The Quartermaster’s Arithmetic: Scrip, Pork, and Profiteering in Washington Territory
A detailed audit of Quartermaster General W. W. Miller’s books exposed inflated prices, unexplained payments, and scrip issued for vouchers the commissioners had already disallowed.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
THE ARMY ACCOUNTS. WASHINGTON CITY. — The account of W. W. Miller, quartermaster-general at Olympia, from June 20, 1856, to September 30, 1858, shows liabilities for purchases, expenditures, and contingencies of $190,301.55. He reports paying $65,994.18 in public property to employees; further sums of $61,659.57 and $712.08 appear in the 1857 accounts, with expenditures of $247,121.12. Scrip issued on account current was $187,077.86 for 1856 and $43,876.01 for 1857, a total of $230,968.88. The commissioners reported $194,151.60, leaving a difference of $36,801.92. Upon one of the last vouchers rendered, the commissioner disallowed $176, but scrip was issued for the whole amount of the voucher notwithstanding.
The prices paid were very high: horses $125 to $300; oxen $100 to $250 per yoke; ox wagons $137; rifles $80; pistols $100; powder $1 to $1.50 per pound; blankets $5 to $8 each; pants $8 to $9; boots $6 to $10; saddles $30 to $50 each; beef 20 cents; sugar 18 to 25 cents per pound; coffee 25 to 30 cents per pound; oats $1.50 to $2 per dozen pounds; wheat $2 per bushel. General Miller’s accounts also show large amounts for rent and lodging furnished to married officers at Olympia at high monthly rates, without naming the persons, so it cannot be known whether they were entitled to public quarters. The accounts include a number of persons reported for pay as “enlisted men” at $34 per month who do not appear on the rolls, and others whose service is doubtful.
The public moneys, it is said, were disbursed by hand to employees, to families of persons in the service, by order of Gov. Stevens, and to individuals not quite regularly, particularly to one William P. Wallis, who styles himself an “Indian doctor” and a “celebrity at Camp Montgomery.” To this individual the quartermaster claims to have paid in bulk 88 barrels of pork, 8 barrels of beef, 169 barrels of flour, 15,739 pounds of ham, 890 pounds of coffee, 6,800 pounds of supplies, 2,475 pounds of soap, clothing, 900 pairs of blankets, and other goods. The accounts are described as showing confusion and irregularity; they allow nearly anything but ordinary clerical labor and stationery, and they show a profit.
“Upon one of the last vouchers rendered the commissioner disallowed $176, but scrip is issued for the whole amount of the voucher, notwithstanding.”
The scandal is not that a frontier army bought pork and blankets; it is that the books could not say who got them, why they got them, or whether the public approved the price. Modern procurement fights still turn on the same questions: audited invoices, conflicts of interest, and whether “emergency” spending gets a pass.
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