Fiscal year ending figures from the War Department showed that forty-one national cemeteries around the eastern United States were in operation and already holding the remains of 104,526 Union casualties from the Civil War.  More sites were under consideration to fulfill the target of interring the more than 250,000 white soldiers and the 20,000 black soldiers who had perished in the conflict.  The Department also reported that more than a million dollars had been spent so far on the project.  (By John Osborne)

Beginning in February 1866, the U.S. Army had launched a strong effort to find and arrest soldiers who had deserted in the final months of the Civil War.  War Office figures showed that from then until this date, 1029 men had been apprehended while a further 314 had taken advantage of President Johnson's offer of leniency and turned themselves in before the offer's deadline of August 15, 1866.  (By John Osborne)

The U.S. Commissioner of Pensions released figures stating that as of this date 126,722 pensioners were on his rolls, mostly widows or disabled soldiers.  Nine in ten of these were Civil War related, with a much smaller number of War of 1812, Mexican, and Indian War veterans collecting money.  Only one Revolutionary War veteran remained, Samuel Dowling of  Saratoga County, New York. Pensions disbursed in the fiscal year 1865-1866 totalled $11,674,474.13.  (By John Osborne)

The War Department forwarded figures to the House of Representatives indicating that on this day the number of volunteers remaining in the U.S. Army was down to 11,043 officers and men. This was the last remainder of the Civil War high of almost a million men counted in May 1865. nearing the end of what had been a massive eighteen month post-war demobilization.  (By John Osborne)

The War Department forwarded figures to the House of Representatives indicating that on this day the number of volunteers remaining in the U.S. Army was down to 23,294 officers and men. This was the small remainder  of  the Civil War high of almost a million men.   By November 1866, this volunteer number was down to just over eleven thousand, nearing the end of a massive eighteen month post-war demobilization.  (By John Osborne)

The War Department forwarded figures to the House of Representatives indicating that on this day the strength of the United States Army numbered a grand total of 152, 611 officers and men, well down from its Civil War high of 1,034,064 the previous May.  Of this number 123,356 were in the remaining volunteer regiments. By November 1866, this volunteer number was down to just over eleven thousand.  (By John Osborne)

In July 1866, the U.S. Congress had authorized the expansion of the U.S. Army's cavalry arm from six regular regiments to ten. Two of the new regiments were to be white and two were to comprise African-American enlisted men with white officers.  One of the new white regiments was the soon to be famous Seventh Cavalry which was organized on this day at Fort Riley in Kansas. Eventually under the command of Colonel Andrew J. Smith, it first policed Reconstruction in the South and then began its extended and fateful service in the Plains Indian Wars.  (By John Osborne)

After more than six months of debate, the U.S. Congress passed legislation on the size and structure of the peacetime U.S. Army. Smaller that the original January proposal by Senator Hanry Wilson, the force would consist of ten regiments of cavalry, including two new African-American 9th and 10th regiments, forty-five regiments of infantry, and five regiments of artillery, totalling around 76,000 men. Also authorized were funds for 1000 Indians scouts.  (By John Osborne)

The Arkansas State Senate deliberated for several days the appointment of United States Senator and finally settled on the well-known Methodist preacher Andrew Hunter as the man to represent them in Washington.  Neither he, nor his fellow selection Elisha Baxter, however, were permitted to take their seats in the Senate and Arkansas had to wait till June 1868 when Alexander McDonald took his seat as the first Arkansas Senator since 1861.  (By John Osborne)

In the Argentine Republic, the government-owned Ferrocarril Oeste de Buenos Aires opened fifty miles more track in its line from Buenos Aires into the nation's hinterland.  The first railroad line in Argentina, begun with a ten-mile stretch in 1857, the company now carried goods and passengers from the capital as far as the town of Chivilcoy, 110 miles into the rich countryside of today's Buenos Aires Province.  (By John Osborne)