transfer to the War Department of all military records for the Revolutionary War period then in the custody of other executive departments. These military records were transferred between 1894 and 1913 from Interior Department pension files, Treasury Department auditors' records, and State Department records including the Pickering Papers and some Continental Army returns that had once belonged to George Washington. In 1909 Henry G. Pickering, greatgrandson of Timothy Pickering, gave to the War Department through the Quartermaster General a number of record books, mostly relating to supply and pay accounts. In 1914 and 1915, under authority of an act of March 2, 1913, the Department made photographic copies of Revolutionary War records in the custody of public and private institutions in Virginia, North Carolina, and Massachusetts to supplement its original record holdings. There are 820 cubic feet of records dated mainly between 1775 and 1798 in this record group. BOUND RECORDS. 1775-98. 20 lin. ft. About three-quarters of the bound records are volumes numbered 1-197 and arranged according to subject matter or the creating office or officer. Derived largely from the Pickering Papers or those donated by Henry G. Pickering, they include account and receipt books; orderly books; letter books of officers, such as 13 volumes of outgoing letters of Timothy Pickering and four volumes of outgoing letters of Samuel Hodgdon; rosters of State and Continental troops; returns of personnel and supplies; and pay accounts and related correspondence. Also included are four volumes of oaths of allegiance and fidelity and of oaths of office, and one volume of officers commissions. There are about 50 unnumbered volumes, con sisting mainly of returns, registers of muster rolls, account books, lists of officers and enlisted men, and reference aids compiled by employees of the War Department after the Revolution for use in providing reference service on the original records. Among the unnumbered aids is a "Catalogue and Subject Index" that lists and indexes the numbered record books. UNBOUND RECORDS. 1775-84. Almost all of the unbound records are organized into two large series created mainly from records transferred to the War Department by the Interior, Treasury, and State Departments. The first series consists of records of military organizations arranged by State and thereunder by organization. These include muster rolls, returns, pay abstracts, guard reports, and other lists relating to the composition of the organizations. The second series contains letters, diaries, receipts for pay and land, reports, memorandums, supply and provision returns, oaths of allegiance, commissions, orders, and other records relating to supplies and to individual officers and enlisted men. There is also a small series of miscellaneous papers relating to supplies, personnel, pensions, and other subjects. Not all of these miscellaneous papers relate to the Revolutionary War. PHOTOGRAPHIC COPIES OF Included are minutes of boards, including boards of war; reports and letters sent and received by State boards of war, Governors, and military officers; court records; prize vessel accounts; rolls and returns; and receipts for money and stores. There are also a few indexes to Connecticut records. Arranged by State and partially indexed by name and subject. COMPILED MILITARY SERVICE Compiled military service records form a single file of thousands of paper jackets, each bearing the name of a Revolutionary War officer or enlisted man and containing one or more record cards with information about him abstracted from that series of unbound records consisting of muster rolls, returns, pay abstracts, guard reports, and other organizational lists. Certain numbered record books were also abstracted. The compilation of these carded records took place mainly between 1894 and 1912. The jackets are arranged by State and organization and are indexed by a number of card indexes, the most comprehensive of which is a "general index” arranged alphabetically by name of officer or enlisted man. A "special index," also on cards but arranged alphabetically by name of civilians as well as military personnel, indexes that series of unbound records not used in creating the compiled record cards-letters, diaries, receipts, and other records relating to supplies and to individual officers and men. Some numbered record books and some photographic copies of Virginia records (including 5,050 glass plate negatives) are also indexed by the "special index." Microfilm Publications: Nearly all of these records have been published on microfilm or are scheduled for such publication. For a complete listing see the current List of National Archives Microfilm Publications. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT GENERAL RECORDS OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT (RECORD GROUP 11) This record group consists of the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights and other amendments, and related records; laws of the United States and related records; international treaties and agreements; Indian treaties; Presidential proclamations, Executive orders, and other Presidential documents; rules and regulations of Federal agencies; electoral records; and the Great Seal of the United States. There are 1,694 cubic feet of records dated between 1778 and 1969 in this record group. THE CONSTITUTION AND AMENDMENTS. 1787-1967. 7 lin. ft. These records, originally deposited with the Department of State, consist of the engrossed copy of the Constitution and the accompanying resolution of the Constitutional Convention directing that the Constitution be laid before Congress; the formal documents from the States ratifying the Constitution; the enrolled original joint resolution of Congress of September 25, 1789, proposing 12 amendments (including the 10 adopted, known as the Bill of Rights); "Bankson's Journal," 1786-90 (1 vol.), prepared for the Secretary of the Congress of the Confederation Charles Thomson and containing copies of various reports, res olutions, credentials, and acts of the period in which the Constitution was proposed, written, and ratified; other ratified amendments with related records from the States, 1795-1967; and unratified amendments concerning titles of nobility, 1810, and child labor, 1924, as well as a few documents from State legislatures proposing other constitutional amendments. The original congressional resolutions proposing constitutional amendments are among the enrolled resolutions described below. From 1789 to 1950 correspondence with States concerning the ratification of amendments was the responsibility of the Secretary of State, who also issued a certificate whenever the required number of States had ratified an amendment; in 1950 this function was transferred to the Administrator of General Services. See Department of State, Documentary History of the Constitution of the United States, 1786-1870, Andrew H. Allen, ed. (5 vols., 1894-1905); and the Library of Congress, Documents Illustrative of the Formation of the Union of the American States, Charles C. Tansill, comp. (1927). See also The Constitution of the United States of America, S. Doc. 49, 87th Cong., 1st sess., Serial 12349. LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES AND RELATED RECORDS. 1789-1968. 186 lin. ft. The act establishing the Department of State required the Secretary to receive and preserve original congressional acts and resolutions and to have them recorded in books and published in newspapers. The Secretary was later made responsible for the publication of "session laws," containing all laws passed and all treaties ratified and proclaimed during a session of Congress, and of various collected editions of the laws as directed by Congress, particularly the United States Statutes at Large. Recording the laws in books was terminated by an act passed in 1838, and publication of the laws in newspapers was discontinued in 1874; records relating to these functions are among records of the Department of State (see RG 59). In 1950 responsibility for publishing the laws was transferred from the Secretary of State to the Administrator of General Services, who delegated the function to the Office of the Federal Register of the National Archives and Records Service (NARS). In this record group are the following records received from the Department of State and the Office of the Federal Register: original engrossed copies of laws of the United States and of joint resolutions, signed by the Speaker of the House, the President of the Senate, and the President of the United States; original and printed copies of a few miscellaneous House and Senate resolutions, 1926 and 1933; and enrolled bills kept from becoming law by the pocket veto, 1815-96 (1 vol.). INTERNATIONAL TREATIES AND Before the adoption of the Constitution, the treatymaking power was exercised by the Continental Congress and the Congress of the Confederation, which appointed commissioners to carry on negotiations on the basis of terms approved by the Congress. Since the adoption of the Constitution, which authorizes the President to make treaties with approval of the Senate, treaty negotiations have usually been conducted through the Secretary of State, who has preserved not only the treaties and related records originating since 1789 but also those of the Continental Congress and of the Confederation period that were turned over to him when the Department of State was established. The files of perfected treaties and executive agreements include perfected treaties, 1778-1945; executive agreements, 1922-45, with lists by number, date, and country, 1922-40; and treaties and other international acts, 1942-69, which include both executive agreements and perfected treaties ratified and proclaimed after January 1, 1946. A treaty file usually consists of an original signed treaty; the attested Senate resolution of advice and consent to ratification; a copy of the U.S. instrument of ratification (since about 1835); the original of the certificate, protocol, or process-verbal of the exchange of ratifications; the exchanged instrument of ratifications of the other contracting party; and the original proclamation of the treaty by the President. Files of bilateral treaties also usually include a copy of the treaty as ratified by the other country. For multilateral treaties there is ordinarily one signed original deposited with a specified government or international body; the file, therefore, may contain a certified copy of the original treaty or the original treaty together with instruments of ratification or adherence deposited by various governments. Executive agreements are not ratified or proclaimed; the files, therefore, usually consist only of the signed original agreement. Many of the early treaty files lack one or more of the types of records enumerated above, but some contain other relevant documents, such as documents granting full powers to negotiate the treaty and to exchange ratifications, and |