In respect to all duties within the scope of his supervisory power, and more particularly those duties enumerated in this and the following paragraph, he makes and causes to be made inspections to determine defects which may exist in any matter affecting the efficiency of the Army and its state of preparation for war. He keeps the Secretary of War constantly informed of defects discovered, and under his direction issues the necessary instructions for their correction.

764. Supervisory power is conferred upon the Chief of Staff over all matters arising in the execution of acts of Congress and executive regulations made in pursuance thereof relating to the militia. This supervision is especially directed to matters of organization, armament, equipment, discipline, training, and inspections. Proposed legal enactments and regulations affecting the militia and estimates for appropriations for its support are considered by him, and his recommendations submitted to the Secretary of War.

765. The Chief of Staff is charged with the duty of informing the Secretary of War as to the qualifications of officers as determined by their records, with a view to proper selection for special details, assignments, and promotions, including detail to and relief from the General Staff Corps; also of presenting recommendations for the recognition of special or distinguished services.

766. All orders and instructions emanating from the War Department, and all regulations affecting the Army or the status of officers or enlisted men therein, are issued by the Secretary of War through the Chief of Staff, and are communicated to troops and individuals in the military service through The Adjutant General of the Army.

767. The assignment of officers of the General Staff Corps to stations and duties is made upon the recommendation of the Chief of Staff.

768. In case of absence or disability of the Chief of Staff the senior officer of the General Staff present for duty in Washington shall act as such chief unless otherwise specially directed by the Secretary of War.

769. In the performance of the duties hereinbefore enumerated and in representation of superior authority, the Chief of Staff calls for information, makes investigations, issues instructions, and exercises all other functions necessary to secure proper harmony and efficiency of action upon the part of those placed under his supervision.

THE GENERAL STAFF SERVING WITH TROOPS.

770. The general staff of a command consists of general staff officers of such number and grades as may be assigned to it on the recommendation of the Chief of Staff.

771. The senior general staff officer on duty with a command shall, unless otherwise directed by the War Department, be the chief of staff of the command. Ordinarily he will be so assigned by the War Department.

772. The duties of the chief of staff of a command are as prescribed for officers of the General Staff Corps in paragraphs 754 to 757, and in addition he will, under direction of the commander of the troops, perform all duties analogous to those devolved by paragraphs 762 to 769 upon the Chief of Staff of the Army. The other general staff officers serving with troops are employed under the direction of the commanders thereof upon the duties prescribed for officers of the General Staff Corps, and they shall perform such other duties within the scope of general staff employment as may be directed by such commanders. General staff officers will not be assigned to other than general staff duties except by special authority of the War Department.

773. The two general officers authorized for the General Staff Corps are detailed by the President from officers of the Army at large not below the grade of brigadier general. All vacancies that may occur in the General Staff Corps in grades below that of brigadier general will be filled on the recommendation of a board of five general officers of the line, not more than two of whom shall be members of the General Staff Corps, convened by the War Department at such times as may be necessary. The board will be sworn to recommend officers solely on their professional efficiency, and on their probable aptitude and fitness for general staff service, and will select such number of officers of the proper grades to fill existing or expected vacancies, as the War Department may direct.

ARTICLE LIX.

ADJUTANT GENERAL'S DEPARTMENT.

774. The Adjutant General's Department is the department of records, orders, and correspondence of the Army and the militia.

The Adjutant General is charged, under the direction of the Secretary of War, and subject to the supervision of the Chief of Staff in all matters pertaining to the command, discipline, or administration of the existing military establishment, with the duty of recording, authenticating, and communicating to troops and individuals in the military service all orders, instructions, and regulations issued by the Secretary of War through the Chief of Staff; of preparing and distributing commissions; of compiling and issuing the Army Register and the Army List and Directory; of consolidating the general returns of the Army; of arranging and preserving the reports of officers detailed to visit encampments of militia; of preparing the annual returns of the militia required by law to be submitted to Congress; of managing the recruiting service, and of recording and issuing orders from the War Department remitting or mitigating sentences of general prisoners who have been discharged from the military service.

The Adjutant General is vested by law with the charge, under the Secretary of War, "of the military and hospital records of the volunteer armies and the pension and other business of the War Department connected therewith"; and of the publication and distribution of the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion. He also has charge of the historical records and business of the permanent military establishment, including all pension, pay, bounty, and other business pertaining to or based upon the military or medical histories of former officers or enlisted men.

The archives of The Adjutant General's Office include: All military records of the Revolutionary War; the records of all organizations, officers, and enlisted men that have been in the military service of the United States since the Revolutionary War; the records of the movements and operations of troops; the medical and hospital records of the Army; all reports of physical examination of recruits and all identification cards; the records of the Provost Marshal General's Bureau; the records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands; the Confederate records, including those pertaining to the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the Confederate government.

Upon the muster out or discharge of volunteers or militia from the service of the United States all the records that pertain to them, and that have not already been filed in The Adjutant General's Office, will be transferred to and filed in

that office.

The Adjutant General takes such steps as are necessary to complete or correct the records in his custody, and answers all calls or inquiries that are answerable from those records and that do not require administrative action by other bureaus of the War Department.

ARTICLE LX.

MILITARY CORRESPONDENCE.

775. An official letter should refer to one subject only. Letters of transmittal will be used only when necessary, and when used must refer only to the matter transmitted; none are required with rolls, returns, estimates, requisitions, or periodical reports. Telegrams will be followed by official copies sent by first mail in cases of financial transactions of more than trifling importance and in cases in which chiefs of bureaus of the War Department may deem it necessary themselves to send, or to require officers serving under their immediate control to send to them, such copies.

776. Letters will be written, folded, numbered, briefed, marked, and signed; indorsements will be written, numbered, and signed; and inclosures will be numbered and marked as prescribed in orders from the War Department. Models illustrating the system are furnished from The Adjutant General's Office. 777. The post-office address of an officer's station will be given in his official letters. Indefinite expressions of locality, which do not indicate where the letter was written, will not be used.

778. In order to reduce the possibility of confidential communications falling into the hands of persons other than those for whom they are intended, the sender will inclose them in an inner and an outer cover; the inner cover to be a sealed envelope or wrapper addressed in the usual way, but marked plainly "Confidential" in such manner that the notation may be most readily seen when the outer cover is removed. The package thus prepared will then be inclosed in another sealed envelope or wrapper addressed in the ordinary manner with no notation to indicate the confidential nature of the contents.

The foregoing applies not only to confidential communications entrusted to the mails or to telegraph companies, but also to such communications entrusted to messengers passing between different offices of the same headquarters, inIcluding the bureaus and offices of the War Department.

Government telegraph operators will be held responsible that all telegrams are carefully guarded. No received telegram will ever leave an office except in a sealed envelope, properly addressed. All files will be carefully guarded and access thereto will be denied to all parties except those authorized by law to see the same.

779. Official communications will be signed or authenticated with the pen and not by facsimiles, and if written by order, it will be stated by whose order. Signatures will be plainly and legibly written. By virtue of the commission and assignment to duty, the adjutant general or adjutant of any command transacts the business or correspondence of that command over his own signature; but when orders or instructions of any kind are given, the authority by which he gives the order must be stated. In the absence of a commanding general, his chief of staff, or, if there be none, his adjutant general, in signing the communications to be forwarded to higher authority, will add to his signature the words, In the absence of the commander."

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780. An officer will not be designated in orders nor addressed in official communications by any other title than that of his actual rank.

781. Private correspondence from persons in the military service which they may desire to have forwarded through the dispatch agents of the United States will be addressed, under cover, to the War Department.

782. Except as otherwise specially authorized or required by Army Regulations, all official communications from officers and enlisted men of the Army

outside of the War Department intended for the Secretary of War or for any bureau or office of the War Department will be in writing and addressed to The Adjutant General of the Army, who will submit all business, coming to him from the Army, which requires action in the War Department or by the President and which does not come within the jurisdiction of chiefs of bureaus, to the Chief of Staff, to be acted upon by him in conformity to the rules duly prescribed for that purpose by the President or the Secretary of War.

Correspondence of the War Department with the Army will be through or by The Adjutant General of the Army.

783. Communications, whether from a subordinate to a superior, or vice versa, will pass through intermediate commanders. This rule will not be interpreted as including matters in relation to which intermediate commanders can have no knowledge, and over which they are not expected to exercise control. Chiefs of War Department bureaus are intermediate commanders between higher authority and the officers and enlisted men of their respective corps or departments, who are serving under the exclusive control of themselves and their subordinates. Verbal communications will be governed by the same rules as to channels as written communications. When necessity requires communications to be sent through other than the prescribed channel, the necessity therefor will be stated.

Communications from superiors to subordinates will be answered through the same channel as received.

784. Correspondence between an officer of a staff corps or department and the chief of the War Department bureau in which he is serving, which does not involve questions of administrative responsibility within the supervision of commanding officers outside that staff corps or department nor relate to individual interests or status of a military nature requiring the action of authority outside that staff corps or department, and which is concerned exclusively with the business of that staff corps or department, will pass directly. All business emanating from the bureaus of the War Department requiring the action of higher authority will be submitted to the Chief of Staff for his consideration, either orally in person, or in writing through The Adjutant General of the Army. In all cases the action of higher authority thereon will be communicated in writing by The Adjutant General of the Army to those concerned. Matters, however, of a purely civil nature will be submitted by chiefs of bureaus directly to the Secretary of War unless otherwise required by their subject matter.

785. Except as provided in paragraph 783, all communications, reports, and estimates from officers serving at a military post, and communications of every nature addressed to them relating to affairs of the post, will pass through the post commander.

786. Officers who forward communications will indorse thereon their approval or disapproval, with remarks. No communication will be forwarded to the War Department by a department commander or other superior officer for the action of the Secretary of War without some recommendation or expression of opinion.

787. A commander or chief of bureau may communicate with those under his command or direction through a staff or other suitable officer. With all others he will himself make the communication.

788. Unless otherwise expressly authorized by statute, an application for the official opinion of the Judge Advocate General or of an officer of any Executive Department of the Government other than the War Department will be addressed to The Adjutant General of the Army. Abstract questions will not be presented.

789. Unimportant and trivial communications need not be forwarded to The Adjutant General of the Army simply because addressed to him. Department, brigade, and district commanders should decide whether a communication is of sufficient importance to be forwarded.

790. In official correspondence between officers or between officers and officials of other branches of the public service, and especially in matters involving questions of jurisdiction, conflict of authority, or dispute, officers of the Army are reminded that their correspondence should be courteous in tone and free from any expression partaking of a personal nature or calculated to give offense. Whenever questions of such character shall arise between officers and officials of other branches of the public service, and it is found that they can not be reconciled by an interchange of courteous correspondence, the officer of the Army, as the representative of the interests of the War Department in the matter involved, will make a full presentation of the case to the Secretary of War through the proper military channels, in order that the same may be properly considered.

ARTICLE LXI.

ORDERS.

791. The routine orders of commanders of armies, divisions, brigades, regiments, battalions not organized into regiments, posts, departments, and districts are denominated "general (general court-martial or special) orders" of such army, division, etc., according to character, and are numbered in separate series, each beginning with the calendar year or at the time of the establishlent of the headquarters. Orders issued by commanders of battalions forming parts of regiments, companies, or small detachments are simply denominated "orders," and are numbered in a single series, beginning with the year. Circulars issued from any headquarters are numbered in a separate series.

The orders of commanders of armies, divisions, brigades, regiments, separate battalions, and companies in the field, relating entirely to tactical or strategical operations incident to a state of war, are denominated "field orders" and are numbered in series.

792. General orders publish matters of importance to the whole command which are of permanent interest or are to be constantly observed, such as hours for roll calls and duties, police regulations and prohibitions, laws and regulations for the Army, and eulogies or censures.

793. Special orders are such as concern individuals or relate to matters that need not be made known to the whole command.

794. General orders and all important special orders must be read and approved, before issue, by the officer whose orders they are.

795. An order will state the source from which it emanates, its number, date, place of issue, and the authority under which issued. It may be put in the form of a letter addressed to the individual concerned through the proper channel.

796. Orders for any body of troops will ordinarily be addressed to its commanding officer, the address naming the office and not the individual. They will be executed by the commander present, who will publish them and distribute copies when necessary.

797. Orders eulogizing the conduct of living officers will not be issued except in cases of gallantry in action or performance of especially hazardous service. 798. In the field, verbal and important written orders are carried by officers. Dispatches for distant corps should be intrusted only to officers to whom their contents may be confided.