The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-04-14

, |
 General Miles troubles with the war
 department render very instructive at
 this time the following remarks by
 General Sehofeld, the predecessor of
 General Miles in command' of the
 army. The statement may be found,
 beginning on page 463, in General Scho-
 fields book, "Forty-six Years in the
 Army"
 It IS not my purpose to go into the
 history of that long controversy, but
 only to state briefly it's final result part
 ot which was perhaps due to General
 Sheridan's extreme illness for some
 time before his death, and his retention
 in nominal command and in the nomi- nal administration of military justice
 long after it had become impossible for
 him to discharge such duties intelligent
 ly. But that result had been practical ly reached a long time before General 1 sheridan became seriously i'll. He had | long ceased, as General Sherman and General Scott had before him, not only
 to command, but to exercise any appre- l c1able influence in respect to either the | command or the administration. The
 only difference was that General Scott went to New York and General Sher- man to St Louis, while General Sheri- l dan stayed in Washington.
 l l have always understood, but do not
 know the fact, that in former times the l secretary of war had exercised some in- | teligent control over military affairs, ! so that there was at least unity in the l exercise of military authority. But in
 1888 even that had ceased, and it had | been boldly announced some time be- 1 fore that each department chief of staff l in his own sphere, was clothed with all the authority of the secretary of war. All that a major-general as well as an officer of lower grade had to do was to execute such orders as he might receive from the brigaders at the head of the several bureaus in Washington It was not even necessary for those nigh ty chiefs to say that their mandates had the sanction of any higher authori- ty. Their own fiat was all-sufficient for
 mere soldner of the line or for his commanding general, of whatever
 grade of rank or of command. It is not
 strange that the secretary was finally
 unable to admit that he, great lawyer
 as he was, could possibly have given
 his sanction to such an interpretation of
 the law as that; but the decision was
 given by his order, anG it governed the
 army for a long time.
 Of course the adjutantge general be-
 came by far the chiefest of those many chiefs; for it is his function to issue to the army all the orders of both the sec retary of war and the commanding gen eral Be it said to his credit that he did not assume to issue any orders in his own name, after the manner of the other chiefs. Like a sensible man, he was content with the actual exercise of power, without caring to let the army know that he did it. He had only to use the name of the secretary or the general, as he pleased, either would an- swer with the army. Of course I knew something of this before 1 went to Washington, for the evidence of it was ! sometimes too plain to be ignored
 Yet it did seem to me passing | strange to sit in my office about noon, where l had been all the day before, | and learn from the New York papers what orders I had issued on that previ- | ous day! Upon inquiry I was told that | that was only matter of routine, and a rule of long standing. But l mildly | indicated that such practice did not meet my approval, and that 1 wished it which was finally done, as ex- plained in a previous chapter. But even then I had no means of knowing whether an order sent to me in the name of the secretary of war had ever been seen by him, or whether it was the work of the adjutant general or the product of some joint operation of two or more of the several chiefs, each of whom had the secretary's authority to do such things At length the secreta- ry, though with evidently serious mis- givings respecting some deep ulterior purpose of mine, consented that I might have an officer of the adjutant gene '' Pars department, whom I knew, in my own office, to keep me informed of what was to do, and, if possible what or lers I might actually receive from the himself, and what from the several other heads of that hydra called he war department
 General Sheridan had entered upon lis duties with all the solderly courage md confidence of his nature, declaring lis purpose to regain the ground lost by General Sherman when, to use Sheri- lan's own expressive words, sherman hrew up the sponge" He announced lis interpolation of the presidents or Ter assigning him to the command of l he army" as necessarily including all l he army, not excepting the chiefs of ( he staff departments and he soon gave of his faith by ordering one of [ hese chiefs on an inspecting tour, or I omething of that kind, without the t of the secretary of war. S 'hus the secretary found the chief of I ne of the bureaus of his department | one without his authority, he knew not ! where. It was not difficult for the sec ] etary to point out to the general, as he V id in writing, in a firm, though kind | nd confidential way, that such could ot possibly be the true meaning of the a residents order No attempt appears | 0 have been made to discuss the sub e ect further, or to find any ground Il road enough for both secretary and I eneral to stand upon. Nothing fur K her appears to have been said or done S n that subject during that administra- e ion. But upon the inauguration of the