The same section made the Adjutant-General's Department consist of 1 Adjutant-General, with the rank of brigadier-general; 2 assistant adjutants-general, with the rank of colonel of cavalry; 4 assistant adjutants-general, with the rank of major; 12 assistant adjutants-general, with the rank of captain.

The same section also added to the Commissary Department 4 commissaries, with the rank of major of cavalry and 8 with the rank of captain of cavalry, the latter to be taken from the line of the Volunteer or Regular Army. The Department as thus increased consisted of 1 Commissary-General of Subsistence, colonel; 1 Assistant Commissary-General of Subsistence, lieutenant-colonel; 6 commissaries of subsistence, majors; 16 commissaries of subsistence, captains.

The third section added 3 first and 3 second lieutenants to each of the Corps of Engineers and Topographical Engineers. It also added to the Quartermaster's Department 1 colonel, 2 lieutenantcolonels, 4 majors, and 20 captains, with the important provision that, in the judgment of the President, the number of master wagoners and wagoners (drivers) should be limited only by the exigencies of the service. As increased by the law, the officers of the Department consisted of 1 brigadier-general, Quartermaster-General; 3 colonels, assistant quartermasters-general; 4 lieutenant-colonels, deputy quartermasters-general; 11 majors, quartermasters; 48 captains, quartermasters. The same section also gave the Chief of Ordnance the rank of brigadier-general and added to the Department, 1 colonel, 1 lieutenantcolonel, and 6 second lieutenants, the vacancies to be filled by officers. of the Army or graduates of the Military Academy. As thus organized, the Department consisted of 1 brigadier-general, 2 colonels, 2 lieutenant-colonels, 4 majors, 16 captains, 12 first lieutenants, 12 second lieutenants.

The fourth section added to the Corps of Engineers 3 companies of 150 noncommissioned officers and privates each, making in all 4 companies, the officers of which were to be detailed from the officers of the corps.

The fifth section added to the Medical Department a corps of medical cadets-students of medicine-enlisted for the term of one year.

The sixth section authorized female nurses to be employed in general and permanent hospitals, in place of soldiers, with a compensation of 40 cents and one ration per day.

The twelfth section merged the two regiments of dragoons, the regiment of mounted rifles, and two regiments of cavalry under a common denomination, to be known respectively as the First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Cavalry. These regiments had 10 companies each, the Sixth Cavalry, raised by the act of July 29, had 12 companies, organized in 3 battalions. The sixteenth and seventeenth sections continued the important provision authorizing the President, after an examination by a board, to place on a retired list any officers found "incapacitated for active service," the number of retired officers not to exceed 7 per cent of the whole number in the Army. The officers retired were granted the pay proper of their highest rank and 4 rations (30 cents each) per day. A special exception was made in favor of the venerable General in Chief, who in case of retirement was to be granted the full pay and allowances of the grade of Lieutenant-General.

a The 3 quartermasters in excess of the 8 contemplated in the organization of the Department, were promoted to the grade of major in virtue of a provision guaranteeing such advancement after twelve years' consecutive service as captain.

The next act, that of August 5, related to the. personal staff of general officers. In addition to those provided by the law of July 22, it authorized the President, on the recommendation of the LieutenantGeneral commanding the Army of the United States, or any majorgeneral of the Regular Army, to appoint such number of aids-de-camp, to bear respectively the rank and authority of captains, majors, lieutenant-colonels, or colonels of the Regular Army," as in his opinion the exigencies of the service might require."

Regular officers accepting such advancements, on being discharged were to resume their former positions, with the same rank and promotion as if they had remained with their regiments or corps.

August 6, another act to "promote the efficiency of the Engineer and Topographical Engineer Corps" added to each, by regular promotion, 2 lieutenant-colonels and 4 majors.

The two corps, as thus increased, consisted of the following:

Corps of Engineers: One colonel, 4 lieutenant-colonels, 12 majors, 12 captains, 15 first lieutenants, 15 second lieutenants.

Topographical Engineers: One colonel, 3 lieutenant-colonels, 8 majors, 10 captains, 13 first lieutenants, 13 second lieutenants.

The second section added to the Topographical Engineers a company of soldiers, the officers to be detailed from the officers of the corps. The fourth section authorized the appointment of 2 additional inspectors-general, giving to the Department an organization of 4 colonels and 5 majors.

The fifth section prescribed:

That so much of the first section of the act approved August 5, 1854, as authorizes the appointment of civilians to superintend the national armories be, and the same is hereby repealed, and that the superintendents of these armories shall be appointed hereafter from officers of the Ordnance Department.c

August 6, another act was approved organizing "an increase in the Corps of Engineers and Topographical Engineers," the three sections. of which were identical with the first, second, and fourth sections of the act just described. d

a Callan's Military Laws of the United States, p. 489.

The bill for the appointment of additional aids-de-camp was reported in the Senate by Mr. Wilson, chairman of the Military Committee, on the 31st of July, and was passed without a division. When it was sought to limit the number, Mr. Wilson expressed the opinion that the discretion of the President would be an ample guaranty that no more would be appointed than the service required. August 1, the bill in the House was taken from the Speaker's table and passed without opposition. August 5, it received the President's approval.

Callan's Military Laws of the United States, p. 489. The act to promote the efficiency of the Corps of Engineers and Topographical Engineers was reported in the House by Mr. Blair, chairman of the Military Committee, on the 5th of August and was passed without amendment. The same day it was taken up in the Senate, amended by the addition of the fifth section, passed the Senate, was returned to the House, received its concurrence, and the following day became a law.

Mr. Wilson, who moved the amendment in reference to management of armories, said "his sympathies and feelings were in favor of a civil superintendent, but his judgment was in favor of the amendment, which would place the armory in the care of an officer experienced in the fabrication of arms." (Frank Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. 10, p. 16.)

d The act was reported by Mr. Wilson in the Senate on the 2d of August, and passed on the 3d. On the 5th it was taken up in the House, amended by adding the section authorizing the appointment of two additional inspectors-general, was returned to the Senate, received its concurrence, and on the 6th received the President's signature. The two laws were construed as identical, and intended to allow but one increase to the three corps or departments designated.

The last act, approved August 6, increased the pay of private soldiers of the Regular and Volunteer Army from $12 to $13 per month. The third section of this act reads as follows:

That all the acts, proclamations, and orders of the President of the United States after the 4th of March, 1861, respecting the Army and Navy of the United States, and calling out or relating to the militia or volunteers from the States, are hereby approved and in all respects legalized and made valid, to the same intent and with the same effect as if they had been issued and done under the previous express authority and direction of the Congress of the United States."

This bill was introduced in the Senate on the 5th of August by Mr. Wilson, who moved the amendment to legalize the President's acts and proclamation. The unanimity with which the Senate concurred, was indicated by a vote of 37 yeas to 5 nays. In the House, all objections having been withdrawn, the bill was taken up and passed under a suspension of the rules, two-thirds voting in the affirmative.

The date of the last law shows that all the foregoing military legisla tion was discussed and enacted within the space of one month. For hard work and patriotic zeal, no Congress ever deserved in an equal degree the praise and gratitude of the nation. The wisdom of its measures, however, must be judged by their fruits.

DEFECTS OF THE MILITARY LEGISLATION IN 1861.

On the 3d of April, 1863, nearly two years after the fall of Fort Sumter, the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War reported to Congress:

It needs but to refer to the history of the Congress just closed, its prompt and thorough action, clothing the Executive with the fullest power, placing at his disposal all the resources of men and money which this nation possessed, to prove that your committee judged rightly that Congress needed no prompting from them to do its entire duty.

Not upon those whose duty it was to provide the means necessary to put down the Rebellion, but upon those whose duty it was to rigthfully apply those means and the agents they employed for that purpose, rested the blame, if any, that the hopes of the nation have not been realized, and its expectations have been so long disappointed.

The surviving officers and soldiers of our armies, many of whom participated in the battle of Bull Run, will not for a moment deny that through the inexperience of themselves and their commanders the war for the Union was prolonged."

But when all of their mistakes are summed up and their deficiencies considered, it will still be found that the underlying causes were

a Callan's Military Laws of the United States, sec. 3, p. 490.
Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, vol. 1, p. 4.

CApparently the best opportunity ever presented to the Army of the Potomac to strike its adversary a fatal blow was in December, 1861. On the 10th of this month the aggregate present was 185,000 men. (Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, vol. 1, pp. 69, 70.)

The Confederates near Centreville, at little more than one day's march, numbered, according to their commander, less than 50,000 effectives. (Johnston's Narrative of Military Operations, p. 84.)

But had the Confederate Army, which, through short enlistments, was rapidly hastening to its dissolution, been totally defeated, it cannot be affirmed that such a reverse would have terminated the war. Its probable effect would have been to hasten the passage of the law of conscription by three or four months, thereby giving to the Confederacy at the opening of the spring campaign an army far superior in numbers and discipline to the one which actually confronted the Army of the Potomac when it drew near the Confederate capital.

inherent in a military system which was the creature of law. The committee, however, took the opposite view. It confidently stated that in voting men and money, Congress had discharged its whole duty. Whatever disasters might afterwards ensue, the blame should not be located on the representatives of the people, but upon the citizen soldiers sent to the field to fight their country's battles. As it is manifest that no improvement in our military policy can be made, so long as Congress shall cherish this fatal delusion, it becomes all the more important to subject the military legislation of 1861 to a searching analysis. Nor should any lover of his country be indifferent to the result. We speak of the people as sovereign, which, with qualifications, is true. They elect the members of the House of Representatives, and their agents, the legislatures of the States, elect the members of the Senate, but when the two Houses are in Congress assembled, the Constitution proclaims that with them, and not with the people, is vested the supreme power to raise and support armies. By the action of Congress the people are therefore bound to abide. If its military legislation be wise, peace may speedily ensue; if unwise, for every mistake the people must yield their blood and treasure.

In 1792 Congress organized the militia and declared in favor of obligatory military service, on the theory that the militia were the bulwark of the nation. Subsequently Indian difficulties and armed conflicts with two foreign nations compelled it to raise and support a regular army. Both of these organizations in 1861 it summarily rejected. Instead of expanding the Regular Army, and making it the chief instrument in executing the national will, it violated the practice of every civilized nation by calling into existence an army of a million untrained officers and men. But it may be replied that far from rejecting the Army, Congress, on the contrary, tripled its strength by increasing its organization from 13,024 to 39,273.

a

This increase was a mere expansion on paper. Give men a choice between regulars, volunteers, and militia, and they will invariably select the organization whose laxity of discipline is greatest. The Rebellion gave another proof of this truth. By January 1, 1863, the Army attained a maximum of only 25,436, which was less than 3 per cent of the total force then in the field."

Yet this feeble proportion gives an exaggerated idea of the part the Army was to play in the great struggle for the preservation of the Union. We shall find on further investigation that the total number of men recruited for the Army, even after a resort to conscription, was less than three-thousandths, one-third of 1 per cent of the millions who poured forth in new and untried organizations."

a The figure 13,024 represents the organization of the Army on the supposition that all of its companies were east of the Mississippi. Had all of them been west of the Mississippi beyond the reach of the Government, the law of 1850 would have permitted an aggregate of 18,666. On the 1st of January, 1862, 69 of the 198 companies of the old army were stationed or en route to stations on the Western frontier. (Army Register, 1861, p. 41; also Army Register, 1862, p. 81.)

Final report of the Provost-Marshal-General, p. 102.

eSuch was the depletion of the Army in the spring of 1862 that the artillery could only be kept in serviceable condition by transfers from the volunteer infantry. From this time to the end of the war, the regular batteries which served as a model for the volunteer artillery, were scarcely more than volunteer batteries, commanded by regular officers. The alacrity with which men once in the field volunteered for the regular artillery-transfers to the cavalry would have been equally popular-will be used further on, as an argument for the recruitment of these two arms of service in future wars.

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This disappearance of the Regular Army as a factor was due to the mistaken confidence of Congress in the system of voluntary enlistments. The Revolution and the War of 1812 had made it evident that being the chief cause of national weakness they could not be relied upon in a long war. The two wars further conclusively proved that the patriotism of the people should not be judged by the sole test of their willingness to serve in the ranks. Bounties, however objectionable and demoralizing, are evidences of patriotism and may be accepted as a guaranty that under any economic military system recruits will never be wanting. But there was no element of economy in the system of 1861. The male population of the loyal States, as ascertained by the census a year previous, was 10,795,422. The first sections of the laws of July 22 and 25 sanctioned an immediate call for 1,000,000 men, or nearly one-tenth of the entire male population. No greater demand was ever made on the patriotism of a people. Yet, when two years later an enrollment preparatory to a draft disclosed that there were 2.254,063 men liable to conscription (not including the armies in the field), the amazing fact was also discovered that without compulsion 1,356,593 citizens had already assumed the character of soldiers.

It should not, therefore, surprise us that under a system so improvident, voluntary enlistments finally proved a failure. The enormous demands for men are easily accounted for. The laws, like those at the beginning of each previous war, encouraged short enlistments by giving the President the power to call out volunteers for any term of service from six months to three years. The number of men furnished was to be equalized among the States according to population. The men having been organized into regiments, no provision was made for their recruitment; there were no regimental depots, no assignments of regiments to Congressional districts, no requirement that any regiment raised in any State or district should be kept full by voluntary enlistment or draft. There was but one method to prevent depletion, and that the one which, since the siege of Boston, had always proved ineffective-detaching recruiting parties from the field.

The above defects of legislation, with all the tendencies to protract the war, are to be found in the first sections of the two laws approved by the President within four days after the battle of Bull Run.

The next defects should be sought for under the head of organization. In every military system which has triumphed in modern war the officers have been recognized as the brain of the army, and to prepare them for their trust, governments have spared no pains to give them special education and training. Generals have not been left to acquire a knowledge of their profession on the field of maneuver in time of peace; they have been granted all the advantages of war academies, where they and the members of their staffs have been taught in their minutest details all the principles of the military art."

The two laws of 1861 authorized the President to appoint for the command of the million of volunteers such a number of major and brigadier-generals as, in his judgment, their organization might require. The only recognition of the value of military education to be found in our volunteer system was contained in the fourth section of the law authorizing the first half million; this section gave the President power to appoint 6 major-generals and 18 brigadier-generals,

a At the beginning of the Austria-Prussian war every general in the Prussian army was a graduate of the War Academy of Berlin.