Mr. CONKLING. I move to strike out section 20 of the bill. My objection to this section is that it creates an unnecessary office for an undeserving public servant; it fastens asan incubus upon the countrya hateful instrument of war, which deserve no place in a free Government in time of peace. I have never heard any very serious attempt tojustify by argument the permanent continuance of an officer whose administration during the war has had in it so little to commend and so much to condemn. But I have heard an effort made to prove the propriety of this section by charging it to the Lieutenant General of the Army, and by saying that he had found a necessity for continuing, in time of peace, the Bureau of the Provost Marshal General. In irder that the House may see how true this allegation is, I send to the Clerks desk and ask O hive read copies of letters which have been furnshed to me, the 1st a letter addressed to the ieutenant General by a Senator of the U.S. Th. Clerk read, as follows: U.S. SENATEGunman. WASHINGTON, March 17, 1866. GESIHAL: The House bill for the organization of the Anni contains a provision creating a permanent Provost tInrshuls Bureau, with a brigadior general at its heal; also placing the recruiting servicein its c ur c. It as loan unofficially reported to me that.this was donein consequence of a recommendationof yoIurs to! t ctTcct. should vepleasedto know if such is the case, as I had inhond under the impression from conversation Wilhbhcers of the Army that such a step was not a Judicous one and tended only to increasethe pumber of lureiws and officersof the Array with an ineryn Qof expenditure without any corresponding eflIitcicmnYcimorpbreesnseiofint sare erroneous I would like to haIve thencorrected. hm.varyrespectfully. your obedient servant J. w. NESMITH. Liontenal General U. S. GBAXT, de. MrClNKLING. I now send the answer of the Lintenant General. The Clgk read, as follows: Wasnisoroiv. D. 0. March 19, 1866. ll DEAR SIB Yoursof the 17thinstant, stating that half been utimated that I had recommended the conllnulwccol" the Provost Marshal Generals de VH “ltlll 111t1he transferof the recruiting service to it. isrecei ed. Somehonussiucea paper was referred to me show me ll" nest number ot desertions from the Army In“ “5 118hr suggestionsto put a stopto them. To that vam Isuggestedanumberof changosin orders Sofemlti the recruiting service and recommended that lhebolo matter be put in chargeof the prov9“ Mqual General. whocould devotemoreatten 1101m! Ition the Adjutant Generalwith all hisother duties cold. I am opposed.however.to iuultipling bilfeflus ld I think there is no necessityfor a Im vosl MflllklGeneral. In fact. if we had to organize the Army acw, I would not have as many bureaus 814Y"! 110“we. In my opinion. the country would be JUSL1“l and much moreeconomicallyservedif the 00"“ meying duties were added to the Engineer BMW and the Quartermaster, subsistence. Mid PM cleltuientsweremergedinto one. I would no! rofmumid a change now. however, but would not.cmryakUellMlYl ionucrrse, aseof bureaus.U. S. GRANT. LieutenantGeneral. Hon. J. WX aura, U.S. Senator. A true copy GEOR E K. LEET. Anictanl A ulanlGeneral. hlrconRING. The reasons which no doubt ll“? wVlr oi thatletter has for deeming the Provo 1!hkshal and his bureau an unne ce Larl alllemge to the peace cs plishment 9f the COUIll Ylppear at considers le length In 8 Cblflljllmltion which I have here, but which I will no unless it becomes necessary, have read. lla communication from the acting head of e Adjutant Generals Office. we all know thlduring our history thifs far we have always iiiage without a bureau of this kind 111 fee“ the regular Army, and that no need Didi!“ er been felt in maintaining the usual mIlImYyitablishment. The Provost Marshal 8 Bureau as a temporary expedient resorted l0 "1 an Vreme emergency to bring volunteers hail“! the field. Its mission is endld, find it Should be buried out of sight. tide of fraud were removed without warning, The communication in my hand shows that if reestablished now for the purpose of superintending recruiting for the regular Army and it can be applied to no other purpose the expense of the recruiting service will be largely increased, that no greater efficiency wilI be attained, that a necessity will be created for duplicating records, fora new supply of apartments, of clerks, of agents; in short, of the various arrangements connected with recruiting, and thnt absolutely no good result can be accomplished by it. I state it thus strongly and briefly, and I will cause the details to be read if the reading shall be called for hereafter. There is one thing I know of but one for this bureau to do before leaving the public presence, and that is to close its accounts, so as to allow the War Dept and the country to know precisely what has become of the 25 million and odd dollars which, under the act of March 13, 1862, went to its credit. 16 million and some odd dollars have been expended, and 9 million and odd dollars remain as a balance to the credit of the fund; and whenever the bureau will close its accounts, or will enable them to be closed, as they never will be until the bureau is wound up, it will perform its sole remaining function. If the administration had been over so able, the time has come when the whole system of provost marshals should be numbered with the grievous memories of a bloody and terrible epoch. But there are yet other grounds of objection. I protest against any promotion or reward for the officer whose interests are involved in this section. He holds already the rank of lieutenant colonel in the staff Dept. Indeed, by accident, if the pending bill shall pass, he will be elevated to yet a higher grade; but as he stands now, his ay amounts to $3.500, or thereabouts. I thin that, for the present, is enough for hhn. He has suffered nothing and lost nothing in war that I ever heard of, and I protest. in the name of my people and in the name of the people of the western division of NewYork, against perpetuating a power under which they have suffered, beyond the capacity of any man adequately to state in the time allotted to me. Central and western NewYork have a right to feel and do feel deeply on this subject. Iy constituents remember, and other constituencies remember, wrongs done them too great for forgetfulness and almost for belief by the creat ares of this bureau and by its head. We in the western division of NewYork had sent to rule over us as asst provost marshal general an officer of the Veteran reserve corps; a man who never saw a battle, who never received a se ratch or sulfered a days sickness in the military service; a man honored with the especial personal intimacy and confidence of the Provost Marshal General, and who in a marked and ostentations degree reflected the will and the favor of his chief. He had been for some time in the office of the Provost Marshal General here in Washington; he was his crony and confidant, and sustained with him, as events proved, relations of great personal intimacy.This spokesman, so trusted and so fortunate, did not come to us alone. There came at the same time other creatures of the head of the bureau at Washington. The western division swarmed with these chosen favorites, and they illustrated to the full the genius and the morale of their mission. By acts of their own, and by acts done by their superior at Washington, they turned the business of recruiting and drafting into one carnival of corrupt disorder, into a paradise of coxcombs and thieves. False quotas were putupon us; exaggerated telegrams and orders were sent to our boards of supervisors. We were victimized by constant uncertainty and deception. In my own district, underone call, $438,000 was wrongfully wrung from an outraged and groaning people. Officers of this bureau who sought to stem the and the whole machinery of the Government. was so iccted to mise reants and robbers. Communities petitioned and remonstrated in mm. The most palpable wrongs were refused redress. Men immeasurably the superiors of GenlFry represented and protested, but they were spurned with magiii cent disdain. Never was “the insolence of office” more offensively portrayed than it was by this man whom it is proposed to decorate and enrich. If there was no design at headquarters to do wrong there was a capacity to muddle, to befog, to misunderstand acts, and to misread and misstate figures and simple results, which is nearly inconceivable. I was employed I? the Government to prosecute some of the rauds to which I have referred; and I tried this asst rovost marshal general, who had been justied in all the outrages he committed and in all the acts by which millions were stolen from the people of NewYork; who was justified by his superior officer down to the time when the sentence was published, and afterward, I understand. He was accused and convicted of the basest forms of official atrocity; the most monstrous acts of bribery, oppression, and wrong were charged against him and proved against him and although he disgorged some 200,000 dollars, I see it stated in a newspaperthat the other day he purchased in the city of Phil adelphia an establishment for which he paid down $71,000. He was utterly poor when he entered this bureau; and yet, after all he yielded u, and after paying a fine of $10,000, it seems that still he is rich and this was not an isolated case; far from it. On the contrary, I say, and I may endeavor on a future occasion to show in detail, that there never has been in human history a greater mockery and a router burlesque upon her st administration than the conduct of this bur an, takin the whole country together. It will turn outt iat of the 7 or 800,000 men for whom, not to whom, because they did not get them, enormous bounties were paid, not to exceed 300,000, I believe not 200,000, ever reached the front. Here the hammer fell.] Mr. BLAINE obtained the floor.