The infantry and artillery furnish most of the assistant professors at West Point, two-thirds of the officers on topographical duty, all those on ordnance duty, and, with four exceptions, all those attached to the Commissary's and Quartermaster's departments. It is true, the officers serving with those corps might be permanently attached to them, and the regiments be reduced to a corresponding extent; but the measure would be one of transfer merely and not of reduction. The supernumerary officers, however, attached to the army, from the academy, and waiting for vacancies, being no part of the establishment, as authorized by the laws referred to, might be reduced; they now amount to eighty-four, and increase at the rate of about fourteen annually. The cadets at the academy might also be reduced from 250 to 150; the services of the supernumerary officers are not required; and 150 cadets, constantly in the course of education, would be sufficient for all the vacancies of the army in peace, and for those of the engineers, the ordnance, the artillery, and the topographical

Being five officers and forty-five rank and file, or an aggregate of fifty; being ten less than our present companies

In war, a company serves six pieces, with a caisson to each; and, in addition to the number of officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates, to the pieces and caissons, a farrier, a saddler and harness maker, five additional artificers, are required for the company, and two drivers to each piece and each caisson.

The company for war, without allowing for a single casualty, or a single officer for the staff, would then consist of-

Making five officers and one hundred and one rank and file, or an aggregate of one hundred and six; which force is barely sufficient for a company in the field, without allowing for a single casualty, or furnishing a single officer for the staff.

corps in war. The legal authority to appoint and retain either supernumeraries or cadets is extremely doubtful. If the cadets do not make part of the corps of engineers, there is no law in existence to authorize the appointment of more than ten; if they do form part of that corps, they are retained with it by the act of 1821; but as that act limits the officers of the army, and provides for no supernumeraries, there is no legal authority to attach the graduated cadets to the companies as such.

As to the organization which may be considered the more proper or the more efficient for a peace establishment, we should, regardless of European organization, be governed by our own situation, and the circumstances of our own country. The body of the army should be so formed as to admit of the greatest extension on the approach of war, and the staff should be so constituted as to be attached to either the regular force or the militia: this latter is the more necessary, as the militia must, in the event of war, form the greater part of our defensive force.

As but little progress has been made in the fortification and military survey of the country, both corps of engineers should be numerous; they should be as much so in peace as in war; for it is in peace only that scientific surveys can be faithfully made, and that permanent and durable works can be erected. The number of officers in both corps should, then, depend upon the works to be executed, and not upon the number of troops in service. We have more duty for them to perform, though our army is but six thousand strong, than France with her three hundred thousand men.

The ordnance department should be so organized as to require no augmentation in war: its most important labors are performed in peace: it is then that arms must be fabricated, and every munition. prepared, and that depots should be established on all the great avenues leading to the frontiers. The operations of this department were paralyzed by the act of 1821, which merged the corps in the artillery. As its labors have but little relation to the peace establishment, but depend upon the whole military force, regular as well as militia, either in service, or liable to be called into service, in war, it is of the utmost importance to the future defence of the country, perhaps to its security and the preservation of its liberties, that the officers be separated from the body of the army, in order to devote themselves, exclusively, to their own peculiar duties. It is desirable, not only that our whole population be armed, but that the arms be of the best quality, for on their excellence, as well as on the skill of those who use them, depends their effect. So little attention had been paid to this branch of service previously to the late war, that it sometimes happened, out of ten thousand stands of arms taken to the point of distribution, not more than seven or eight hundred could be put into the hands of the troops; and it is a fact, which, so far as I am informed, public men have not yet dared to tell the nation, that, before the close of the war, we were unable to furnish arms to the troops at the various points assailed, and that we could not have armed, properly, a force of forty thousand men, had a campaign been necessary in 1815. Surely, if the lessons of experience be not entirely lost upon us, we

would not again place ourselves in so perilous a situation. Our citizens are all acquainted with the use of fire-arms, and it should be our policy to perfect that knowledge as far as possible; if we could quadruple the effect of our fire, compared with that of the troops of European nations, one of our soldiers would be equal to four of theirs ; the effect might be increased tenfold; but it is to the ordnance, more than to any other department, we must look for this improvement.

The Adjutant General's department requires but few officers. We have an adjutant general to the army, and an adjutant to each regiment. To perfect the organization of that branch of service, an assistant adjutant general should be attached to each geographical department; those officers should be taken from the lieutenant colonels and majors of the line, as a detail might be made from those grades with less inconvenience to the service than from any other.

The inspector's department is one of the most important in the army, but the officers are not sufficiently numerous. Each inspector general should have an assistant, to be taken from the lieutenant colonels and majors of the line. This addition to the department, as well as that to the adjutant general's department, would involve no increase of the officers of the army, but would merely change the duties of four field officers. The inspectors, with this addition to their number, would be able to direct their attention to every department and branch of service, embracing all the fiscal concerns of the army, as well as its discipline and police. The change, though important to the public interests, would cause no additional expense: indeed, the expense might be lessened by dispensing with the inspections now made by the colonels of artillery.

The labors of the Subsistence and Quartermaster's departments depend upon the dispersed situation of the troops, and the number of posts they occupy. Those labors are increased by every movement made, and by every new position taken by the troops. For peace, the organization could not well be improved; and, in the event of war, nothing more would be required for the Subsistence department than a purchasing commissary for each geographical division, and a receiving and distributing commissary for each army; and for the Quartermaster's department, a regimental quartermaster to each regiment, a small number of forage, wagon, and barrack masters, and a corps of artificers. No army, however well appointed in other re⚫spects, could long keep the field in this country without an efficient commissariat; nor could it operate with effect without an able quar

termaster.

The efficiency of those departments is much more essential to success here than in any other country, because the military, having no right to command the civil power, can derive from it no other than voluntary aid, whilst, in other countries, the civil power is made to co-operate with, and is, in some respects, subservient to the military. Even in Great Britain it is made, by law, the duty of every magistrate to facilitate the movement and supply of the troops.

The labors of the Pay department depend more upon the number of troops than those of any other branch of the administrative staff. Those labors, however, are considerably increased by the number of

posts occupied, and their great distance from each other. The organization of the department could not well be improved.

In regard to the body of the army, it may be proper to remark, that if military knowledge be essential in war, it is the true policy, not only of this, but of every free country, to adopt such an organization of the military force as shall, with the smallest numbers, preserve that knowledge in peace, and give it the greatest extension in war, for this is the only means by which a competent defence can be provided for the State, without the expense of supporting a large military establishment in time of peace. To attain this object, with certainty, the true principle of organization is this: present the largest possible base from a given numerical force. Our present establishment, though defective in its organization, approximates this principle. The defect in the organization of the infantry consists in having ten companies, and that of the artillery in having nine companies in place of eight, to a regiment. That is the best organization which admits of the greatest facility in manoeuvring. A regiment of ten companies cannot be manoeuvred, unless two of its companies be thrown out of the line; it may be divided into two divisions of five companies each, but there the division must stop; whilst a regiment, composed of eight companies, is susceptible of division down to sections and files. It may be said the supernumerary companies are to act as light troops; but why have two kind of troops in the same corps? Do we not, in this case, make a distinction without a difference? Are not the officers, as well as the soldiers, formed, armed, and equipped in the same manner, and disciplined according to the same principles? And have they not similar duties to perform? By incorporating light troops into our regiments we have adopted the forms of European service, without regard to the principle which governs there, or to the peculiar circumstances of our own country. In Europe, militia and volunteers are seldom used, and are never relied on; hence, as light troops are required in war, they are necessarily maintained in peace. But in this country, where we are compelled to use large bodies of both, we have always too great a proportion of light troops; all our regular troops should, therefore, be formed and organized for the duties of the line. But if we must so far sacrifice utility to the prejudices of the day, as to have light companies, let them be formed into regiments, have the most convenient organization for manoeuvring, and be so instructed as to take their place in the line, or not, as the interests of the service may require.

To present my ideas the more clearly on the subject of organization, I annex to this report paper marked A, which is a copy of a tabular statement presented by me to one of your predecessors about ten years ago. It exhibits the plan of an organization adapted to a base of six thousand men, with the proposed extension in the event of war. The simple inspection of that paper will give a better idea of the practicability and advantages of the proposed plan, than the most labored report that could be written. With our army organized upon the principles there laid down, we should, on war becoming probable, be able to double our force by doubling the private soldiers of our companies; and should it become inevitable, we have only to add to each

regiment an additional battalion of eight companies, and we convert our peace establishment of six thousand men into a division twentyfour thousand strong, with the certainty of imparting to the whole, in less than two months' time, the discipline and efficiency of veteran troops. With such a foundation, we might prepare for the field, in six months, an army of a hundred thousand men; not mere recruits in uniform, but well instructed soldiers, partaking, in a great degree, of the character and efficiency of the original base of six thousand. To effect this important object, nothing more would be necessary than to establish, in convenient situations, fifteen or twenty depots of instruction throughout the country, and attach to each a well instructed field officer, one or two captains, and three or four subalterns. The instruction at those depots should not be confined to the regular army alone, but might be extended to all the militia officers, and to all the volunteer companies in the country. There are those, I am aware, who, in opposition to the facts of history, and the convictions of experience, deny the necessity of previous instruction and of practical military knowledge to the military commander: with such gentlemen it would be useless to reason; but it is proper to remark of them, that their own practice, in the most ordinary concerns of life, is in direct opposition to the principles they profess, and the opinions they hold ; for, whilst they declaim against the necessity of professional knowledge and experience in those to whom the important duty of defending the country is confided, they require both, even in the laborers and domestics whom they employ. Not one of them would engage a carpenter to make his coat, or a tailor to build his house; and he would think the man insane who would ask a lawyer to set a broken limb, or a physician to conduct a suit at law; and yet there would be as much propriety in either, as to expect a farmer, a merchant, a lawyer, or any other citizen, without previous study, careful preparation, and experience in the practice of service, to become an able and accomplished officer.

Without referring to other countries, we have only to turn over the pages of our own history, to be satisfied of the deplorable consequences resulting from a want of timely preparation, as well in the personnel as the materiel of the army. We had, previously to the late war, submitted to outrages upon our commerce and our citizens, until forbearance had ceased to be a virtue. The voice of the whole country was for war, and we plunged into it without a proper organization of the army, or any of those preparations which it was our duty to make, and which an ordinary degree of foresight must have demonstrated to be necessary; and having committed the blunder, we neglected the only means by which the disastrous results of our measures could have been averted. In place of calling forth the intelligent and well instructed officers of the old corps, and employing them where their talents and acquirements would have been useful to the country, the higher ranks of the army were, for the most part, filled by men, selected rather for their political influence than their military fitness. The consequence was, we had no discipline or subordination in our corps, no accountability in the administrative departments, no well digested plan of operations, no combination or concert in the move