ARMY ADMINISTRATION. The ad ministrative branch of the government, known as the War Department, and presided over by the Secretary of War, is second to none in real importance. Much of the business carried on by the Secretary of War has little or no con nection with the military arm of the govern ment, but by a process of accumulation of statutes and authorities, resulting often from the expediency of the moment, the present vast dimensions have been reached. The methods of conduct of business remain practically the same to-day as in the War of 1812, except that through a long course of years, there has grown up a system of laws and regulations fixing in great detail the complex duties of the various bureaus.
Ordinarily army administration consists in the organization and other means by which various administrative duties are performed, necessary to provide for the wants of troops, and for all the foreseen demands of a state of war, including labor and the supplies for garri sons, sieges, etc. Such duties embrace sub sistence-magazines, daily rations, forage, dress, encampments, barracks, hospitals, transporta tion, etc., the administrative duties of engineers and of the ordnance department, estimates, ac countability, payments, recruiting and in gen eral the receipt and proper application of money. The Secretary of War, under the orders of the President, is the head of military administra tion in the United States. The object of such administration is to provide, through the re sources placed by law at his disposition, for the constant wants, regular or accidental, of all who compose the army. Good administration
embraces a foreknowledge of wants as well as the creation, operation and watchfulness of the ways and means necessary to satisfy them; the payment of expenses, and the settlement of ac counts. Army administration is divided into several branches determined by law. These different branches constitute the administrative service of an army, the operations of which should be so regulated that the Secretary of War will be always informed of the condition of each, and be able to exercise, subordinate to law, a complete financial control over each. The Adjutant-General of the army and the heads of the administrative corps have each been assigned a bureau in the War Department, under the direction of the Secretary of War, for the management of the administrative duties with which they have been respectively charged. Administration and Command are distinct. Ad ministration is controlled by the head of an executive department of the government, under the orders of the President, by means of legally appointed administrative agents, with or with out rank; while Command, or the discipline, military control and direction of military service of officers and soldiers, can he legally exercised only by the military hierarchy, at the head of which is the constitutional commander-in-chief of the army, navy and militia, followed by the commander of the army, and other military grades.