t a
legitimate head should pass into the anarchy which these men were
shaping for the whole country.

I invite your attention to the army regulations of 1847, when our
best soldiers lived, among whom was your own father, and see
paragraphs 48 and 49, page 8, and they are so important that I
quote them entire:

"48. The military establishment is placed under the orders of the
major-general commanding in chief in all that regards its
discipline and military control. Its fiscal arrangements properly
belong to the administrative departments of the staff and to the
Treasury Department under the direction of the Secretary of War.

"49. The general of the army will watch over the economy of the
service in all that relates to the expenditure of money, supply of
arms, ordnance and ordnance stores, clothing, equipments,
camp-equipage, medical and hospital stores, barracks, quarters,
transportation, Military Academy, pay, and subsistence: in short,
everything which enters into the expenses of the military
establishment, whether personal or material. He will also see that
the estimates for the military service are based on proper data,
and made for the objects contemplated by law, and necessary to the
due support and useful employment of the army. In carrying into
effect these important duties, he will call to his counsel and
assistance the staff, and those officers proper, in his opinion, to
be employed in verifying and inspecting all the objects which may
require attention. The rules and regulations established for the
government of the army, and the laws relating to the military
establishment, are the guides to the commanding general in the
performance of his duties."

Why was this, or why was all mention of any field of duty for the
head of the army left out of the army regulations? Simply because
Jefferson Davis had a purpose, and absorbed to himself, as
Secretary of War, as General Grant well says, all the powers of
commander-in-chief. Floyd succeeded him, and the last regulations
of 1863 were but a new compilation of their orders, hastily
collected and published to supply a vast army with a new edition.

I contend that all parts of these regulations inconsistent with the
law of July 28, 1866, are repealed.

I surely do not ask for any power myself, but I hope and trust, now
when we have a military President and a military Secretary of War,
that in the new regulations to be laid before Congress next session