The spirit of democracy. [volume] (Woodsfield, Ohio) 1844-1994, 1872-09-03
A Suppressed Report 10 the Honse
of Representatives!
From the New York Sun, Aug. 1:

iucHt dOuHSOH, OSH. EOttut ulS}idCtu
Mr. Stanton and became Secretary Of
" ar I'd interim entering upon the per-
5onal control of the War Department,
he at once gave peculiar attention to
three objects, as follows: ~ sftru.
l. Paying in full large sums of mon
ey, amounting in the aggregate to half
millioh or more, which had Y6en retain
ed by Mr.. Stanton OH account of frauds
in mixed grain furnished for The Army
of the Potomac The frauds have been
detected and part of the money restored
by the Immediate agents of the fraudu-
lent Contractors, in whose hands It was.
Mr.. Stanton also withheld fdrther sums
which would have been due had the
frauds not been found out and proved.
These sums Grant paid in fhH.rsVss sE5,
2. The second of Grants three OBJ
jects was the transfer TO a ring Of spsc-
nlators in Califorhia-a Certain hill lstary
ring had become interested, in the affair
--of a tract Of land known as Military
Reservation No. Z, commanding Mare
Island Navy Yard This property.
whose possession wasa essential to the
military safety of the Navy Yard, Was
worth $10,000.000 Mr.. Stanton had
sternly repelled and resisted every over
ture looking to its transfer; but Grant,
after he became Secretary. of War ad
interim. promptly surrendered it, the
Government receiving between $4,000
and 1000 only. ss e@plog ar.
8 The third object to which General
Grant especially devoted himself when
he became Secretary Of War. ,ad interim
was the protection of his old associate
and crony Paymaster General Brice; in
carrying through and conceaIingi the
payment of large amount of public
money upon forged boufity cgaifns.--
These forged claims had been got 3p 3ipn 'hys
a claim agent in Washington named
Lowenthal, who had presented them to
Blice, from whom he had received va
rious payments, one of which, and not
the only one, had been proved before o
committee of the House of Represen
tatives to amount to about $4,000.
Grant was exceedingly intimate with
Brice, and they were both members of
a coterie which met habitualfy for the
purpose of recreation in the rooms of
Gen. Rufus ingalls,, on Pennsylvania
avenue. Brice being Pay.haster Gener-
al of the Army, had em5afksd exten-
sively in the business of paying out the
money in his charge upon Nowsnthal's
forgeries. If the fact thss' they were
forgeries had not been known to him
before the papers were first; presented to
his office, it had certainly Esen disclosed
to him and established by tie most con
elusive evidence shortly afterward =
The clerks through whose hands these
forged pspers had passed had reported
to Brice that they were forged and had
been rebuked for, their ofaciousness.
An agent appointed by TIE defrauded
soldiers-all Of WHOM We're colored
men-had come to Washington and had
exhibited to the Paymaster General
clear evidence of the crime OF Lowen-
thai; but some conyeniens friend had
notified the forger, and he had gone to
New Orleans, where he haf established
an office for the collection of new dis.
charge papers on which to base more
forged bounty claims ,se7isHs ~
Thither the sgent of the soldiers fol-
lowed, and the fact that Eowenthal was
engaged in the preparation of forged
claims for bounty money was duty re-
ported by Gen. Sheridan at. Washing
ton, More than this, 4 subordinate
paymaster, discovering the fact that
checks to large amount had been iss.
ued from the Paymaster Generals office
upon forged papers, hastened to- stop
the payment Of these checks at the New
York uh-Treasury. Cen. Brice learn
ed of This stoppage and its reason only
to issue new order rensoving the stop
page and directing the payment of the
checks to go on.af$H eoa0;
The affair gotipartfslly into the news
papers, and having n5W been brought
to the notice of Secretary Stanton, he
induced some of his. friends in the House
of Representative 10 move an investi-
CATION by committee Of that body
The com mittee Was appointed, and Mr..
Stanton detailed clerks VINO were famil-
lar with the Pay Department to assist
in the inquiry. Evidence of the most
damning character was taken, and al.
though the envertisation was not com
pleted the report of the conmittee. was
partially prepared. Hereupon Grant
came into Office as Secretary of War
ad interim and his first act was to dis.
miss from the service the clerks whom
Mr., Stanton had detailed to aid the
committee. At the same time his friends
in the House of Representatives got
through a resolution, which, without
mentioning this committee, effectually
stopped its labors and prevented the
printing of its evidence it had taken
and the presentation Of its report.
Upon this occurrence two of the
members of the committee waited upon
Gen. Grant at the War Department, to
fufge him to withdraw his opposition
and allow the investigation to continue.
| They represented to him plainly the ma
tare of the testimony already taken:-
They told him that it established the
fact that forged claims had been paid
by, Postmaster General Brice, he know.
ing them to oe fsrgcries. They repre-
seated to him, the dntys of the Republi
can party and Of all the officers of the
government to arrest such frauds and
to make Administration honest. 9 To all
this Grant turned deaf ear, rudely re,
bufing the gentlemen who made the APP
peal, and stolidly evincing his determ-
ination TO sustain Btice in the paying oi
\ these forgeries, and as far as possible
Ito conceal the facts from public knowl
edge, ,n '7-i., '''g'
Bafiled in their attempt with General
Grant, the gentlemen interested in the
investigation afterward went to Presi
dent Johnson. 1t was near the close. o.
his term of office, and when he hesro
the facts, Mr.. johnson. told them tha
the only thing he could 40 in the prem
ises. was to retire Brice. This he did
but ten davs later, when PresideR