Regulations Respecting Extral Allowances to Officers
Document 1798Five regulations relative to extra allowances to Officers are explained.
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[undecipherable: probable reading Extra Compensations/allowances]
[p 131]
Regulations respecting extra allowances to Officers
In all cases where Officers are detached on Services which oblige them to incur expences on the [underline: road] and [underline: at places where there are no military posts], except where the law has specifically provided for travelling expences, the following regulations are to govern, in the settlement of their accounts.
1.st Every Officer detached as aforesaid, besides his legal pay, and emoluments, shall receive a dollar and twenty five cents per day, for man and horse, for each day that the Officer must sleep at a place, not a military post, and when the Officer is of a rank to be entitled to a Servant, then the addition of seventy five cents per day, for the servant and his horse. That the foregoing rule shall apply to all places but the seat of Government and the principal [interlineation: in each state] towns, at which places the allowance to be a dollar and an half for the Officer and his horse.
2. That extraordinary cases only, for which greater allowances may be indispensible, be referred to the special discretion of the Secretary of War, to be assisted by a certificate from the Commanding Officer, by whom the Officer claiming was detached on the special service, stating the reasons and circumstances.
3. That fifty cents, without reference to rank, be allowed to every Officer detached from one military post to another which he may reach the same night, not less than forty miles distant. — In this case it is contemplated the servant can without inconvenience, take his own provisions with him.
4. That the days journey be regulated by the number of miles in the following proportions, viz Forty miles to a day, where the whole distance does not exceed two hundred miles. Thirty to a day for all above two hundred, and not exceeding three hundred and fifty; Twenty five to a day for all above three hundred and fifty, and not exceeding six hundred; and Twenty to day for all above six hundred.
5. That these rates do not retrospect, but regard future allowances only. That all past and intervening cases, before a reasonable notice of the same, be settled on the former principle of reasonable expences, according to circumstances, it being supposed that the application of a new rule may produce hardship and injustice, where the service may have been performed in the expectation that practice on former occasions would prevail.
Given at the Office of the War Department, of the United States, in the City of Philadelphia, by order of the President, this nineteenth day of December 1798, and in the twenty-third year of Independence.
Signed James Mc Henry
Sect of War
Type
Copy of document
Description
Five regulations relative to extra allowances to Officers are explained.
Date
12/19/1798
Author
Recipient
Repository
Collection
Document number
1798121940201
Page start
1
Notable persons
James McHenry
Alexander Hamilton
servant
Secretary of War
officers
Secretary of War
Notable locations
Philadelphia
Seat of Government
Notable items
expenses on the road
military posts
travelling expenses
settlement of their accounts
legal pay and emoluments
horse
towns
allowance
extraordinary cases
certificate from the Commanding Officer
provisions
journey
rates
hardship and injustice
miles

