Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864. Various
p>Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 / Devoted to Literature and National Policy
AN ARMY: ITS ORGANIZATION AND MOVEMENTS
SECOND PAPER
Having, in the preceding paper, described the general organization1 of an army, we proceed to give a succinct account of some of the principal staff departments, in their relations to the troops.
Army organization—notwithstanding the world has always been engaged in military enterprises—is of comparatively recent institution. Many of the principles of existing military systems date no farther back than to Frederic the Great, of Prussia, and many were originated by Napoleon. Staff departments, particularly, as now constituted, are of late origin. The staff organization is undergoing constant changes. Its most improved form is to be found in France and Prussia. Our own staff system is of a composite, and, in some respects, heterogeneous character—not having been, constructed on any regular plan, but built up by gradual accretions and imitations of European features, from the time of our Revolution till the present. It has, however, worked with great vigor and efficiency.
The staff of any commander is usually spoken of in two classes—the departmental and the personal—the latter including the aides-de-camp, who pertain more particularly to the person of the commander, while the former belong to the organization. Of the departmental staff, the assistant adjutant-generals and assistant inspector-generals are denominated the 'general staff,' because their functions extend through all branches of the organization, while the other officers are confined exclusively to their own departments.
The chief of staff is a recent French imitation. The first officer assigned in that capacity was General Marcy, on the staff of General McClellan, in the fall of 1861. Previous to that time the officers of the adjutant-general's department—on account of their intimate relations with commanding officers, as their official organs and the mediums through which all orders were transmitted—had occupied it. The duties of these officers, however, being chiefly of a bureau character, allowing them little opportunity for active external supervision, it has been deemed necessary to select for heads of the staffs, officers particularly qualified to assist the commander in devising strategical plans, organizing, and moving troops, etc.; competent to oversee and direct the proceedings of the various staff departments; untrammelled with any exclusive routine of duty, and able in any emergency, when the commander may be absent, to give necessary orders. For these reasons, although the innovation has not been sanctioned by any law, or any standing rule of the War Department, and although its propriety is discussed by many, the custom of assigning officers as chiefs of staff has become universal, and will probably be permanent. The extent and character of their duties depend, however, upon themselves, being regulated by no orders, and the high responsibilities attached to the position in France have not thus far been assumed by the officers occupying it here. In the French service, the chief of staff is the actual as well as the nominal head of the organization; he supervises all its operations; he is the alter ego of the commander. In the Waterloo campaign, for instance, Marshal Soult was the chief of Napoleon's staff, and the emperor attributed his disaster, in part, to some of the orders issued by the marshal.
Our limits will not permit a description of the duties pertaining to the various members of the staff, but we pass to the consideration of those departments, the operations of which most directly affect the soldier, are indispensable to every army, and are most interesting to the public.
Let us first consider the quartermaster's department, which, from the character and diversity of its duties, the amount of its expenditures, and its influence upon military operations, may be ranked as among the most important. This department provides clothing, camp and garrison equipage, animals and transportation of all kinds, fuel, forage, straw, and stationery, an immense variety of the miscellaneous materials required by an army, and for a vast amount of miscellaneous expenditures. It is, in fact, the great business operator of a military organization. In an active army, the success of movements depends very much on its efficiency. Unless the troops are kept properly clothed, the animals and means of transportation maintained in good condition, and the immense trains moved with regularity and promptness, the best contrived plans will fail in their development and execution.
The department, at the commencement of the war, had supplies in store only for the current uses of the regular army. When the volunteer forces were organized it became necessary to make hasty contracts and purchases to a large amount; but as even the best-informed members of the Government had no adequate prevision of the extent and duration of the war, and of the necessary arrangements for its demands, a considerable period elapsed before a sufficient quantity of the required materials could be accumulated. Those were the days of 'shoddy' cloth and spavined horses. The department, however, exhibited great administrative energy, under the direction of its able head, General M. C. Meigs, and has amply provided for the enormous demands upon it.
Depots for the reception of supplies are established in the large cities, whence they are transferred as required to the great issuing depots near the active armies, and from them to the depots in the field. Thus, the main depots of the Army of the Potomac are at Washington and Alexandria—a field depot being established at its centre, when lying for any length of time in camp. Only current supplies are kept on hand at the latter, and no surplus is transported on the march, except the required amounts of subsistence and forage.
A great deal is said in connection with military movements, of 'bases of operation.' These are the points in the rear of an army from which it receives supplies and reënforcements, and with which its communications must at all hazards be kept open, except it has means of transportation sufficient to render it independent of its depots for a considerable period, or unless the country traversed is able to afford subsistence for men and animals. When an army marches along a navigable river, its secondary base becomes movable, and it is less confined to the necessity of protecting its rear. In Virginia, however, the connection of the Army of the Potomac with Washington is imperative, and this fact explains the contracted sphere of the operations of that army.
The transportation of supplies is limited by the ability of the Government to provide trains, and by the ability of the army to protect them; for large trains create large drafts on the troops for teamsters, pioneers, guards, etc. An army train, upon the most limited allowance compatible with freedom of operations for a few days, away from the depots, is an immense affair. Under the existing allowances in the Army of the Potomac, a corps of thirty thousand infantry has about seven hundred wagons, drawn by four thousand two hundred mules; the horses of officers and of the artillery will bring the number of animals to be provided for up to about seven thousand. On the march it is calculated that each wagon will occupy about eighty feet—in bad roads much more; consequently a train of seven hundred wagons will cover fifty-six thousand feet of road—or over ten miles; the ambulances of a corps will occupy about a mile, and the batteries about three miles; thirty thousand troops need six miles to march in, if they form but one column; the total length of the marching column of a corps is therefore twenty miles, even without including the cattle herds and trains of bridge material. Readers who have been accustomed to think that our armies have not exhibited sufficient energy in surmounting the obstacles of bad roads, unbridged streams, etc., will be able to estimate, upon the above statements, the immense difficulty of moving trains and artillery. The trains of an army have been properly denominated its impedimenta, and their movement and protection is one of the most difficult incidental operations of warfare—particularly in a country like Virginia, where the art of road making has attained no high degree of perfection, and where the forests swarm with guerillas.
To an unaccustomed observer the concourse of the trains of an army, in connection with any rapid movement, would give the idea of inextricable confusion. It is of course necessary to move them upon as many different roads as possible, but it will frequently happen that they must be concentrated in a small space, and move in a small number of columns. During the celebrated 'change of base' from Richmond to Harrison's Landing, the trains were at first obliged to move upon only one road—across White Oak Swamp—which happened fortunately to be wide enough for three wagons to go abreast. There were perhaps twenty-five hundred vehicles, which would make a continuous line of some forty or fifty miles. While the slow and toilsome course of this cumbrous column was
Since that article was written, some changes of detail have been made, but the principles remain the same.