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War Department Accountant requests a Pay Raise

On January 30, 1796, the Accountant of the War Department – William Simmons – wrote a letter to a committee of the House of Representatives advocating for a raise in his salary. Simmons wrote that he did this upon hearing of a “motion lately made in Congress to augment the Salary of the Accountant.”

As Simmons explains in his letter to the committee, the Office of Accountant was established by an act of Congress on May 8, 1792. The original duties of the Accountant was “to settle all accounts relative to the Pay, Forage, and Subsistence of the Army.” For these duties, the Accountant was allowed a salary of $1,200 (just over $15,000 in today’s money, adjusted for inflation).

Simmons noted in his letter that in the last four years, the duties of the Accountant have been expanded. The Accountant now also had to settle all accounts relative to “the Pay and Subsistence of the Navy, expences in the Military Store Department and all the expences and annuities in the Indian Department other than for the purchase of stores.” Despite the added workload, the Accountant’s salary “has never been augmented,” unlike “the Salaries of most of the other Officers of the Department.”

For further evidence that his salary ought to increase, Simmons also enclosed to the committee a list of the salaries allowed the Officers of the Treasury and War Department, “wherein they will observe that, that of the Accountant bears no proportion.” Simmons ultimately received his raise.