Transfer of Military Appropriations, [ca. July 1814]
Transfer of Military Appropriations
[ca. July 1814]
The President of the United States in virtue of authority in him vested by the Act of Congress passed on the 3rd. day of March 1809, intituled “An Act further to amend the several acts for the establishment and regulation of the Treasury, War and Navy Departments,”1 makes the following transfers, namely;
Four hundred thousand dollars is transferred from the appropriation of pay of Rangers to that of pay of the Army.
Ten thousand and nineteen dollars and sixty cents is transferred from the appropriation of Forage of Rangers to that of Forage of the Army.2
Forty three dollars and twenty three cents is transferred from the appropriation for the Ordnance Department to that for pay of the Army.
Done at the City of Washington
this day of 3 1814
Ms (DNA: RG 107, LRUS, T-1814). Bears War Department chief clerk Daniel Parker’s note: “This is not understood in the War Office.” Conjectural date assigned based on evidence in nn.
1. The act authorized the president to make such transfers “during the recess of Congress,” which in 1814 occurred between 18 Apr. and 19 Sept. ( 2:535–36, 3:88, 143).
2. On 24 July 1813 Congress made specific appropriations of $451,180 and $9,792 for the pay and forage of rangers, respectively, but its provisions of 19 Mar. 1814 included only a lump sum of $7,965,360 “for the pay of the army of the United States” and $264,576 “for forage to officers” (ibid., 3:39–40, 104). Parker, therefore, may have been puzzled by the present document because he believed such transfers to be unnecessary in the absence of separate appropriations for rangers. This and other confusions may have been compounded by the absence of War Department accountant William Simmons (see JM to Simmons, 6 July 1814).
3. Blanks left in Ms: John Armstrong’s report on the strength and distribution of the U.S. Army, submitted to JM on 4 June 1814 (see 7:537 and n. 1), showed that only 531 rangers, including non-effectives, were actually in service, despite the fact that 17 companies totaling 1,564 men had been authorized by Congress (, Military Affairs, 1:535; 2:670, 774, 3:40, 74, 98). Based on this information and whether technically necessary or not, a decision may have been made, in conjunction with the administration’s consideration of defense plans in early July, to transfer funds not needed for the understrength rangers to the main army.