It will be noticed that the total amount of our national debt in 1860, the year immediately preceding the war, was 64,842,287 dollars. With each succeeding year the sum increased until it reached its highest point in 1866, when it stood at 2,773,236,173 dollars, showing an increase of 2,708,393,886 in six years. Since 1866 the debt has been gradually and continually decreasing (though the foregoing table does not seem so to exhibit it, a discrepancy easily accounted for by the necessary action of the Treasury) until the present time. On the 1st of March, 1881, as I have stated, it was 1,879,956,412.87 dollars, showing a total decrease since the 1st of July, 1866, of 893,279,761.69 dollars.

The cost of the war to the National Government was, in round numbers, about 3,000,000,000 dollars. To this sum must be added the expenditures of cities and States, in the form of bounties to the soldiers and provisions for the widows and orphans of the war, which must have reached 500,000,000 dollars. Then comes the amount spent by those incomparable national charities, the Sanitary and Christian Commissions, in the noble work of providing, by the free-will offerings of the faithful North, necessaries and delicacies for the sick and wounded of all our armies: this expenditure may safely be stated at 500,000,000 dollars. Thus the cost of the American War, ascertained from reliable sources, and estimated with great caution, reaches the stupendous aggregate of 4,000,000,000 dollars!