Printed pamphlet, approximately 4 x 6 1/4 inches, five pages of text with the final page blank. Caption title at head of the first page: "Head Quarters, Department of Virginia and North Carolina, GENERAL ORDERS, No. 113. In the Field, Va., September 25, 1864."

Signed in period ink across the head of the first page, "William L. Ames." The blank final page carries a period ink docket reading approximately "Com'g of the 38th Reg't." The printed "OFFICIAL:" line on page 5 is signed in ink over the printed line for the Assistant Adjutant General, in a hand consistent with the front-page signature, with a second manuscript line beneath that is only partly legible.

The order publishes in full the proceedings, findings and sentence of a general court martial convened at Fort Monroe, Va., June 30, 1864, pursuant to Special Orders Nos. 176 and 177 of the same headquarters, Colonel Arnold A. Rand, 4th Massachusetts Cavalry, President. The accused is Captain R. B. Ward, Co. D, 11th Pennsylvania Cavalry.

Four charges are set out at length:

Charge I — Conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline. Ward, on detached duty for General Recruiting Service in Pennsylvania, presented to George Blosser, recruiting agent for York County, then at Harrisburg to fill his township's quota, a certificate which the order reproduces verbatim as a "VOLUNTEER CERTIFICATE, WESTERN DIVISION PENNSYLVANIA, Harrisburg, Penn., March 29, 1864" — certifying recruits for the 17th Regiment Penn. Cavalry, enlisted by Capt. Donohoe as of Shrewsbury Township, York Co., 15th Congressional District, examined by the surgeon and mustered by Capt. Rea Crofton, U.S. Army mustering officer, credited to Shrewsbury Township, 27th Sub-District. The certificate is subscribed with the names of James Smith, Andrew Jones and Ambrose Benham, and signed F. W. Leidike, 1st Lieut. 16th Reg't U.S.I.C., Adjutant Recruiting Service, Penn., with the mustering certification of Rea Crofton, Capt. 16th U.S. Infantry. The order states flatly that the certificate was a forgery and known to Ward to be so — no such men having ever enlisted or been in rendezvous — and that the signatures of Leidike and Crofton were attached by persons without authority, to the end that Ward might collect the local bounty from Blosser. A second specification charges him with procuring nine hundred dollars in township bounty money from Blosser and Amos Bunchman, committee for Shrewsbury Township, on the false assertion that three men had been credited and were in rendezvous.

Charge II — Application to his own use of Government property. Having charged himself on his muster and pay rolls with a sorrel mare belonging to the United States, and the mare having died of disease, Ward took from the company a horse known as "Rattler" to supply her place, accounted for the mare by certificate of loss as a public animal, and continued to use "Rattler" as private property from on or about November 1, 1861 at Fort Monroe, Va.

Charge III — Selling Government property. Four specifications covering the sale of United States horses at Suffolk, Va., between April 1863 and January 1864: two sorrel horses to the citizen James A. Nolen for two hundred dollars, falsely represented as purchased by Lieut. James Aughenbaugh at Washington City; a sorrel horse to Lieut. Miller Beatty, Co. L, 11th Pennsylvania Cavalry, for one hundred and fifty dollars; a bay horse taken by capture in the enemy's country sold to Lieut. S. N. Titus of the same regiment for one hundred and fifty dollars with warranty of title; and a second captured bay sold to the citizen William Griswold for fifty dollars.

Charge IV — Embezzlement, in violation of the 39th Article of War, of the nine hundred dollars in Shrewsbury Township bounty money entrusted to him for payment to three recruits at three hundred dollars each.

Ward pleaded not guilty and was convicted on every charge and specification, with the sole exception of the words "accounting for her by certificate of loss as a public animal" in the specification to Charge II. The sentence, printed in full, is that he be cashiered; forfeit all pay and allowances; be forever disqualified from holding any office or post of responsibility or emolument under the government of the United States; refund to the United States five hundred and fifty dollars in the aggregate for government property fraudulently disposed of; refund two hundred and ninety-two dollars for the use of the horse "Rattler," reckoned at forty cents per day for seven hundred and thirty days; refund nine hundred dollars to George Blosser or his representatives; and be confined at hard labor for three years in such penitentiary as the President should designate, the imprisonment to continue until the sums were paid. The court further directed that the sentence, with the crime, name and place of abode, be published in the newspapers of the Department and of Philadelphia and Harrisburg.

The second paragraph records the review: the proceedings, findings and sentence approved, and by direction of the President so much of the sentence as related to confinement in the penitentiary remitted, the remainder confirmed — Ward cashiered and forever disqualified. Issued "By command of Major General B. F. Butler," R. S. Davis, Major and Assistant Adjutant General.

ASSOCIATION

William L. Ames enlisted January 23, 1864 as a 1st Lieutenant and mustered into Co. E, 38th U.S. Colored Troops, later transferring within the regiment to Co. G; he resigned May 12, 1865 and applied for a federal pension November 14, 1879 (application no. 320,977). The 38th U.S.C.T. served in Butler's Department of Virginia and North Carolina, and four days after the date of this order the regiment went into action at New Market Heights. A copy of the Historical Data Systems soldier record accompanies the item.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Bounty and substitute fraud was endemic in the Northern recruiting system by 1864, and the departmental commander's remedy was publicity. Butler's headquarters printed the entire record of the Ward case — forged certificate, quoted in full, and all — and ordered it circulated to every command in the Department and to the Philadelphia and Harrisburg press, so that the officers under his command and the citizens of the accused's home district would both read it. Documents of this kind are among the most detailed surviving accounts of how township bounty money was actually stolen: the machinery of quotas, sub-districts, township committees, mustering officers and paper credits is laid out in the government's own words. The horse specifications are equally telling, a routine picture of a company commander converting public and captured animals to cash at Suffolk over the better part of two years.

CONDITION

Very good. Light overall toning, a few scattered foxing spots, a small stain at the head of the first page, minor edge chipping and short marginal tears, one horizontal fold. Text clean, complete and fully legible throughout. Manuscript signature and docket strong.  [ss] [ph:L]

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