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while so detached, shall receive the pay and emoluments now received by ordnance officers, and shall be subject only to the orders of the War Deparment; and that the number of enlisted men in the Ordnance Department be reduced to fifty-six.<

The fifth section reduced the general officers to one major-general and two brigadiers, and prescribed that their aids-de-camp, taken from the subalterns of the line, should perform, in addition to their other duties, those of assistant adjutants-general.

The sixth section authorized I Adjutant and 2 Inspectors-General with the rank of colonel of cavalry.

The seventh section prescribed that there should be 1 QuartermasterGeneral, 2 quartermasters with the rank of major, and 10 assistant quartermasters, detailed from the line, with an extra compensation of not less than $10 or more than $20 per month.

The eighth section authorized 1 Commissary-General, and not exceeding 50 assistant commissaries, detached from the line, with the same compensation as the assistant quartermasters, and further prescribed that both the assistant quartermasters and assistant commissaries of subsistence, should be "subject to duties in both departments under the orders of the Secretary of War."

The ninth section prescribed that there should be 1 Paymaster-General, 14 paymasters with the pay and emoluments of regimental paymasters, 1 commissary of purchases, and 2 storekeepers, attached to the purchasing department.

This law, in failing to recognize the wisdom of Mr. Calhoun's advice "that at the commencement of hostilities there should be nothing either to new-model, or to create," insured the continuance of our previous system. It sought to make the staff efficient at the expense of the line, and while the President, in case of Indian wars could authorize generals and governors to call out unlimited numbers of militia, he could not add an enlisted man to the Army. Had Congress given him the authority to increase each company of artillery and infantry to 100 enlisted men, the reduction of the Army by one-half would still have enabled him in time of war to augment it to more than 11,000 men.

The failure to provide permanent officers in the higher grades, and also that officers detached on the staff should be supernumeraries of the line, necessarily led, in the course of a few years, to the present organization of staff corps in which every officer, regardless of his qualifications, holds his position for life."

The manner in which the present system was established may be illustrated by a reference to the ordnance. Instead of allowing 1 colonel and 1 lieutenant-colonel, 2 majors, and 7 captains of ordnance, as recommended by Mr. Calhoun, the whole department was ignored by the law, or at least replaced by the simple provision that "there should be attached to each regiment of artillery, one supernumerary captain to perform ordnance duty." At best these 4 captains, without

a Callan's Military Laws of the United States, p. 307.

An act of Congress approved February 2, 1901, provides that future vacancies in the lower grades of the Adjutant-General's, Inspector-General's, QuartermasterGeneral's, Subsistence, Pay, and Ordnance departments, and of the Signal Corps, shall be filled by the detail of officers of the line of the Army for a period of four years, at the completion of which period such officers detailed shall return to the line of the Army for two years before being eligible to further detail; and officers below the rank of lieutenant-colonel shall not be eligible to further detail in any staff department until they have served two years with the line.-EDITORS.

any permanent chief, as in the Quartermaster or Commissary Departments, were to supply the place of an Ordnance Department, which had been created in 1812, and by the act of February 8, 1815, had been increased to a total of 44 officers. This deficiency in numbers was made up by the detail of about 30 officers of artillery, whose return to their regiments was secured by a provision of the Army Regulations, adopted after the passage of the law, requiring that a certain number of officers should be detailed annually on ordnance duty, in place of the same number relieved.

The head of the new department, which in its composition had no element of permanency, was Colonel Bomford, the former Chief of Ordnance, who naturally opposed the new system. In a letter to the Secretary of War, dated January 8, 1827, he stated all the objections to this method of detail, and then recommended a separate department to consist of 1 colonel, 2 majors, 8 captains, 8 first lieutenants, and 8 second lieutenants, a total of 27 officers. But lest this recommendation should not be approved, he struck the happy medium between the system of permanency and detail by adding:

If it shall, however, be considered expedient to continue, in part, the present system of details, I would then suggest that the Department be made to consist of 1 colonel, 2 majors, and 10 captains, leaving to be supplied by details from the artillery, as many lieutenants as the public service might require.

In favor of this plan, it may be said that it can be effected by a smaller addition to the number of officers at present in service, as it would require only nine new appointments to be made; and also that the thirteen ordnance officers not being subject to change and the details being confined to the junior officers alone, neither the ordnance nor the artillery service would suffer much inconvenience by this arrangement, while the latter might be benefited by it. It is admitted that this plan would be greatly preferable to the present system, as it would give some degree of permanency to the senior officers of the Department, to those upon whom its duties and responsibilities would mainly rest."

January 23 he submitted to the Secretary of War a bill to carry out the above views which, had it become a law, would have increased the efficiency of both the artillery and ordnance and made our system in every essential particular approach the systems of other nations.

In England, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia the ordnance officers are merely the staff of the artillery, who are specially selected from the whole corps for known zeal and efficiency. The Austrian general, Uchachius, the inventor of the celebrated steel bronze field gun, is an officer of artillery whose services can be utilized in time of peace in the arsenal, while in time of war his talents can find more important scope on the field of battle. In the arsenals, or technical departments of every foreign service, the officers, without any fixed rule as to the period of detached service, go back to the artillery, where the benefit of their scientific training is extended to the line.

These advantages, to a great extent, were involved in the law proposed by the Chief of Ordnance more than fifty years ago, at an increased expense to the then existing peace establishment of but $11,644 per

annum.

November 30, 1829, the Chief of Ordnance, in his annual report, again recommended a separate corps, and December 18' followed it up by another letter reiterating all his former objections to the system of detail. This letter also recommended that in case the corps be

« American State Papers, vol. 3, p. 580.
American State Papers, vol. 4, p. 212.

still merged with the artillery, that at least the senior grades be made permanent, leaving the junior grades as before, to be filled by detail, a measure that "would combine the advantages of both plans.

November 30, 1830," the same arguments were again presented to the Secretary of War, and were again alluded to on the 28th of October, 1831. As a result of constantly presenting the defects of a department which comprised but 4 supernumerary captains of artillery, Congress, on the 5th of April, 1832, reestablished the Ordnance Corps, to consist of 1 colonel, I lieutenant-colonel, 2 majors, and 10 captains.

The lower grades were still to be filled by the detail of lieutenants of artillery.

It was supposed that the allowance of four lieutenants to each battery of artillery, by the law of 1821, would permit a certain number to be detailed on ordnance duty without prejudice to their regiments, but as will appear during the Florida war, so great was the number of officers detached in the various staff departments, without supplying their places by supernumeraries, that both the line and the staff united in opposition to a system which could only insure efficiency in the one, at the expense of the other.

Small as were the Quartermaster and Commissary Departments, the former consisting, under the law of 1821, of one chief and two other permanent officers, the latter of but one chief only, no such determined opposition was made to the principle of detail as was made by the Chief of Ordnance. This was in a great measure due to the fact that General Jesup, Quartermaster-General, and General Gibson, Commissary-General, were both former officers of the line, while Colone! Bomford, under whom the law of 1821 had to be carried into effect, was the deposed chief of a corps, for the reestablishment of which he could not fail to labor.

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The Quartermaster-General in 1823 and 1824 recommended an increase of his department by 3 quartermasters and 8 assistants, all of whom were to be detailed from the line with an increase of pay, and these recommendations were followed in 1826 by the addition of 2 quartermasters and 10 assistants, making a total of 5 permanent officers and 20 detailed from the line.

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In the Commissary Department, although all the labor under the direction of its chief was performed by the 50 officers detailed from the line, no recommendation was made by General Gibson for an increase of the department till 1827, when he requested the appointment of 2 majors. These officers were added to the department in 1829.

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The extent to which the staff labor of the Army was done by the line, between the year 1821 and the Florida war, may be easily inferred from the statement that in the two great supply departments just referred to, out of the 78 officers composing them, 70 were from the line. The efficiency with which these officers performed their duty was frequently the subject of commendation by their chiefs, while the varied and practical experience acquired in their departments, increased

a American State Papers, vol. 4, p. 756.
American State Papers, vol. 3, p. 101.

c American State Papers, vol. 3, p. 162.

d Callan's United States Military Laws, sec. 4, p. 316.

e American State Papers, vol. 3, p. 645.

their capacity and usefulness in every position to which the Government subsequently assigned them.

This varied experience was, however, to be denied the line, through the failure to provide that officers detailed should be supernumeraries.

RELATIONS OF THE GENERAL IN CHIEF AND SECRETARY OF WAR TO THE ARMY.

The still undefined relations between these two officers, one of whom, under the President, should be the exclusive chief of the personnel of the Army, the other the absolute director of its administration, came before both Houses of Congress in 1828-29 on a proposition as to the expediency of abolishing the office of major-general of the Army, made vacant by the death of General Brown.

This question, to which is referable much of the extravagance of our system; the unnecessary war between the staff and the line; the lack of the subordination due to the general in chief, from every staff officer not exclusively occupied in administration duties under the Secretary of War a question, which rising above all personal considerations must have an important bearing upon all future military operations, and through them, on the honor if not on the destiny of the country, was discussed with such enlightened statesmenship by a committee of the Senate and by the Secretary of War, that to-day their views are worthy of the special consideration of Congress.

On the 19th of March, 1828, Mr. Harrison (afterwards President of the United States), from the Committee on Military Affairs, to whom was referred the resolution of the Senate, directing them to inquire into the expediency of continuing or abolishing the office of major-general in the Army of the United States, reported:

The first inquiry now to be made is, whether the office of major-general, on the establishment, shall alone be abolished, leaving the organization and arrangement of the Army in other respects as it now is. If the object of this reduction is to save expense, the committee hesitate not to say that the expectation will not be realized. Indeed, it is possible that it may be increased. This effect is produced by the number of officers in every corps of the Army holding brevet rank of higher grade than they hold in the line, and by that succession in command which is an essential principle of discipline in every army and navy of the civilized world. The principle here spoken of is that which, upon the removal of a senior officer by death or otherwise, gives to the next in rank, not the rank, but the entire authority and command of the officer whom he succeeds.

In a case of this kind, when the command devolves upon an officer of junior grade in the fine, who holds no brevet rank, he receives no accession of pay or emolument for the exercise of the higher duty and increased responsibility. Upon the death, absence, or removal of the colonel of a regiment the lieutenant-colonel, or major in the absence of the lieutenant-colonel, succeeds to the command of the regiment and to all the authority which the colonel possessed without any increase of pay, if the officer thus succeeding holds no brevet rank; but having that rank it instantly comes into operation and brings with it the appropriate pay and emoluments. From this statement it will at once be perceived, that if the proposed reduction extends no further than to the office lately held by Major-General Brown, without any other change in the organization and arrangement of the Army, it will effect no diminution of the expense of the Army, but may possibly increase it. There could be then no motive, it is conceived from this view of the subject, to make the proposed reduction. But a change in the present arrangement of the Army might be made, either by law or under the authority of the President, so as to produce a saving to the Treasury, of the whole pay and emoluments of the office which it is proposed to abolish. This could be done by confining the two brevet major-generals to their present commands, marked out by geographical lines, and denominated the eastern and western department, and abolishing the office of major-general in the establishment, or general in chief, as proposed by the resolutions submitted to the committee.

But

although the office may be abolished, its functions must remain to be performed in some manner. No army can long exist without having some common head to receive its reports and direct its general administration. The office of captain in the navy may be abolished, but when a ship is at sea the entire command and duties of captain must be performed in some way, under that denomination or some other.

If the office of major-general of the line or commanding general should be abolished, there being no intermediate authority between the generals commanding the departments and the Chief Executive Magistrate, who is the constitutional Commander in Chief of our armies, the immediate command of the Army must devolve upon him, or it will be administered by the Secretary of War, in his name. An arrangement of this kind has existed since the late war, at a time that the two departments were commanded by two major-generals of the line, independent of each other and having their common head at the Department of War. As this arrangement appears to have been the one contemplated by a portion of the Senate, the committee submit the following remarks as to the expediency of again adopting it: And first as to the duties of a commanding general. They are, in reference to the whole army, what that of a colonel is to a regiment or a captain to his company, embracing not only a general, but particular superintendence in everything relating to its instruction, subordination, equipments, supplies, and health. He is the medium of communication between the Government and the Army, who look to him for all the information which they may require on these points. To him are made the returns and reports of the generals commanding departments, who correspond with him upon all subjects relating to their commands. He receives and decides upon the confidential reports of the inspectors-general, which embrace not only remarks upon the personnel and materiel of the Army, but upon the conduct and characters, not only of the several corps, but of the individuals who compose them. He has the general superintendence of the administration of justice in the Army, and is immediately charged with the duty of assembling courts-martial, composed of officers of the highest grade, which can not be furnished by a single department.

The recruiting service in all its details is under his immediate superintendence; so is the school of practice for the artillery. It is his duty to make himself intimately acquainted with the characteristic features of the country, particularly upon the frontiers; its military positions, the best means of defending them and of operating against an invading enemy. On his judgment the Government relies for information as to the proper position of the troops upon the Indian frontier, so that they can be assembled with promptitude and act with efficiency. The performance of these varied and complicated duties not only requires much labor, but it must be admitted that they can not be well performed without a thorough knowledge of the technical military details, and that this can only be acquired by actual service. The Army of the United States, as well as every other supported by a civilized nation, is under the government of a written and unwritten law. A recurrence to the authority of the latter is so constantly necessary, that no army can exist under discipline for a single day without it. It is recognized and adopted by our written law under the denomination of "custom of war." A knowledge of it can be obtained from no book and can only be acquired by experience in the field. To the person exercising the functions of commanding general, this knowledge is essentially necessary; without it he would be continually subjected to the commission of the most fatal errors. In the administration of justice, cases constantly occur which would present to a man unacquainted with the "usages of war," scarcely a shade of difference, and yet, when subjected to this criterion, one would present a crime calling for the severest punishment, and the other for an honorable acquittal.

If the functions of commanding general, then, are to be performed by the head of the Department of War, it would seem necessary that he should be possessed not only of a knowledge of the theory of the art of war, which may be acquired by study, but of that practical knowledge also which can only be gained by experience in the field. It is conceived that the proper and appropriate duties of that Department do not require this knowledge, and that it is not often found united in the same individual, with that fund of political information, which it is necessary that a Cabinet minister should possess. În Great Britain the higher duties of war minister are performed by a secretary of state. All that relates to the accounts of the army, its organization, and procuring supplies of every description (the ordnance excepted) is under the direction of the Secretary of War. It is believed that these offices have seldom been filled by military men, but the appropriate duties of commanding general are always confided to an officer selected for the purpose.

The Secretary of War, in the United States, in addition to the duties performed by both the war ministers in Great Britain, is charged with the direction of the ordnance (which in the latter country composes a separate department), with everything which relates to Indian affairs, and with the system of internal improvement. It is scarcely to be conceived that all these claims upon his time would leave him sufficient leisure

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