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teen Regular officers. Over the course of the war, that authorization increased to twenty Regular officers augmented by a substantial number of Volunteers and officers detailed from the line. Although few in number, the officers of the agd coped successfully with the greatly increased size of the Army and an expanded list of responsibilities. Mission and Functions If the president, secretary of war, and general in chief were the collective brain of the Army, the ago was its nervous system, transmitting instructions to the various limbs and organs and receiving from them in return reports on condition and functioning that permitted the brain to make further decisions. In fact, the responsibilities of the ag were many and varied , and as the Civil War went on, new functions were added and old ones were taken away. The principal functions of the agd were the receipt of reports and correspondence from the Army and the preparation and dispatch of correspondence and orders. Among the many other functions listed in the ag’s annual report for 1862 were the maintenance of muster rolls, the preparation of returns showing the condition of Army units, the maintenance of files concerning enlistments and discharges of enlisted personnel and the commissions, resignations , and dismissal of officers, the maintenance of records of casualties, the preparation and distribution of books of instruction and blank forms other than those related to In April 1861 the administration of the U.S. Army was entrusted to the heads of three departments —the adjutant general, the inspector general, and the paymaster general—and one senior staff officer, the judge advocate. All of the administrative bureaus were small, the largest being the Pay Department with twenty -eight officers. The increased scale and scope of the Civil War necessitated the creation of several new, but temporary, staff organizations to handle special functions. Only two rose to the level of a full-fledged staff department : the Provost Marshal General’s Bureau and the Bureau of Freedmen, Refugees, and Abandoned Lands. The administrative departments were essential to the proper organization and functioning of the Union Army, and each remained in the hands of seasoned Regular officers throughout the war. Adjutant General’s Department The adjutant general (ag) was the Army’s senior staff officer, and the Adjutant General’s Office (ago) was the conduit through which the president, secretary of war, and general in chief received information on the state of the Army and issued their orders and instructions to the staff departments and commanders in the field.1 The ago was also responsible for recruiting , personnel actions, the maintenance of records, and the preparation of Army Regulations , orders, and other publications. When the Civil War began, the Adjutant General’s Department (agd) was authorized just four85 The Administrative Departments 86 The Staff Departments Davis.3 On March 7, 1861, Cooper resigned to join the Confederate cause. He subsequently became the senior general in the Confederate States Army (csa). Following Cooper’s resignation, Lt. Col. Lorenzo Thomas (usma 1823) became colonel and adjutant general of the Army. Thomas was promoted to brigadier general in August 1861 and continued to serve as the ag until February 1867.4 However , Thomas ran afoul of Secretary of War Stanton, and for most of the period between March 1863 and April 1865 he was on special duty recruiting soldiers for black regiments in the western theater of war while the assistant adjutant general (aag), Col. Edward D. Townsend (usma 1837), performed the duties of the ag in Washington.5 Personnel Thirty-four men served as Regular Army officers of the agd between January 1, 1861, and June 30, 1865. Thirty-one were graduates of the Military Academy, and one had been a cadet but did not graduate. Eight of the thirty-four served either during the war or subsequently as ag of the Army. Of the fourteen Regular officers in the agd on January 1, 1861, six resigned or were dismissed and subsequently joined the Confederacy. Four became Confederate generals. The former ag, Col. Samuel Cooper, became the csa’s senior four-star general and its ag and Inspector General. Bvt. Maj. William W. Mackall (usma 1837) became a brigadier general, csa, and Bvt. Capts. David R. Jones (usma 1846) and Dabney H. Maury (usma 1846) became major generals, csa. Bvt. Maj. George Deas (usma 1838) and Bvt. Capt. John Withers (usma 1849) became lieutenant colonels and aags, csa. Of those who remained loyal to the Union or were appointed after...

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