16 



ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



goods to those who are giving all that mortal men can 

 give for your safety and your rights. Z. B. VANCE. 

 RALEIGH, Oct. 15, 1862. 



These appeals were not without effect. As an 

 instance, the proprietors of the Pulaski House, 

 in Mobile, contributed the carpeting of one hun- 

 dred and twenty rooms, which was estimated to 

 be sufficient to make five hundred blankets. 



The straggling from the army, as the winter 

 approached, was without a parallel. The press, 

 the President, and officers of the Confederate 

 and State Governments appealed to the people, 

 and particularly to the women, to frown upon 

 all stragglers, and use every means to secure 

 their apprehension. It was declared that 

 more than half the men who went into service 

 from the northeastern counties of the State of 

 Georgia were at home without leave, and 

 most of them were skulking in the mountains 

 to avoid being arrested. Others had banded 

 together under a few desperate leaders to re- 

 sist any attempts that might be made to arrest 

 them, or to release from the jails those who had 

 been arrested. Some of those bands had arms 

 and ammunition, and subsisted by plunder. 

 They were volunteers and not conscripts, as the 

 conscript laws had never been enforced in that 

 section. 



ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES. The 

 United States, unlike the great powers of Eu- 

 rope, has not hitherto considered a large stand- 

 ing army necessary, and has only maintained a 

 sufficient force to garrison moderately its forts 

 and fortresses, and to form a nucleus for the 

 organization and training of a large volunteer 

 army in time of war. The policy of the Gov- 

 ernment being eminently peaceful, it has been 

 only on great emergencies that it has been 

 necessary to call out any considerable force of 

 militia or volunteers. Aside from the war of 

 1812 and the Mexican, no such force had ever 

 been called for previous to the present war ; 

 and the militia of particular districts had only 

 occasionally been summoned in small numbers 

 to suppress local insurrections or riots. It may 

 be well, therefore, to give a brief historical 

 sketch of the origin, growth, and present con- 

 dition of the regular or standing army of the 

 United States, and then to speak of the militia 

 and volunteer troops. 



I. The Regular Army. The Constitution of 

 the United States, Art. 1, sec. 8, empowers 

 Congress " to raise and support armies ;" and 

 Art. 2, sec. 2, designates the President as " com- 

 mander in chief of the army and navy, and of 

 the militia when called into the service of the 

 United States." The War Department, as the 

 agency by which the President was to carry 

 into effect these provisions of the Constitution, 

 was established by act of Congress, Aug. 7, 

 1788. At first the standing army was organ- 

 ized under the "Original Rules and Articles 

 of War," adopted by the Continental Congress 

 of 1776, with such slight modifications as were 

 necessary to adapt them to the altered con- 

 dition of affairs. This military code formed the 



basis of the present articles of war, though 

 greatly modified in 1806. 



In 1790, Congress fixed the number of rank 

 and file in the army at 1,216 men; in 1791 an 

 additional regiment of of 900 men was author- 

 ized. In 1796, the standing army consisted of 

 4 regiments of infantry, of 8 companies each ; 

 2 companies of light dragoons ; and a corps of 

 artillerists and engineers ; and the President 

 was authorized by Congress to appoint one 

 major-general and one brigadier-general, each 

 with a suitable staff, for the command of this 

 force; but in 1797 the major-general was dis- 

 charged as being unnecessary. 



In 1798, a provisional force of 10,000 men 

 was authorized owing to the threatening atti- 

 tude of France; but the danger passed over 

 and the army returned to its former small pro- 

 portions. The war of 1812 had been long fore- 

 seen, and provision made for it not by an in- 

 crease of the regular army but by the authori- 

 zation of a provisional volunteer force of 30,000 

 to 35,000 men, and at the close of the Avar in 

 1815 this provisional army was disbanded ; but 

 no permanent modifications were made in the 

 peace establishment till 1821. 



By the act of Congress for the organization 

 of the army in 1821, 7 regiments of infantry, 4 

 of artillery, and a corps each of engineers, top- 

 ographical engineers, and ordnance were estab- 

 lished and provision made for medical, adju- 

 tant-general's, quartermasters', paymasters', and 

 commissary-generals' departments. Irregular 

 mounted rangers, occasionally called into the 

 service, formed the only cavalry force of the 

 army till 1833, when a regiment of dragoons was 

 authorized ; and in 1836 a second was added. 



At the commencement of the Mexican war in 

 May, 1846, the whole number of troops of the 

 line was 7,244. The regular army was increas- 

 ed during the war, by the enlistment, to twenty 

 thousand soldiers, aside from the volunteer 

 troops ; this addition was made to the different 

 arms of the service as follows : 9 infantry regi- 

 ments (one of them a roltigeur regiment, that 

 is, light horsemen) ; a third regiment of dra- 

 goons, and a regiment of mounted riflemen, 

 who, however, served on foot during the war. 

 At the close of the war the third regiment of 

 dragoons and the 9 infantry regiments were 

 discharged, and the only permanent increase of 

 the army was the mounted rifles. 



The grade of lieutenant-general by brevet, 

 which had not existed since the death of Wash- 

 ington, was revived and bestowed on Maj.-Gen. 

 Winfield Scott in 1855. The same year, there 

 were added to the regular army 2 regiments of 

 infantry and 2 of cavalry. 



On the. 1st of January, 1860, the whole 

 number of commissioned officers in the regular 

 army was 1,083 ; of non-commissioned officers, 

 musicians, artificers, and privates, 11,848, form- 

 ing a total of line troops of 12,931. 



In August, 1862, the following was the num- 

 ber of officers of each grade and privates, in 

 the regular army : 



