I assure my comrades, it was not accomplished without a great deal of hard work. To the Medical Directors and the Assistant Adjutants-General of the different Departments, who so kindly and faithfully assisted me during the year, I tender my sincere thanks.

There is no reason why the Surgeon-General's report should not be accurate and complete. The reason it has not been so in the past, is due to the failure of the Post Surgeons to furnish the Medical Directors with full information upon which to base their reports; a very great many of the Post Surgeons making no report whatever. This condition of things will always remain until the Post Surgeons reports are abolished and the Post Adjutants are required to give the desired information in their annual reports to Department Headquarters.

I therefore earnestly recommend that the Post Surgeons' reports be no longer required and that the Post Adjutants be instructed to embody in their annual report to Department Headquarters the desired information for the Medical Director's report, and from the Post Adjutants' reports the Assistant Adjutant-General be required to furnish the Medical Director data upon which to base his report to the SurgeonGeneral.

Should this be done I see no reason why every Department should not be heard from, and the Surgeon-General's report be accurate and complete.

Knowing that the amount of money expended by the different States for relief, burials, etc., in the cases of the veterans of the civil war, would prove interesting to the members of the Encampment and all our comrades, I wrote to the Secretary of every State, with the exception of the extreme Southern ones, asking for this information and have received in all thirty-five replies.

I find that the majority of the States make no appropriation providing for the expenditure of State funds for this purpose, the burials being a matter attended to by the several counties, and the expenses of such burials are paid for from county funds and are not reported to any officer in the State.

The States making appropriations for this purpose with the amounts, are as follows:

In addition to the above Pennsylvania appropriates $175,000 bi-annually for the maintenance of the Pennsylvania Soldiers' and Sailors' Home and for the two years ending May 31st, 1901, there was appropriated for the maintenance of the Soldiers' Orphan Schools of the State $364, 100. Missouri appropriates for the maintenance of the Soldiers' Home $20,750oo, and Rhode Island for the same purpose $33,888.94.

It is with pardonable pride that I call especial attention to what the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has done for the veterans during and since the end of the war. For the year 1899 there was expended for relief, burials, etc., $757,600.00. The total amount expended for this purpose by the State since the end of the war is $17,752,695.

These sums are exclusive of the expenditures during the war itself when the disbursements were at least four million dollars. They are also exclusive of the amount appropriated annually for the support of the Soldiers Home which aggregate $355,000. In round numbers the expenditures amount to the enormous sum of $22,000,000 or more than was expended for this purpose by all the other States combined. Truly a noble. record, and one that cannot help being appreciated by the comrades of the Grand Army of the Republic all over the country, for Massachusetts has fully exemplified the three great principles of our order-fraternity, charity and loyalty.

I wish also to call your attention to the fact that in very many country towns, remote from the cities, where there are no Grand Army Posts near, there must, in the aggregate, be a large number of graves of veterans unmarked, and if left uncared for, they will before many years be lost sight of.

I would, therefore, recommend that the various Departments of the Grand Army of the Republic, call the attention of the several town authorities, where there are no Posts of the Grand Army located, to the unmarked graves of the veterans of the civil war in their locality, and request that they make application to the Quartermaster-General at Washington, D. C., for Government headstones for all such graves, that in future the last resting place of the veterans may be properly marked and readily identified.

In conclusion I wish to thank the comrades of the last National Encampment for the great honor they have bestowed on me during the past year. Also to yourself for valuable assistance rendered me during that time.

Sincerely yours in F. C. and L.,

WILLIAM H. BAKER,
Surgeon-General.

Report of the Chaplain-in-Chief.

OFFICE OF THE CHAPLAIN-IN-CHIEF,
BALTIMORE, MD., Sept. 3, 1900.

THOS. J. STEWART, Adjutant-General, G. A. R.

Dear Sir and Comrade:—

I have the honor to submit through you to the Commander-in-Chief, and to the Thirty-fourth National Encampment, the following report as Chaplain-in-Chief.

Being unavoidably absent at the time of the regular installation of the officers elected at the Thirty-third National Encampment at Philadelphia, subsequently in accordance with the action of the Encampment, I was duly installed at Harrisburg, Pa., by Adjutant General Thos. J. Stewart, and assumed the duties of the office which I have endeavored to discharge to the best of my ability.

It is difficult for me to adequately acknowledge the honor of numerous invitations to Public Receptions, Reunions, Department Encampments and Unveiling of Monuments, etc., only a few of which I was able to accept on the account of time and means at my command.

Desiring to carry out recommendations of my immediate predecessor, and the request of the committee on Past National Chaplain's report, at my request the Adjutant-General sent out in order No. 7. National Headquarters, a command to Department and Post Chaplains, urging prompt and faithful Memorial Day Reports, in order that the Chaplain-in-Chief might be able to submit a complete summary of Memorial Day observances throughout the Nation. This failing to bring out a satisfactory response, personal correspondence was resorted to, which secured a number of reports from delinquent Department Chaplains.

The following consolidated returns from the Departments. were secured, which the Chaplain-in-Chief submits for the first time in tabulated form, which he hopes will prove an inspiration to painstaking and faithfulness on the part of Chaplains of Posts and Departments hereafter.