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Copies of orders, &c., supporting accounts-how certified.
Accounts to be supported by orders, sub-vouchers, &c.

WAR DEPARTMENT,
BUREAU OF REFUGEES, FREEDMEN, AND ABANDONED LANDS,
Washington, June 6, 1867.

CIRCULAR
No. 20.

I. The attention of officers and agents of this Bureau is called to the requirements of the Second Comptroller in settlement of accounts, and to the circular of which the following is a copy:

"TREASURY DEPARTMENT,
Second Comptroller's Office, Oct. 11, 1865.

1. Disbursing officers will be required to furnish original vouchers in their accounts, unless they have been lost or destroyed, or their retention is indispensable to the performance of duty by an officer acting under orders.
2. When originals cannot be furnished, copies, duly certified as true by a disinterested officer, may be accepted. If no other officer than the payor or payee is at the post where the payment is made, both must certify to that fact, and also to the correctness of the copy.
3. Disbursing officers making payment on copies of orders when the original is retained by the officer receiving paymnet, should endorse on the original any payment they may make.
4. In case an order is confidential, or several subjects are embraced in it, an extract, pertinent to the duties for which payment is made, should be taken and used.

J.M. BRODHEAD, Comptroller."

II. The principles of this decision apply as well to property as to money accounts, and disbursing officers of this Bureau will require all copies of orders and other papers necessary to support accounts, either of money or property, to be certified as required by it.
III. An officer cannot be credited on an account that is not supported by satisfactory vouchers. Satisfactory vouchers are the original orders authorizing the purchase of property or other expenditure of public money, or copies thereof, certified by a disinterested officer, as above indicated.
IV. In cases where an expenditure is made on the order of