try these New York cases should be composed of none but high-toned and fearless officers, without any political bias or aspiration) was, that I need not fear but that the guilty would be convicted, and punished if proven guilty. His official letter of February 18th, now first published, shows the whole attitude of the Navy Department toward this question of abuses and toward myself. Senator Hale, of New Hampshire, from his place in the Senate openly charged Mr. Fox with having instructed me to inquire into his business relations, and of having made use of the expression above referred to; but in a document communicated to the Senate by Secretary Welles, in compliance with a resolution, Mr. Fox thus emphatically put his foot upon the falsehood.
1861 AD (search for this): chapter 52
d. But I have not the heart to expatiate longer upon this chapter of national infamy. It is my deliberate conviction, based upon the inspection of many bureaus, and the examination of some thousands of witnesses, in every walk of life, that at least twenty, if not twenty-five, per cent. of the entire expenditures of the government during the Rebellion, were tainted with fraud. That is to say, that over seven hundred million dollars were paid to public robbers, or.worse than wasted, through improvident methods. If the loss of the money were the only thing to be deplored, it would be, comparatively, a trifling affair; for this country has boundless resources, and unprecedented recuperative capacities. But every dollar of this ill-spent treasure contributed toward a demoralization of the people, and the sapping of ancient virtues. Let any one who surveys the present condition of public morals dare deny that we have made long strides toward the overthrow of the Republic since 1861.
November, 1862 AD (search for this): chapter 52
inth Corps. I recovered after two months, and, while convalescent, was first intrusted with the responsible duties which occupied my whole attention subsequently until the close of the war, and for some nine months longer. By this time, November, 1862, the government had expended many millions of dollars, and the little army of twenty thousand men that we had when Sumter was fired upon had been increased to hundreds of thousands. The initial Confederate act of war not only forced upon us iance of accepted stipulations. What shall we call this wretched episode of national history but a Carnival of Fraud This was the Augean stable to cleanse which the broom of authority was placed in my hands. Of all this I knew nothing in November, 1862, when Secretary Stanton first applied, through the United States Marshal at New York, for my services. There had been much talk and a good many wholesome truths told by the Democratic papers, but my experience had been in the field, and, bes
December, 1862 AD (search for this): chapter 52
ry of the Kohnstamm case, it may as well be said here that the civil suit was duly prosecuted to a successful issue, and a large sum of money paid over to the Treasury by the trustees of the felon's estate. As a farce after the tragedy, naturally followed his pardon by President Johnson, after two years imprisonment, upon the petition of the usual string of wealthy and influential New Yorkers, who so often give their signatures to papers of this kind without proper consideration. In December, 1862, being in Washington, the Assistant Secretary of War handed me, for examination, a claim for above three thousand dollars, which had been collected by one D'Utassy, colonel of the Garibaldi Guard, a New York volunteer regiment, upon his affidavit that it was correct. I found it to be a total fraud, the very signatures upon the sub-vouchers being forged. The delinquent was court-martialed, convicted, and sentenced to the penitentiary. The inquiry into this and the Kohnstamm cases devel
1863 AD (search for this): chapter 52
ent of the Ohio were thoroughly punished by fines and imprisonment, and thenceforward the government was enabled to obtain supplies at fair prices, and of good quality. This result, it should be noticed, was, in a peculiar degree, owing to the ability, zeal, and industry of Judge Advocate Burnett, whose services were appropriately recognized by the Secretary, by promoting him successively to colonel and brigadier general. Many will recollect the great interest that was felt, in the year 1863, in the matter of the chartering of steam and other vessels at Fortress Monroe, in consequence of the discovery that a certain very influential Republican Senator of the United States had accepted a fee of three thousand dollars from the harbor master of that military post, while lying under charges in the Old Capitol Prison. There had been some very acrimonious passages between the Senator and Secretary Stanton, the former peremptorily demanding the prisoner's unconditional release (without
May 30th, 1863 AD (search for this): chapter 52
nment had been defrauded in both transportation and the cooked rations supplied, but on each of a pile of uncollected vouchers found in his desk when he was arrested by the general commanding, was the official certificate of the medical director that this account is correct and just, and that the services were rendered by my order, and that they were necessary for the public service. Comparison of them with the medical director's own books showed at a glance the fraud. For instance, on May 30th, 1863, a charge was made by the contractor for nursing and subsisting three hundred and fifty men from the steamer Cosmopolitan and delivering them at David's Island. But the hospital books in the office of the medical director, who certified to the correctness of the account, showed that on that day only ninety-seven men arrived at the island! The scamp was found guilty before a court-martial, after several hundred witnesses had been examined, and was sent to the penitentiary for a term of
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