at the foot of the roll of the field, staff, and band as "Recruits unassigned to companies." Records already examined show an average of 100 to 150 men lost as above to each regiment during organization, and in many instances their names are not entered in any clothing and descriptive book. Inspectors may well remind company and other commanders that a soldier once enlisted in or assigned to an organization, even though he may die, desert, be transferred or discharged the day following, has an accrued pay and clothing and perhaps other account that must be exactly stated on the muster-out rolls. It should therefore be properly set forth in the records from which the rolls are to be made. As will readily be seen, the descriptive book, with its accompanying clothing accounts, is the key to the situation in the mustering officer's work. So far as at present known, the plan of the War Department contemplates preparation of the muster-out rolls on board the transports while regiments are returning to the United States, and it is desired to have this book in each company and at regimental headquarters so complete and accurate in the information required that it may be necessary to refer to almost no other book or paper in making up the rolls. By setting apart an additional space for “Remarks" for each officer and soldier, utilizing for the purpose a quarter or half section of one of the numerous blank pages, with proper index reference thereto, the clothing and descriptive book becomes a ledger into which are condensed all accounts and essential facts in the military history of the individual concerned. Such entries should comprise, among other data needed for the muster-out rolls, the following, whenever pertinent to any name: 1. When, where, and by what authority an officer or soldier originally joins for duty. 2. All cases of sickness, either in quarters or hospital, specifying dates, inclusive, and whether or not in line of duty. 3. All trials by summary court, with dates and sentences; all trials by general courts-martial, with sentences and reference to orders publishing proceedings; in cases of fines imposed by either, noting on what pay rolls same deducted. 4. Each deposit by a soldier to be separately stated, giving date, name of paymaster, and amount. 5. Notation of extra or special duty, detached service, changes in rank or grade, leaves of absence and furloughs, with number, source, and date of order in each case. 6. Cases of arrest by civil authority, showing place and period, together with offense charged, and whether tried and convicted, or acquitted, or released without trial. 7. Any particular incident in an officer or soldier's service deserving mention, and not included in the general "Record of events" of the company or regiment. While information should be noted as above indicated, so far as practicable, in the case of every commissioned officer and enlisted man who has at any time been a member of an organization, further and important action should be taken to completely state the final records and accounts of those who have ceased to belong to it." Such descriptive and clothing accounts should be closed, and the same observance of accuracy in all details as though involving a full period of service and presence with the command at muster out. Discharge, death, or desertion of course call for settlement of a soldier's clothing account to date of the event, showing balance due soldier or the United States. When transferred, the soldier's clothing account is stated, not settled, and the muster-out roll must show-as the clothing book should-when last (if ever) settled, and the money value of clothing drawn since settlement (or since enlistment) to date of transfer. Particular remarks in the descriptive book, where services or accounts have been terminated, should set fort1: In case of transfer: (a) Date, place, and to what organization, with number, source, and date of order. (b) Descriptive list furnished. (c) Character. (d) Physical condition. (e) Whether service honest and faithful. (f) To what date, and by whom last paid. (g) Dues to the United States for ordnance, quartermaster or subsistence stores, or other charges or credits, together with any further data entered on descriptive list not already of record. In case of discharge: (a) Date, place, and authority. If on surgeon's certificate of disability, so state, with nature and degree of disability. (b) Discharge, and final statements given. (c) Character. (d) Physical condition. In case of discharge-Continued. (e) Whether service honest and faithful. (f) Whether entitled to travel pay. (g) To what date, and by whom last paid. (h) Dues to the United States for ordnance, quartermaster or subsistence stores, or other charges or credits, together with any further data entered on final statements or discharge certificate not already of record. In case of death: (a) Date, place, and cause; latter to be explicitly stated. (b) Inventory of effects, deposit book (if any), and final statements forwarded to the Adjutant-General. (c) Character as a soldier to be noted. (d) Whether service faithful and honest. (e) To what date, and by whom last paid. (f) Dues to the United States for ordnance, quartermaster or subsistence stores, or other charges or credits. (g) Disposition of remains, whether by burial and where, with number of grave, or by shipment for delivery to relatives. (h) Disposition of effects, whether by council of administration or delivery to legal representatives. (1) Any other data entered on final statements not already of record. In case of desertion: (a) Date and place. Ordinarily the date of desertion is that on which a soldier absents himself from his command and not the later date when, the act of desertion established, he is dropped from the rolls. (b) Character prior to desertion to be noted. Physical condition. (d) To what date and by whom last paid. (e) Dues to the United States for ordnance, quartermaster or subsistence stores, or other charges, or credits. (f) Men gained from desertion by apprehension, surrender, etc., are properly taken up and new accounts opened for them in the clothing and descriptive book as are men gained from other sources. In descriptive books that have been examined an average of 20 to 40 names appear (or, it has been found, should appear) on the casualty pages for the register of men "Transferred," "Discharged," "Died," and "Deserted." If a book is correctly maintained according to its purpose, the sum of casualties reported under the four headings deducted from the whole number of individual descriptive accounts in the body of the book gives a balance agreeing with the "Total enlisted, present and absent, of the morning report on the day of inspection. A discrepancy shown by this test calls for inquiry to discover omissions or erroneous entries, and is generally determined by consulting early or later records, such as the organization and subsequent muster rolls, the morning reports, assignment cards, and even clothing schedules, it being constantly borne in mind, as already stated, that every individual who has ever belonged to the organization must be fully accounted for in this book preparatory to similar action in his case on the muster-out rolls. Apart from special questions relating to muster out herein touched upon, it gives me pleasure to say that in general, so far as I have had the opportunity to observe, the books and records of the volunteer regiments show creditable adherence to the regulations, with due attention by the officers concerned to instructions affecting them received through your department. Among some of the irregularities noted, however, may be mentioned the following: 1. Medical officers do not in all cases state in sick report book that sickness is or is not in line of duty. 2. Two very common errors are to give dates and quote orders inexactly, it being stated, for example, that an event occurred March 3, or May 21, the year not mentioned, and in pursuance of "Special Orders 72," without specifying the source and date of the order. 3. Some officers attach descriptive lists received to pages of the clothing and descriptive book, whereas pertinent matter that such lists contain should be copied into the book and the descriptive lists filed. 4. Retained pay rolls rarely bear in the columns and allotted space above signatures the names of the paymasters who paid them, nor are stoppages and amounts paid always entered in ink. 5. In many instances, in the three regiments organized in this division, the important paper known as the organization roll has not been prepared. In each case of a company or the field, staff, and band where the neglect continues the rolls should be made up at once, in duplicate, one copy to be forwarded to the Adjutant-General of the Army, the other retained. The roll may be given a current date. In the body of it should be entered the names of officers and men now belonging to the organization, followed at the foot of the roll by the names, under appropriate headings, of all who have ceased to belong to it. 6. Clothing schedules occasionally lack one or more of the three official signatures required at the foot to constitute them complete vouchers. 7. The integrity of names is not scrupulously preserved. A man enlisted under the name of John W. Smith is perhaps carried in official records as John Smith or J. W. Smith, Willson as Wilson, etc., and the men improperly permitted like irregularities in their signatures. Company and other commanders should critically compare records subsequent to the organization roll for the detection of errors of this nature and with reference to the requirement that soldiers must be discharged or mustered out under their names as given at enlistment unless authority for change has been granted from the War Department. 8. Separate, distinct, and carefully preserved files of the different classes of official papers are important. These include letters, orders, descriptive lists, and communications or papers of whatever nature received, together with clothing schedules, retained monthly returns, muster rolls, pay rolls, etc. Such files are not invariably maintained with the care that is desirable. At muster out all books of record and official papers of every description are delivered to the mustering officer for transmission to the War Department. As they are required to be correct and complete as far as practicable in all minor as well as important details, it must be evident to all concerned that attentive application in advance to that end will save infinite labor and annoyance during the short period allotted for discharge after assembly for that purpose. Very respectfully, S. P. JOCELYN, Lieutenant-Colonel, Twenty-fifth United States Infantry. In view of the large number of convalescent volunteers in the army general hospitals, particularly at San Francisco, and of the fact that the terms of service of these men, if returned to their respective organizations, would necessarily be brief, instructions were issued September 6, 1900, by order of the Secretary of War, for the discharge of all convalescent volunteers who were able to travel with comfort and safety, their service being no longer required; and that to avoid confusion and guard against loss of records, the descriptive lists of these discharged men were to be listed by regiments, filed at headquarters of the Department of California, to be turned over to the respective regimental commanders upon their arrival at San Francisco. At the urgent request of General MacArthur, authority was granted December 17, 1900, for the retention of all regular officers serving under volunteer commissions, whose regular organizations were stationed in the Philippine Islands, and also for the retention to June 30, 1901, of volunteer officers assigned to special duty and who desired to remain. Authority was also granted for the discharge of all volunteer regimental medical officers who desired to remain in the Philippines and accept employment as contract surgeons; but instructions were issued that care must be taken in every case that no transport sailing with returning volunteers left Manila without ample and competent medical attendants. The question of the place at which the muster out of the regiments should take place received most careful consideration, and San Francisco was, on the expressed wish of the officers and men, selected as the point at which this should be effected. The report of the commanding-general, Department of California, shows that the muster out in every case was "quiet, orderly, and without incident," and that the number of the men mustered out who immediately purchased railroad tickets to their respective homes was fully 97 per cent. Another subject of great importance was an efficient medical examination of the troops prior to muster out, in order to secure a correct record of the physical condition of each man as it then existed, with a view to aid the settlement of future applications for pensions. The following table exhibits the results of the examinations. It will be noted that 18,117 individuals, or over 81 per cent of the total present, make no claim of disability, although upon examination 100 of this number were found disabled, 4,168 claimed disability, and of this number, 485 claims were allowed; in 3,599 cases disability was found not to exist, and in the remaining 83 cases disability was found to exist, but not contracted in the line of duty. Claims for disability contracted in the line of duty were allowed in but 586 cases, less than 3 per cent of the total number present for muster out. Consolidated report of the result of the physical examination, at San Francisco, of the officers and enlisted men of the 25 regiments of United States Volunteers present at muster out. Eleventh Volunteer Cavalry..... Forty-fifth Volunteer Infantry. Forty-sixth Volunteer Infantry. General Orders, No. 17, Headquarters of the Army, dated February 15, 1901 (see Appendix), contain minute instructions for the muster out of the several organizations on their arrival at San Francisco. The Eleventh Cavalry, Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Infantry, having been organized in the Philippine Islands, were, to a large extent, composed of former members of State volunteer organizations who had accepted discharges in the Philippines and immediately reenlisted. Upon examination of the rolls of these regiments it was ascertained that 33 officers and 195 enlisted men of the Eleventh Cavalry, 40 officers and 436 enlisted men of the Thirty-sixth Infantry and 36 officers and 439 enlisted men of the Thirty-seventh Infantry had reentered the service in the Philippine Islands. To enable the officers and WAR 1901-VOL 1, PT II- -2 men of the above-mentioned regiments to receive travel allowances upon muster out, especially in view of their efficient service, Congress, on the recommendation of the War Department, passed the act of February 8, 1901, which is embodied in General Orders, No. 16, Headquarters of the Army, dated February 17, 1901. (See Appendix.) It having become almost certain that some of the organizations would not reach San Francisco until after July 1, making it impossible, by muster out before that date to do full justice to the interests of the Government and to such volunteers equal to that extended to earlier arrivals, the Secretary of War directed that they be retained in service for the convenience of the Government for such length of time after July 1 as might be necessary to accomplish the above object-the date of discharge and of payment to be the actual date of muster out. The following are the organizations mustered out subsequent to June 30, 1901: Company B, Thirty-eighth Volunteer Infantry, mustered out July 5, 1901; Forty-first Volunteer Infantry, mustered out July 3, 1901; Company B, Forty-second Volunteer Infantry, mustered out July 8, 1901; Forty-third Volunteer Infantry, mustered out July 5, 1901; Forty-seventh Volunteer Infantry, mustered out July 2, 1901. Under the instructions of December 11, 1900, the volunteer organizations left Manila and arrived at San Francisco at the dates indicated in the following table, which gives also the strength of the regiments present at muster out as telegraphed to this office by the chief muster ing officer. |