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King and Case
The Morning Report Book also listed any soldier who was under arrest, away with and without
leave, killed in action, wounded, hospitalized, and sick. As a proper authorization control, the
Regimental Surgeon had the sole responsibility of excusing soldiers from duty due to illness. The
Captain of the company and other officers were unable to do so. Company officers did have the
power to excuse men from duty when they were assigned to other jobs such as company clerk or
blacksmith (Kautz, Clerk, 13). It was a major recordkeeping task to manage soldiers who may
have been available for duty, sick or in the hospital, or working on some special duty job.
The following paragraphs discuss the other eight journals or books prepared by the company
clerk. Each of these was prepared utilizing a very complete set of internal controls. Notice the
military’s use of the segregation of incompatible duties where three different soldiers were given
the responsibilities for custody, authorization, and recordkeeping. Proper authorization, a vital
internal control, was also maintained in all of the army’s documents and reports by requiring an
officer’s signature on the bottom of each. The army prided itself on its ability to maintain
adequate documents and
records in an effort to
safeguard all of its
assets.
The Sick Book
contained the names of
ill soldiers with entries
made on a daily basis.
The Regimental Surgeon
examined the men and
made a decision if they
were excused from
active duty or available
for duty. For duty meant
that the man was fit for
all typical duties of a
soldier including guard
duty, drills, parades, and
detached service (Kautz,
Clerk, 15). Detached
service was a situation
where soldiers were sent Civil War Quartermster’s Camp, Library of Congress Photo
away from their companies
to perform duties at another post, camp, or garrison (Kautz, Customs, 43). The Sick Book also
described situations where soldiers were only partially incapacitated and could perform certain
duties but were excused from others such as horse riding or guard duty. Proper authorization by
the surgeon was a major internal control utilized on a daily basis.
The Roster Book showed the names of each man in the company down the left side of the page
and each day of the month running across the top from left to right. This book recorded three
classes of duty including guard, detachments, and fatigue. Normally, a separate Roster was
maintained for each duty class (Kautz, Clerk, 17). Fatigue was a term applied to all duties not
strictly military that included laboring making roads, foraging for supplies and materials, and
working on improving the grounds near a camp or post (Kautz, Customs, 40). This simple journal
provided a quick review of who was available for duty, absent on detached service of some type,
or excused from duty (such as the accounting clerk). This provided a control for the allocation of
passes and furloughs, since the soldiers with the most time off were the first required to report for
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