Wilder v. United States

On the 23d of May, 1861, the firm of Burbank & Co. contracted with Major McKinstry, a United States quartermaster, to furnish transportation for all public stores from Saint Paul, Minnesota, to Fort Abercrombie, Dakota Territory, at the rate of $2.90 per one hundred pounds. The contract specified no period of duration, but the parties acted under and in pursuance of its terms, until the 19th of July, 1863. On that day, Captain Carling, an assistant quartermaster in charge of the department at Saint Paul, being obliged to send forward quartermaster and commissary stores to Fort Abercrombie, in…