the infantry. All the provisions of the act declare of
what number of officers and men the several corps provided for by it
should thenceforward consist, and not that any corps as then existing
or any officer of any corps, unless the topographical engineers were
excepted, should be retained. Had it been intended to reduce the
officers by corps, or to exempt the officers of any corps from the
operation of the law, or in the organization of the several new corps
to confine the selection of the officers to be placed in them to the
several corps of the like kind then existing, and not extend it to the
whole military establishment, including the staff, or to confine the
reduction to a proportional number of each corps and of each grade
in each corps, the object in either instance might have been easily
accomplished by a declaration to that effect. No such declaration was
made, nor can such intention be inferred. We see, on the contrary, that
every corps of the Army and staff was to be reorganized, and most of
them reduced in officers and men, and that in arranging the officers
from the old to the new corps full power was granted to the President
to take them from any and every corps of the former establishment and
place them in the latter. In this latter grant of power it is proper
to observe that the most comprehensive terms that could be adopted were
used, the authority being to cause the arrangement to be made from the
officers of the several _corps_ then in the service of the United
States, comprising, of course, every corps of the staff, as well as of
artillery and infantry, and not from the _corps of troops_, as in the
former act, and without any limitation as to grades.

It merits particular attention that although the object of this
latter act was reduction and such its effect on an extensive scale,
5 new offices were created by it--4 of the grade of colonel for the
4 regiments of artillery and that of Adjutant-General for the Army. Three
of the first mentioned were altogether new, the corps having been newly
created, and although 1 officer of that grade as applicable to the corps
of light artillery had existed, yet as that regiment was reduced and
all its parts reorganized in another form and with other duties, being
incorporated into the 4 new regiments, the commander was manifestly
displaced and incapable of taking the command of either of the new
regiments or any station in them until he should be authorized to do