Board of Ordnance

“ Within the infantry and field artillery regiments, men from the combat arms were to handle all communications. The new division abandoned the train headquarters and military police organization, following the recommendation of the Superior Board, but retained a separate military police company. Given the many small separate companies in its structure (division headquarters, signal, tank, service, ordnance, and military police) , the division included a new organization, headquarters, special troops, to handle their administration and discipline. ”

“ And be it further enacted, That the ordnance department shall be merged in the artillery; and that the President of the United States be, and he is hereby, authorized to select, from the regiments of artillery, such officers as may be necessary to perform ordnance duties, who, 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 Department; and that the number of enlisted men in the ordnance department be reduced to fifty-six. ”

“ There are no acting ordnance officers on duty in the field, and I learn on inquiry that the persons so designated are in reality merely employees of the Ordnance Bureau for the performance of ordnance duties in the field in the absence of legislation authorizing the appointment of officers. ”

“ The Ordnance Bureau, at the head of which is the chief of ordnance, has charge of all matters relating to the manufacture, purchase, storage, and issue of all ordnance, arms, and munitions of war. The management of the arsenals and armories is conducted under its orders.
The present building, still used for the War Department, is utterly inadequate to its necessities. Already its Bureaus are scattered in several transient resting-places. In a few years they will be again concentrated in the magnificent structure now going up, for the combined use of the State, War and Navy Departments. ”

“ Departments, Posts, Regiments, Brigades, Divisions, Corps, Field Armies, and Armies follow the same scheme as above for their Special Orders.
CIRCULARS are issued seldom but have great force. They are signed directly by the heads of the War Department, Quartermaster Corps, Ordnance Department or of whatever bureau prints the circular. ”

“ In most we must attribute the blame to the cumbrous and inefficient machinery of the Military Board, in whose province lies the supervision of the magazines; but the Board, composed of many members, becomes a screen for individual responsibility, and this must always be the case until each member is vested with the sole control of the details of his own department, subject only to a discussion in the Board of the general question, that each may have the benefit of his colleagues’ opinions, and be made aware of what is going on in other departments, that all may work in concert. ”

“ The "Special Report" of December 31st, No. 2, shows that 800 men must be added to our force of mechanics at the armories; and Report No. 3 shows that about 3,691 men liable to military duty, and about 2,245 slaves, are required for the whole operations of the Bureau. These are minimum figures. If these men and slaves can be permanently attached to this Bureau, and an adequate force be attached in the same manner to the Nitre and Mining Bureau, I will answer for the supply of ordnance and ordnance stores to the army. ”

“ With us, to-day, the law and regulations are that, no matter what may be the emergency, the commanding general in Texas, New Mexico, and the remote frontiers, cannot draw from the arsenals a pistol-cartridge, or any sort of ordnance-stores, without first procuring an order of the Secretary of War in Washington. The commanding general--though intrusted with the lives of his soldiers and with the safety of a frontier in a condition of chronic war--cannot touch or be trusted with ordnance-stores or property, and that is declared to be the law! ”

“ The chiefs of these bureaus are under the immediate orders of the Secretary of War, who, through them, in fact commands the army from "his office," but cannot do so "in the field"--an absurdity in military if not civil law. ”

“ When any forces are raised, they shall be under the command of the executive authority of the state in which they are so raised, unless they be joined by troops from any other state, in which the Congress, or grand council of the states, may appoint a general officer to take the command of the whole ”

“ All these boards are hung side by side, and there is an unwritten law that should a man be reading or looking at one board, the sergeant representing another branch of the service, or another regiment, is not permitted to speak to him until he has passed on. As soon as he has left the board, any of the recruiting officers is at liberty to speak to him. ”

“ That the permanent Line of the Regular Army shall consist of one company for each district represented in the lower House of Congress, and one company for each Senator in the upper House, to be organized into regiments and corps as nearly as practicable as now authorized by law. ”

“ The selectee may still be rejected at the induction center and the conscientious objector who is opposed to noncombatant duty may be rejected at the civilian public service camp. The connected series of steps into the national service which begins with registration with the local board does not end until the registrant is accepted by the army, navy or civilian public service camp. Thus a board order to report is no more than a necessary intermediate step in a united and continuous process designed to raise an army speedily and efficiently.' 320 U.S. at page 553, 64 S.Ct. ”

“ The law constituted the general-in-chief commanding the army and seven other general officers a board of commissioners with the necessary powers for carrying out the purposes of the act, and provided for the detail of officers from the army for the position of governor, deputy governor, and secretary and treasurer, for each site which should be established. ”

“ The various boards provided for each certainly had jurisdiction over the person of the relator as an army officer and over the subject of inquiry, under the terms of the act of Congress, and also because the right dealt with was distinctly military in its nature, affecting the status in the army of a soldier, and it is entirely clear that the boards which acted on his case did not exceed the powers conferred upon them. ”

“ It seems that one faction of the Legislature occupied the temporary State-House; another had its headquarters over a prominent bar-room in Royal Street; and a large concourse of citizens had organized with military formalities and the avowed intention of dislodging the factional Legislature from the house; installing a Governor of their own choice; and subduing the police force of the city, now enrolled as a uniformed and fully-equipped battalion of infantry, with a battery of field-guns and a squadron of cavalry as assistants. ”

“ Mr. Clode [75] says that after the first Cabinet of Lord Palmerston as Premier, early in 1855, the Secretary-at-War 'brought home half a sheet of paper, containing a memorandum that the Ordnance Department was to be abolished.'
It is hardly a matter of wonder that this sudden concentration of the military departments in a new War Office, under a parliamentary chief, and in the midst of a great war, should have led to some confusion, which continued for several years. Soon after Mr. ”

“ The new law replaced the old territorial departments with corps areas, which assumed the tasks of administering and training the Army. Each corps area was to have at least one National Guard or Organized Reserve division. Corps areas were to be combined into army areas for inspection, mobilization, maneuver, and demobilization. Rather than mandating the structure of regiments as in the past, Congress authorized the number of officers and enlisted men for each arm and service and instructed the president to organize the units. ”

“ One committee, originally charged with defining the missions of the National Guard and the Organized Reserves, widened its task to encompass the Regular Army. The committee delineated four missions for the regulars: form an expeditionary force in an emergency; furnish troops for foreign and coastal defense garrisons; provide personnel to develop and train the reserve components; and supply the administrative overhead of the Army. ”

“ Every detachment not conducted by a commissioned officer, shall have written permission from a field officer, or officer commanding a regiment, or the officer of the police if it be a detachment going for necessaries ”

“ The commanding officers of regiments must enforce the orders of the army, regarding the constant inspection and superintendance of the officers over the conduct of the men of their companies in their cantonments, and they must endeavour to inspire the non-commissioned officers with a sense of their situation and authority, and the non-commissioned officers must be forced to do their duty, by being constantly under the view and superintendance of the officers. ”

“ Of course the commissioning of officers in the Army lies entirely within the President's discretion and is not subject to judicial control. Although there can be no doubt about that, it does not follow that Congress is precluded from drafting a special group into the Army on condition that they will be commissioned. Receiving a commission is clearly not a matter of right; but granting it may be a condition for retaining a person in the Army. The commissioning of officers in the Army is, no doubt, a matter of discretion within the province of the President as Commander in Chief. ”

“ Commanders of army corps, divisions, brigades, and detached commands will proceed immediately to arrest all disloyal male citizens within their lines, or within their reach in the rear of their respective stations. ”

“ Court martials for Companies, Regiments, Brigades, etc., shall be called by the chief officer of each command, on complaint to him by any officer, or any five privates, in such command, and shall consist of not less than five nor more than nine officers, and privates, one-half of whom shall not be lower in rank than the person on trial, to be chosen by the three highest officers in the command, which officers shall not be a part of such court. The chief officer of any command shall, of course be tried by a court-martial of the command above his own. ”

“ Indeed, it seems to be conceded on the other side that if the Provost Court had been established by the executive under an order issuing directly from him, no question could now exist as to its validity. But surely a general in the command of a department, in the exercise of war powers, must in the absence of evidence to the contrary, be presumed to act in accordance with the views and under the sanction and authority of the commander in chief. ”

“ But if, as is admitted, the commanding officer, in the plenitude of military power, was authorized to make the order within his department, all human beings included in the proclamation thereby acquired a vested title to their freedom, of which neither Congress nor President could dispossess them. ”

“ Every officer commanding a regiment or corps shall, subject to the provisions of article eighty, be competent to appoint, for his own regiment or corps, courts-martial, consisting of three officers, to try offenses not capital.
Art. 82. Every officer commanding a garrison, fort, or other place, where the troops consist of different corps, shall, subject to the provisions of article eighty, be competent to appoint, for such garrison or other place, courts-martial, consisting of three officers, to try offenses not capital. ”

“ And it shall be the special duty of the Secretary of War to keep for constant reference of the Commander-in-Chief a full list of names of persons nominated for office, or elevation, by officers of the army, with the name and rank of the officer nominating, stating distinctly but briefly the grounds for such notice or nomination. The Commander-in-Chief shall not have power to remove or punish any officer or soldier; but he may order their arrest and trial at any time, by court-martial. ”

“ To station an officer of the army in a military district without troops corresponding to his rank, for the purpose of taking command of the militia that may be called into service, is a manifest evasion of that provision of the Constitution which expressly reserves to the States the appointment of the officers of the militia ”

“ The Convention are sorry to observe that by conferring a commission upon Colonel Warner, with authority to name the officers of a regiment to be raised independently of the Legislature of this State, and within that part of it which hath lately declared itself independent, Congress hath given too much weight to the insinuations of those who pretend that your honorable body are determined to support those insurgents ”

“ When land forces are raised by any state for the common defence, all officers of or under the rank of colonel shall be appointed by the legislature of each state, respectively, by whom such forces shall be raised, or in such manner as such state shall direct ”

“ When there is a disagreement between the Secretaries of two military departments or between the Secretary of a military department and the commander of a unified or specified combatant command or other joint command or joint task force as to which organization should exercise jurisdiction over a particular case or class of cases, the Secretary of Defense or an official acting under the authority of the Secretary of Defense shall designate which organization will exercise jurisdiction. ”