Editing Union army (section)

===Pay Department===
{{main|Finance Corps}}
The Pay Department had the responsibility of accounting for, maintaining records regarding, and disbursing of funds for payment to army personnel, including allowances and bounties, as well as settling claims against the government related to pay and allowances. It was not however responsible for payments on contracts and other obligations incurred by the Army as those were handled by the respective department. Payments to officers and soldiers was supposed to be made on a bi-monthly basis, although circumstances might see these delayed significantly (as much as by eight months in some cases).<ref name="Newell104">Newell & Shrader, pages 98–104</ref>

As originally organized the Pay Department was headed by a paymaster general with the rank of colonel, two deputy paymasters general with the rank of lieutenant colonel, and twenty-five paymasters with the rank of major. There were also a small number of civilian clerks, but no enlisted personnel assigned to the department. Cash was received directly by the paymaster general from the [[United States Department of the Treasury|Treasury Department]] and forwarded to the supervising paymaster of a given "pay district" or field headquarters. These funds were then distributed under armed guard to the officers and soldiers within the pay district. Pay districts generally coincided with the boundaries of military divisions, departments and districts, which as the army grew the number and size of pay districts grew likewise. This required the appointment of more paymasters during the course of the war and an increase in the number of civilian clerks, the latter of which reached a peak of 155 by 1864.<ref name="Newell104"/>

The rapid increase in the size of the army presented a significant challenge to the Pay Department, as the number of soldiers needed to be paid was over fifty times greater than the pre-war size.  This was particularly the case for sick and wounded soldiers who were separated from their units and so harder to located.  However while payments were occasionally delayed, it never got to the point where soldiers felt compelled to mutiny as had been done during the [[American Revolutionary War|Revolution]]. In the four years and four months of the Civil War, the Pay Department disbursed $1,029,239,000 of which $541,000 was lost due to embezzlements and other causes, at an expense of $6,429,600.<ref name="Newell104"/>

;Leadership
When the Civil War began, Colonel [[Benjamin F. Larned]] served as Paymaster General but was in poor health.  He was temporarily relieved of duty in July 1862 due to illness and would die a few months later. From July until December of that year, Major Cary H. Fry served as the acting Paymaster General, when [[Timothy Andrews (general)|Timothy Andrews]] was appointed to the position.  He would remain in that position until retiring in November 1864, when [[Benjamin Brice]] was appointed in his place and finished out the war as Paymaster General.  Both Andrews and Brice argued that the position of Paymaster General should made a brigadier general and the number and rank of subordinate paymasters similarly increased, commensurate with the type of expansion other administrative departments experienced during the war, but their recommendations were ignored.<ref name="Newell104"/>