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303 also changed to deal with the introduction of conscription and the employment of significant numbers of colored soldiers as well as the management of refugees. Thus no element of the Regular Army escaped the need to transform its organization and procedures to deal with the new realities of war. And then, just as suddenly and profoundly , the Army in mid-1865 returned to a peacetime basis, albeit one in which nearly everything was quite different from the situation that pertained before April 1861. To the traditional functions of protecting the nation from external attack and the suppression of internal disorder, particularly that arising from the increased encroachment of white settlers on the traditional lands of the Indian tribes of the West, were added new functions such as the occupation and control of the states previously in rebellion, the need to keep close watch on our border with evertumultuous Mexico, care for former slaves and refugees as well as those soldiers disabled in the war, and renewed emphasis on exploration , development, and scientific research plus the assimilation of the additional territory gained through the purchase of Alaska in 1867. Thus within barely five years, the U.S. Army experienced not one but two major transformations, either of which might have befuddled a less flexible and less talented organization. Nor did the pace of political , economic, social, and technological change abate after 1865; rather, it continued During four years of civil war, the Regular Army of the United States underwent a profound transformation. Its combat elements more than doubled in size and accommodated their organization and tactics to the new realities of the battlefield just then emerging . New weapons and equipment were introduced , and new functions were performed, notably those related to combat engineering and communications. At the same time, the tasks performed by the Army’s staff departments became more diverse and more complex by virtue of the need to manage the mobilization , organization, equipping, support, and eventual demobilization of an enormous Volunteer army bigger than any seen before on the North American continent. The methods by which the Army was administered and supplied were reorganized and improved to deal with a force some twenty-seven times the size of the prewar Regular Army, and the staff departments assumed new functions to accommodate the rapidly changing technology of war. The movement of large forces by sea, river, and rail and their support over long distances became the norm rather than the exception. The use of the telegraph to transmit orders and reports became common, and procedures were developed for the evaluation and testing of new weapons. The increased destructiveness of new weapons and tactics forced profound changes in the way in which medical evacuation and treatment were carried out. The administrative departments Reflections on the Regular Army in the Civil War 304 Reflections and the rights of all citizens were upheld. Other new missions fell primarily on the staff departments . Among them were the establishment and operation of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, the care of veterans, the settlement of wartime claims, and the compilation of official records of the war. Some of the missions would soon be completed , but others would linger on. In view of the expanded missions assigned to the post–Civil War Army, Congress recognized the need for a Regular Army substantially larger than that which had existed in April 1861. Accordingly, in the Army Organization Act of July 28, 1866, Congress authorized an increase to 54,851 officers and men and prescribed new organizations for both the staff departments and the line regiments. The resulting structure is shown in figure 3. In a little more than five years, the Army had undergone two dramatic and far-reaching transformations. During the first one, it had grown rapidly from a small static force of less than 17,000 men in widely scattered garrisons with limited capabilities and missions to a highly mobile field army of over a million men. During the Civil War, large formations engaged in complex active operations on a continental scale involving the interaction of the various arms and intricate support arrangements by the administrative and supply departments. After the war, the second transformation saw it reduced from an army of more than a million soldiers to a constabulary force of less than 55,000 men stationed once again in small numbers across the South and the western frontier. Although there were many slips along the way, the Regular Army emerged...

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