The House went into a Committee of the Whole on this subject, when, after some discussion respecting the price of rations, Mr. Gallatin insisting upon seventeen cents being a sufficiently high calculation, and Mr. W. Smith abiding by the estimate of the War Department at twenty cents; the latter was agreed upon thirty-six to thirty-four, and the pay and subsistence of the Army was settled, but which has since undergone an alteration, owing to the two companies of cavalry being added by a new bill. The sum for forage and clothing was also agreed upon, but which afterwards, of course, from the above alteration, underwent an augmentation. The hospital department being under consideration,
Mr. W. Smith moved to fill the blank with thirty thousand dollars.
Mr. Gallatin moved to fill it with ten thousand. He said, they had this year had a statement of the expense of the Military Establishment, by which they found that the hospital department had cost six thousand nine hundred and five dollars. It had been the uniform practice of the House to appropriate from thirty to forty thousand dollars under this head, though the expense had never exceeded seven thousand; and to apply the surplus to other purposes. He thought it wrong to appropriate four times the sum necessary, and had therefore proposed to fill the blank with ten thousand dollars, which was fifty per cent. more than had ever been expended for the purpose.
Mr. Parker believed than ten thousand dollars would be enough to pay for physic for the Army. Indeed he believed it was generally expended in wine and luxuries by the officers, and that little of it went to the use of the subordinates.
The question for ten thousand dollars was put and carried.
The blank for the Ordnance Department was filled with forty thousand dollars; and that for the fortifications of the ports and harbors of the United States with twenty-four thousand dollars.
Mr. Gallatin moved to fill the blank for the Quartermaster's Department, the Indian Department, the defensive protection of the frontiers, bounties, and all the contingent expenses of the War Department, with three hundred thousand dollars.
Mr. Venable said, if the sum necessary for each of the above items could be specified, he would rather have it so expressed than have the whole in one sum.
Mr. W. Smith said it would come to the same thing, if the several items were voted in an aggregate sum, as they were all contingent expenses. He should move to have the blank filled with four hundred and forty-six thousand dollars.
Mr. Gallatin observed there were two motions before the committee: one to fill the blank with four hundred and forty-six thousand dollars, the other with three hundred thousand. He would observe that one of the items in this estimate, viz., that for the fortifications of West Point, ought not to be included under this head; but, as to the other items, he would mention, in answer to what had fallen from the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Venable) what was the reason which had induced the committee to put them in one sum, which was to obtain the very object he had in view in wishing to have all the items stated separately.