APPEAL from the Court of Claims, on a claim by Child & Co., merchants of St. Louis, against the United States for $163,111, as a balance due on a sale of military stores.
The Court of Claims found a case which in the parts material was thus:
1st. In the autumn of 1861, and before the 14th of October of that year, the city of St. Louis being the headquarters of the Department of the West, Major McKinstry, chief quartermaster of the department, under the express orders of Major-General Fremont, commanding the department, purchased stores of the claimants, the fair value of which was $478,119.62, the price charged by the claimants.
The payment of the quartermaster vouchers held by the claimants was suspended by the Secretary of War, in common with all others issued before the 14th October, 1861, by reason of suspected frauds, extravagance, and irregularities in the Department of the West.
On the 25th October, 1861, a military commission, consisting of the Honorable David Davis, of Illinois; the Honorable Joseph Holt, of Kentucky, and Mr. Hugh Campbell, was appointed by the Secretary of War, whose powers and duties were defined to be to report upon all unsettled claims against the military Department of the West that might have originated prior to the 14th of October, 1861.
After the committee had entered upon its investigations, the provost-guard of St. Louis forcibly entered the office of the claimants, and against their consent seized and carried before the commission their vouchers, business papers, and private books of account. The commission examined them all, and at the conclusion of its investigations indorsed upon the vouchers the amounts allowed by it, and ordered that the sum of $163,111 be deducted from the vouchers. The commission also withheld all of the vouchers until the claimants signed a receipt or agreement, not under seal and without consideration, which provided that when the reduced amounts allowed by the commission should be paid, the payment should be in full of all the claimants' demands against the United States. The claimants on their part never submitted their vouchers to the arbitration or decisions of the commission, and did not sign the receipt voluntarily, but under protest and to obtain possession of their vouchers withheld until they should do so.
The claimants after receiving back from the commission their vouchers presented them for payment to the Quartermaster-General, but the disbursing officer of the United States refused to pay the same, on the ground that he had no legal authority to do so, and continued to refuse payment until the enactment by Congress of a joint resolution approved 11th March, 1863:
'That all sums allowed to be due from the United States to individuals, by the commission heretofore appointed by the Secretary of War,' 'shall be deemed to be due and payable, and shall be paid by the disbursing officers in each case, upon the presentation of the voucher, with the commissioners' certificate thereon, in any form plainly indicating the allowance of the claim and to what amount.'
Thereupon the Quartermaster-General 'referred the said vouchers to Major M. S. Miller, quartermaster, for payment, under the above quoted joint resolution of Congress;' and Major Miller, in pursuance of this order, paid to the claimants, upon these vouchers, the amounts allowed by the commission.
The claimants, at the time of receiving payment, made no formal objection or protest, but were required to, and did, sign a receipt not under seal and without consideration, whereby they acknowledged having received such reduced amounts 'in full of the above account.'
Such were the facts as found by the Court of Claims. The court did not find anything about Child & Co.'s having accepted the amount reported as due by the commission, because they would have become bankrupt had they not done so. But in the opinion of the Court of Claims, as given in the official report of the case, the court, in speaking of the receipts which Child & Co. had given for the money, says:
Of these receipts two things may be said: In the first place, the acts of the commission had taken from the claimants their business books of account; had suspended their business transactions; had reduced them to the verge of bankruptcy, and had been constantly met by the claimants' repeated and most earnest protests.
The Court of Claims, as a conclusion of law upon the facts found in their finding, decided,
1st. That the purchases were lawful and valid.