In regard to our military organization, I respectfully recommend an increase of the Inspector-General's Department, and that it be merged in the Adjutant-General's Department.

The grades of commanders of armies and of army corps should be made to correspond to their actual commands. The creation of such grades need not cause any additional expense to Government, as the pay and emoluments of generals and lieutenant-generals could be made the same as now allowed to major-generals commanding divisions.

I also respectfully call attention to our artillery organization. In the Fifth Regiment of U. S. Artillery each battery is allowed one captain, four lieutenants, eight sergeants, and twelve corporals; and all of these, together with the privates, receive cavalry pay and allowances. In the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Regiments of U. S. Artillery, a battery is allowed one captain, three lieutenants, four sergeants, and four corporals, and, with the exception of two batteries to each regiment, for which special allowance was made by laws enacted on March 2, 1821, and March 3, 1847, all of these receive the pay and allowances of infantry; yet they are all, with the exception of four or five companies, performing precisely similar duties.

A field battery of six guns absolutely requires all the officers and non-commissioned officers allowed in the Fifth Artillery, and the additional responsibility of the officers and labor of both officers and enlisted men render necessary the additional pay and allowances accorded by law to those grades in that regiment.

A simple remedy for these evils is the enactment of a law giving the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Regiments of U. S. Artillery the same organization and same rates of pay as the Fifth Regiment; which, it may be added, is also the same as that already given to all the volunteer field batteries now in the U. S. service.

A similar discrepancy excised in the cavalry regiments till an act passed by the last Congress placed them all upon the same basis of organization and pay.

The act authorizing the President to call out additional volunteers, or drafted militia, limits the call to the cavalry, artillery, and infantry arms, and makes no provision for organizing volunteer engineer regiments. This was, unquestionably, a mere verbal omission in the law, and should be supplied, as it creates serious embarrassments in the organization of armies in the field. The generals commanding these armies complain in strong terms of the deficiency of engineer troops for the repair of railroads, the construction of pontoon bridges, and carrying on the operations of a siege, and urge that the evil be promptly remedied.

The waste and destruction of cavalry horses in our service has proved an evil of such magnitude as to require some immediate and efficient remedy. In the Army of the Potomac there are thirty-six regiments of cavalry, averaging for the last six months from 10,000 to 14,000 men present for duty. The issues of cavalry horses to this army for the same period have been as follows.

May .................................................... 5,673

June ................................................... 6,327

July ................................................... 4,716

August ................................................. 5,499

September .............................................. 5,827

October ................................................ 7,036

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Total .................................................. 35,078

66 R R - SERIES III, VOL III