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. 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. 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. 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 @ American State Papers, vol. 4, p. 756. a Callan's United States Military Laws, sec. 4, p. 316. 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 line, 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 to perform the functions of commanding general, should he even be possessed of the necessary information. In either case, the command of the Army would virtually be exercised by the staff officers who surround him,- -a kind of substitution which is in all cases offensive, but to military men particularly odious. No general ever preserved the confidence and affections of his army, who was supposed to be under the guidance of his adjutant or his aid-de-camp. The cause is obvious. When an officer makes an appeal to his superior, if the decision is adverse to his wishes and opinions, he is satisfied and submits, and he does so without suffering his feelings to be wounded. This is the result of the principle to which all yield assent, that superior knowledge is always found united with superior rank, and is the base of that prompt and cheerful obedience which is the essence of military discipline; but let a supposition be entertained that the decisions at headquarters are under the control of inferior knowledge (that is, inferior rank) and the veneration with which they are received is at once changed into contempt, the whole fabric of discipline is loosened, and disorder and confusion inevitably succeed-such as the committee believe will be the effects of placing a military command in any other hands than those of a military man. A French officer who visited England a few years ago, in his "View of the History and Actual State of the Military Force of Great Britain," attributes the high state of the discipline of the British army, at the conclusion of the war with France, to the superintending care of the commander in chief at the seat of government. Speaking of the newly adopted policy of not suffering a change of ministry to produce the removal of this officer, he says: "In rendering the situation of commander in chief independent of a change of ministry, it appears to me that the British Government have wisely followed the spirit of the constitution and the dictates of prudence. Owing to this distinction, if by a sudden transfer of administration, the general plan of military operations is altered, the organization of the army and all the details which influence the efficiency of regiments, can not be overthrown by the caprice and vanity of the new ministers. It is the masterpiece of the institutions of England, that stability in the system of public service, is combined with the power of changing the directors of the executive authority." a If a change in the command of an army, by merely substituting one military man for another, is productive of so much injury, how much greater mischief is to be apprehended when the person who succeeds is altogether uninformed, not only in the details, but in the principles of the profession? A Secretary of War, by some casualty or change of administration, is suddenly brought into office. However eminent for his talents and distinguished as a politician, however capable of performing the appropriate duties of his Department, is it to be supposed that he can at once acquire the knowledge necessary to the discharge of the functions of commanding general? At this moment an Indian insurrection or other hostile movement occurs on the frontier. On whom is he to rely? Where is he to seek the information upon which to predicate his orders for assembling the troops, procuring their supplies, and marching them on the enemy? The old maxim, that "The thing which is once well commenced is half accomplished," applies perhaps with more force to military affairs than to anything else. The greatest exertions are often insufficient to remedy the evils which follow a wrong step taken in the commencement of a war. Never was this proposition more fatally realized than in the last war in which the United States were engaged-a body of troops pushed into the hostile country, entirely out of support, without an established base, its single line of communication everywhere accessible to the enemy. How much blood and treasure were wasted to rectify this error, the archives of the nation will exhibit, as they will the obstinate perseverance with which an object was attempted to be accomplished, in opposition to the most formidable obstacles created by the hand of nature, when another presented itself in which none of these impediments were to be found. It is far from being the intention of the committee to cast any reflection upon the distinguished patriots who conducted the first operations of the late war, and still less, to justify an ignominious surrender of a gallant army to an inferior enemy, who offered battle as the only means of extricating it from the cul-de-sac in which it had been placed. Their only object is to show that a man may be an eminent statesman, without being a general, or able to direct the details of a military enterprise. * * * Possessing these views, the committee can not give their sanction to the proposed abolition of the office of major-general. The saving of a few thousand dollars presents, in their opinion, no motive to subject to any hazard, the discipline and efficiency of the Army. They therefore recommend to the Senate the following resolution: Resolved, That it is inexpedient to abolish the office of major-general in the Army. a Dupin's Military View, vol. 1, p. 44. American State Papers, vol. 3, pp. 820, 821, 822. The Secretary of War, Hon. Peter B. Porter, to whom the subject was referred by the Military Committee of the House, replied on the 14th of January, 1829: In regard to the first proposition, which is to abolish the office of major-general, I beg leave to observe that, although the purposes for which an army is designed have reference almost exclusively to a state of public war, yet our Government has concurred with all others, in the policy of keeping up a military force in time of peacepartly for the purpose of securing the regular execution of the laws, but principally with a view to the acquisition and preservation of the military art, to be put in requisition whenever the country may be forced into war. To attain the full benefits of the last-mentioned objects, the military force to be maintained in time of peace should, if possible, be an exact epitome in all its parts, of the one which is intended to be employed in time of war; so that, on the transition from the former to the latter state, its size and strength may be expanded without any alteration of its faculties. The period of peace, indeed, affords much greater facilities for acquiring the theoretic science, preparing the necessary equipments, and perfecting the systems of war, than are to be found in the bustle and confusion which attend its actual existence. In the organization, as well as discipline of an army, the leading objects should be to impart to it the qualities of unity, celerity, and efficiency of action; and the great secret of conferring on a body of men, the highest capacity for physical execution, will be found to consist in the integrity of its organization, and the unity of purpose with which its operations are conducted. Every part of an army, although destined to perform its own separate and peculiar functions, should be connected with every other part, through some common head or chief, who will give animation, impulse, and individuality to the whole. From this head, or chief of the Army, all general orders for its government should emanate, and to him everything which relates to its movement and discipline should be referable. My opinion, therefore, is, that there should be at the head of the Army of the United States, whether its numbers continue as at present, or whether they be enlarged or diminished, an individual higher in rank than any other officer, and who should have immediate command of the whole; that he should be stationed, in time of peace at least, at the seat of government, where he can most readily receive the advice and orders of the President, and where he can hold the most direct and expeditious communication with every part of his command. The present organization of the Army, being in conformity with the preceding views, it will readily be perceived that my opinion is against the expediency of abolishing the office of major-general. If it be said that the office of major-general being abolished, the Army will still have a head in the President or the Secretary of War, by whom his military functions are discharged, the answer is, that the Department of War does not form an integral part of the military machine. The numerous civil avocations of the Secretary of War, would put it wholly out of his power to attend to the daily orders and complicated routine of duties, which appertain to the command and discipline of an Army; and the effect of a simple abolition of the office of major-general would, in the present state of the Army, be to divide it into two separate, independent, and probably conflicting commands, under the two brigadiers, unless they should be connected through the instrumentality of the Adjutant-General, or some other subordinate officer stationed at the seat of government, under the Secretary of War, and who would, in fact, perform the appropriate duties of the chief of the Army. a The logical deduction of this committee, that in the absence of a general in chief "the Army would virtually be commanded by the staff officers who surround the Secretary of War," not to dwell on the sig-. nificant admission of the latter, that the Adjutant-General or some other officer stationed at the seat of government, under the Secretary of War "would, in fact, perform the appropriate duties of the chief of the Army," should alone have been sufficient to preserve the first and most important grade in the Army. But, in retaining the office, with no provision that the control of the personnel of the Army, by the Secretary of War, should be limited to such officers in the various staff departments, as, by order of the President, might be directed to report to him to aid in the procurement and a American State Papers, vol. 4, p. 91. |