Yearly cost of the war.
The New York Journal of Commerce is engaged in ‘"counting the cost"’ of the war per year.
It assumes that there will be, while the war lasts, in the pay of the
United States over and above its regular army and navy establishments, no less than 215,000 soldiers and 18,000 sailors.
With these data as a basis of calculation, it figures out the proximate yearly cost of the campaign as follows:
The annual pay of an infantry regiment of 780 men, from the colonel down to the drummer boys, including officers' rations, which are commuted for in money, is over $148,000; at which, in round numbers, we will estimate it. In the dragoon service, to which a portion of the increased regular army will be assigned, the private's pay is $1 a month more than in the infantry; out of that small difference we will make no counts.
Multiplying the number of regiments in the increased army (275) by the annual pay of one, and we find, for salaries alone, the item of $40,700,000 a year.
The annual pay of 18,000 seamen, at $12 a month, is $2,592,000 --making the total for both branches of the increased service $43,292,000.
Volunteers having been placed on the same footing, as to clothing, as the regular army, we learn from the table of articles and standard prices published in this paper several days ago, that each infantry private is entitled to about $32 worth of clothing yearly.
The cost for the first year alone is much higher than that; but we proceed upon the supposition that the soldiers are to be under pay at least ‘"three years"’--the minimum term fixed by the
President in his second levy.
Leaving out the officers, who purchase their own uniforms, we find that the yearly cost of clothing our soldiers in this war will be $6,160,000. For guns, knapsacks, and armament complete, a moderate estimate would be $20 a man for the war, making a total outlay on those accounts of $3,850,000.
The lowest average cost of rations for our army and navy, during the war, will be 20 cents day. Circumstances may make it far above that; but even at that low figure, the yearly board of extra soldiers and sailors will be $15,730,000. In this calculation officers' rations are not counted, as they are included in the item of salaries.
The cost of transporting troops by land and sea, of chartering steamboats to assist in the blockade, of providing coal and other necessaries, cannot be correctly estimated; but it is safe to put it at $1,000,000 a month, or $12,000,000 a year.
Omitting from our estimate the probable cost of medicines and hospital attendance, ambulances, baggage-wagons, ammunition for cannon and rifles — a large item — and all the other incidental expenses, which can only be guessed at, we foot up the yearly totals as follows:
| Pay of 215,000 soldiers | $40,700,000 |
| Pay of 18,000 sailors | 2,592,000 |
| Soldiers' clothing | 6,160,000 |
| Soldiers' arms for the war | 3,850,000 |
| Rations for soldiers and sailors | 15,700,000 |
| Transportation, and extra naval service for blockade | 12,000,000 |
| Items omitted, or contingent, including picking and stealing, commissions, &c., &c., &c., &c. | 50,000,000 |
| Total | $131,632,000 |
Then add $50,000,000 for the ordinary expenses of Government, and we have a total of $181,082,000 per annum.
Call it $200,000,000, and we shall probably be pretty near the mark.
This is more than
half a million a day. Some have estimated our total expenses at
a million a day; but this, we are inclined to think, is an exaggeration.
Yet large as the present outlay must necessarily be, it is more likely to be increased then diminished, from year to year, so long as the war lasts.
There will soon be a large body of men unavailable; such as the disabled, the sick, and the lazy, who must be provided for at a cost quite equal to that required for troops in our active service.
In the present condition of the revenue, the necessity seems inevitable of creating a large public debt, to be discharged by the next or succeeding generations.
Nor is the
Government expenditure the only burden which the people must bear during the continuance of the war.
Private subscriptions, donations and contributions, in one form or another, form no inconsiderable item in the cost of fitting out the army and taking care of the families of those who have enlisted in the volunteer force.
These subscriptions already amount to many millions of dollars, perhaps in all the
Northern States to nearly fifty millions, including State appropriations — and they must continue until the occasion for extraordinary expenditures shall have passed, or the resources of the country become so much exhausted that the people will no longer be able to bear this extraordinary tax upon their generous patriotism.
