The
appropriations for these last named have for the past few years been
so limited that the accumulations in store will be entirely exhausted
during the present year, and it will be necessary to at once begin to
replenish them.
I invite your special attention to the following recommendations of the
Secretary of War:
First. That the claims under the act of July 4, 1864, for supplies
taken by the Army during the war be removed from the offices of the
Quartermaster and Commissary Generals and transferred to the Southern
Claims Commission. These claims are of precisely similar nature to those
now before the Southern Claims Commission, and the War Department
bureaus have not the clerical force for their examination nor proper
machinery for investigating the loyalty of the claimants.
Second. That Congress sanction the scheme of an annuity fund for the
benefit of the families of deceased officers, and that it also provide
for the permanent organization of the Signal Service, both of which were
recommended in my last annual message.
Third. That the manufacturing operations of the Ordnance Department be
concentrated at three arsenals and an armory, and that the remaining
arsenals be sold and the proceeds applied to this object by the Ordnance
Department.
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