diseases. By June, 1862, impositions became so frequent, that discharges for rheumatism had to be prohibited in orders. Without counterfeiting disease, there were other ways of procuring discharges. The establishment of General Hospitals and the order to fill them from the field, was a well-known concession to political influence. Accessible to the families and friends of his patients, if the surgeon, in a mood of complaisance, so far yielded to the personal and political influence, by which he was surrounded, as to sign a certificate of disability, he but followed the example daily set before him by the highest civil officers of the Government. When political influence failed, there was still recourse to corruption. The records of the War Department establish the fact that certificates of disability were often a matter of barter and sale. This nefarious practice was by no means limited to particular localities. Wherever there was a regimental, field, temporary, post, or permanent hospital, medical officers were exposed to offers of bribery. The patriotism and integrity of the vast majority were superior to this test, but unfortunately, enough remained to swell the number of fraudulent certificates to hundreds and thousands.

The State Hospitals opened up a yet broader field for the sale of discharges. It was through their agency, before the Government accepted their transfer, that soldiers in great numbers had returned to their homes. When efforts to get soldiers back became serious, another unwise order placed it in the power of physicians, not in the military service, to procure for them either furloughs or discharges. Such as were not under treatment in the United States Hospitals, were ordered to report to the military commanders, under pain of being considered deserters. For such as were unable to travel the order stated:

In cases of serious disability from wounds or sickness which may prevent obedience to this requirement, the soldier must furnish a certificate of a physician of good standing, describing his case, on which, if satisfactory, the military commander may grant a written furlough for not exceeding thirty days, or a discharge on the prescribed form of a certificate of disability made out strictly according to regulations. But no discharges will be given on account of rheumatism, or where there is a prospect of recovery within a reasonable time.

From this it will be seen that any soldier who had once returned to his village, or his home, could at any moment procure his discharge, provided a physician "in good standing" would honestly or corruptly sign a certificate--alleging as the cause either wounds or any disease save rheumatism-coupling with the certificate the further statement that there was no prospect of recovery within a reasonable time. After the certificate was rendered, there was still the provision that it must. be satisfactory to the military commanders. But for the majority of malingerers this condition might as well have been omitted.

The plan for hasty discharges from the General Hospitals, possessed at least the merit of requiring the concurrence of two officers-one from the staff, the other from the line-but in its blind devotion to false economy, Congress saw fit to break down this safeguard, making them wholly independent of civil and military control; it authorized the Medical Inspector-General and medical inspectors of the Army to discharge from the service any enlisted man

in the permanent hospitals, laboring under any physical disability which might make it disadvantageous to the service that he be retained therein.

The evidence of discharge was simply a certificate in writing, setting

forth the existence and nature of the physical disability. The only restrictions imposed upon the 17 officers, upon whom this extraordinary authority was conferred, was that they should certify to a personal inspection of the soldier, as also the nature and origin of his disability. There was also another superfluous requirement, that the discharge should be with the consent of the soldier.

The chief feature of this law entitled

An act to facilitate the discharge of enlisted men for disability,

was not that it made a portion of the staff independent of the line. It tempted the medical inspectors, as no other officers were tempted during the war, to commit fraud; and when their personal character forbade corrupt approach, it subjected them to the danger of abetting fraud, in spite of the utmost vigilance and devotion. Whenever they visited a hospital, it was not even necessary for them to consult the military commander. Contrary to his views, contrary to the opinions of the surgeon in charge, they could enter a ward, glance around it, and order the discharge of as few or as many men as they saw fit. The orders regulating the discharges were bad enough, but this law made the inspectors supreme. If the military commander and the surgeon ventured to oppose him, they became obstructors of the law, and, in the days of arbitrary arrests and dismissal without trial, they might lose their commission for their pains."

But the interests of the Government were not so much jeopardized by the personal corruption, to which the inspectors were exposed, as by the possibility of their being made the victims of unscrupulous and designing individuals. If a surgeon and hospital steward chose to collude with the men, all the former had to do was to present their cases and represent them as fit subjects for discharge. The inspector, except in cases of wounds, could not be expected to detect malingering or frauds. The patients were collected together, the hasty inspection was but a matter of form, the certificates, already prepared, were signed, and the soldier, who in the morning anticipated returning to his regiment, at night found himself en route to his home, emancipated from all restraints of military service.

In the work of reducing and paralyzing the national armies by discharge, three distinct classes of agents were employed. The first was composed of the surgeons and assistant surgeons of the Regular Army, and the staff surgeons of the volunteers, all of whom received their appointments after rigid examinations and were commissioned by the President. The second class was composed of surgeons and assistant surgeons of volunteers, who, without any examination, were commissioned at the beginning by the governors of the States. The third class was composed of physicians in "good standing," who were alike

@Those who advocate the independence of the staff would do well to study the operation of this law. A single instance may here be given. One of the 17 inspectors, it was well known, received his appointment through political influence, no attention being paid to his professional acquirements. Not many months after he was commissioned, he appeared at the convalescent camp at Alexandria, where it was soon noised abroad that soldiers from a particular State could procure their discharge. The work continued till the surgeon in charge notified the military commander, who caused the inspector to immediately quit the camp. This instance may be cited as one of a multitude to establish the principle that corruption in administration tends to increase in direct proportion to the emancipation of ministrative officers from the supervision and control of military commanders.

irresponsible to the Government or the States. Of the first and second classes, only those surgeons and assistant surgeons could grant certificates of disability, who were in charge of a Regimental, Field, or General Hospital. The third class, under General Orders, No. 65, could sign these certificates, whenever applied to by a soldier who had succeeded in reaching his home.

À comparison of the strength of the first and second classes will show that under the confederate theory of war, so hastily adopted by the Cabinet and Congress in 1861, the organization and disorganization of our armies were left chiefly in the hands of the agents appointed by the States. The number of medical officers appointed by the President was:

The number appointed by the governors, and without examination,

The horde of physicians in good standing, who, under orders could sign certificates of disability, cannot be stated, but there was at least one for every town where a convalescent deserved or desired a discharge. Their aid to get out of the service could also be invoked by malingerers and deserters, who only needed a certificate to be entitled to the same consideration as the soldier whose limbs had been hopelessly shattered in battle.

The State Hospitals again grew up as the natural offspring of the laws of July, 1861, which placed the recruitment and organization of the volunteer forces in the hands of the governors. The replacement of the State Hospitals by General Hospitals, as also the orders to the Surgeon-General to fill them up by parties of sick and wounded, sent back from the field, have been cited as acts of unwise administration which would have been forced upon the Secretary of War, had he not chosen to make friends with the governors by yielding a prompt compliance to all their requests.

The effect of the mistakes in command and administration during the year 1862, induced by bad laws, may be estimated by restating figures principally relating to the Army of the Potomac. On the

a These figures are taken from the Army Register of January 1, 1863. Of the 17 medical inspectors who could discharge soldiers on their own certificates, 11 were appointed from civil life after the war began. The other 6, under the discretion allowed by the law, were selected from the Medical Corps of the Army.

Computed from the tabulated statement of the number of regiments of infantry, cavalry, and artillery furnished under the two calls of 1861 and 1862 for three years' troops. The number of medical officers falls short of the number actually appointed, as the independent battalions, companies, and batteries are not included. The medical officers allowed to each regiment by the laws of 1861 and 1862, were 1 surgeon and 2 assistant surgeons.

27th of June, the beginning of the Seven Days' Battles, it went into action with 95,000 men; the number of troops detached and withheld at the beginning of the Peninsula campaign was 40,000; the number of absentees on the 20th of July was 38,000. Withdrawn from the Peninsula, contrary to the entreaties of its commander, the army went into battle at Antietam with 87,000 men; the number for duty withheld at Washington was 73,000; the number of absentees from the Army of the Potomac and the forces at Washington has already been given as exceeding 101,000.

These figures show that the system adhered to by Congress since the Declaration of Independence, was responsible for many of the evils and sufferings entailed by a prolonged war. But statistics relating to discharges have yet to be added. It has already been stated that in March, 1862, when the President and the Secretary of War assumed military control, the Union armies exceeded 637,000 men. The total force of Confederates in the field at the beginning of the year did not exceed 220,000.

The number of men discharged in 1862, by means of the combined agencies referred to, approximated 100,000 men."

The immediate effect of those discharges was to reduce all the regiments in the field to mere skeletons; their permanent effect can be seen to-day in the system of pensions, which costs the people from thirty to forty millions a year."

a This approximation is based upon the following figures furnished by the AdjutantGeneral's Office to the Commissioner of Pensions, April 24, 1880,—

Number of men discharged during the Rebellion on certificate of disability, from actual record:

Regular Army

Volunteer Army

Colored troops

Total..

6, 541 274, 683

10, 143

291, 367

As it was during the year 1862 that the great armies of 1861 and 1862 completed their shrinking or seasoning process, it cannot be far out of the way to assume that one-third of the discharges were granted during the first year of actual field service.

The total amount paid in the year 1903 for pensions and the expense of maintenance during the fiscal year was $141,752,870.50.-EDITORS.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

DEPLETION OF THE ARMIES.

NEED OF REGIMENTAL DEPOTS. "

The Landwehr battalion districts, the company districts, and the regimental depots are the links which, in foreign services, connect the people with the army. In each battalion district in Germany, for example, there is a cadre consisting of a field officer, an adjutant, and three noncommissioned officers. The rolls of all men in the reserve, in the Ersatz reserve, as also in the Landwehr, are kept at the district headquarters. A sergeant-major, or first sergeant, lives in each company district and serves as a medium of communications with the men at their homes.

When war is declared, each regiment designates a battalion to serve as a regimental depot. It consists of 22 officers, and may be recruited as high as 1,208 noncommissioned officers and men. The three battalions in the field, the depot battalion, the cadre of the Landwehr battalion, and company districts, all form part of one and the same regiment. Whenever a regiment loses 10 per cent of its men from battle or disease, the colonel does not apply for recruits to the adjutantgeneral at Berlin, but sends an order direct to the commander of the depot battalion to forward at once the number required. No man, after having once been enrolled in the army for active service, can skulk away and return to his home. The regulations require that all men in the reserve, the Landwehr, Ersatz reserve, or on furlough, shall, on returning to their company districts, report in person to the sergeant-major. The Government thus knows where every soldier is, who owes military service. If one deserts, and does not return to his home, he cannot long remain undiscovered by the many officers and

a By a General Order of the Headquarters of the Army, dated August 31, 1899, the third battalions of the First, Second, Fifth, Eighth, and Tenth regiments of infantry were designated depot battalions, in contradistinction with the other two battalions, which were to be known as active battalions. Later in the same year, the provisions of the order were extended to the Fifteenth, Twenty-fourth, and Twenty-fifth regiments of infantry and the Second regiment of artillery; and in the following year (1900) it was further extended to the First, Third, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth regiments of cavalry and the Second, Fifth, Eighth, and Eleventh regiments of infantry. In all cases it was provided that the officers and men of the regiments named who were unfit for active service should be transferred to the depot battalions or squadrons and replaced by an equal number of able-bodied men from those battalions. In no case was the system applied until the regiment concerned was about to depart for foreign service, and ceased with its return to the home station. The system has not worked satisfactorily in practice, and has been allowed to lapse-regiments at the present time being sent on foreign service intact.

In Europe-Germany, for example-there is a fourth battalion, which in time of war becomes the depot battalion. It transfers its personnel to the other battalions to bring them up to war strength, and immediately begins recruiting to maintain that strength by successive detachments of reenforcements to the active battalions in the field, thus leaving the three active battalions of the regiments intact.-EDITORS,