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tary service the oath of allegiance may be administered by any commissioned officer. Section 12 consolidates all mounted soldiers into one arm to be known as cavalry. Sections 13 and 14 provide for a very liberal increase of the army ration and allowances to hospitals. Sections 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19 provide for a retiring board, and for the voluntary retirement of aged or infirm officers. Section 19 repeals the law allowing double rations to the commandant of a post. Section 20 provides that where officers are absent from duty over six months, with or without leave, they shall not receive the allowances authorized by existing laws for servants, forage, transportation of baggage, fuel, and quarters. The remainder of this very comprehensive act relates to the retirement of naval officers.

Chapter 47, approved August 6th, 1861, provides for the appointment during the rebellion of additional aides-de

camp.

Chapter 50, approved August 5th, 1861, authorizes the Secretary of the Navy to enlist as many scamen in the navy for three years as he may judge to be necessary.

Chapter 57 is entitled "An act to promote the Efficiency of the Engineer and Topographical Engineer Corps, and for other purposes." It increases the number of field officers in those corps, and adds a company of soldiers to the topographical engineers. Section 3 provides that vacancies in the volunteer forces shall be filled by the Governors of the States from which they came. Sections 4 and 5 provide for additional inspectors-general, and that armories shall be under the care of ordnance officers.

These laws were all passed at the first or extra session of the Thirty-seventh Congress.

Chapter 3 of the second session of the Thirty-seventh Congress relates to the organization of courts-martial, and was approved December 24th, 1861.

Chapter 4 is entitled "An act to provide for Allotment Certificates among the Volunteer Forces." By it the President was authorized to appoint three persons for each State, having volunteers in the service, to visit the regiments from their respective States, and procure from the volunteers, from time to time, allotments of pay for their relatives, duly certified in writing, and attested by them and some commissioned officer, and upon such certificates the several paymasters shall, at each regular payment, give drafts on New York, payable to the order of the persons to whom the allotment was made. By this act also the lien of sutlers on soldiers' pay was abolished.

Chapter 40, approved March 13th, 1862, enacts an ad ditional article of war relating to fugitives from service.

Chapter 47, “An act to provide for the Appointment of Sutlers in the Volunteer Service, and to define their Duties," will be found fully discussed in the chapter entitled Sutlers. Chapter 40 relates to the payment of officers and men actually employed in the Western Department, and places them on the same footing as other officers and soldiers regularly appointed or enlisted. Approved March 25th, 1862. Chapter 55 relates to the Medical Department, and was approved April 16th, 1862.

Chapter 109, approved June 18th, 1862, alters the manner of paying line officers of volunteers, and makes them payable on the muster and pay rolls of their company.

Chapter 127, approved July 2d, 1862, provides for additional medical officers of volunteers.

Chapter 144 makes appropriation for the payment of bounty, and will be found in its appropriate place hereafter. Chapter 166, approved July 14th, 1862, is entitled “ An act to grant Pensions." It will be found in this work, and is fully elucidated and explained under the head of Pensions.

The act entitled "An act to define the Pay and Emoluments of certain Officers of the Army, and for other pur

poses," which is chapter 200, approved July 17th, 1862, is very comprehensive. The first section provides that officers of the army entitled to forage for horses shall not be allowed to commute it, but may draw forage in kind for each horse actually kept by them, not exceeding their authorized number; provided that, when forage in kind cannot be furnished, they may commute. Section 2 reduces the number of horses allowed to certain officers. Section 3 provides that, where soldiers are employed as servants by officers, the officer shall deduct from his pay the amount paid to such soldier by the United States, on pain of court-martial. Section 4 provides that the act increasing the pay of privates shall not be construed to increase the pay of officers. Section 5 provides that all regimental bands be mustered out of service, and section 6 provides for brigade bands. Section 7 alters the rate allowed officers travelling on public service to six cents a mile this side of the Rocky Mountains, and ten cents beyond. Sections 8 and 9 relate to the pay and qualifications of chaplains. Section 10 repeals the allowance of 40 cents a day for use of horses in certain cases allowed by chap. 9, sec. 5, of 1861, and chap. 42, sec. 10, of 1861. Sections 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16 relate to courtsmartial and to contracts. Section 17 authorizes and requests the President to dismiss from the army any officer for any cause which, in his judgment, either renders such officer unsuitable for, or whose dismission would promote the public service. Section 18 gives the President authority to purchase and enclose grounds for a National Cemetery for the soldiers who shall die in the service of the country. Section 19 repeals the law authorizing additional aides-decamp. Section 20 provides that the regiments and companies heretofore mustered into service as volunteer engineers, pioneers, or sappers and miners, shall receive the same pay as the engineer corps of the regular army. Section 21 provides that any alien of the age of twenty-one years and upward who has enlisted, or may hereafter enlist in the ser

vice of the United States, and has been honorably discharged, may be admitted to become a citizen of the United States, upon his petition, without any previous declaration of his intention to become a citizen of the United States, and that he shall not be required to prove more than one year's residence within the United States previous to his application to become such citizen; and that the court admitting such alien shall, in addition to such proof of residence and good moral character as is now provided by law, be satisfied by competent proof of such person having been honorably discharged from the service of the United States as aforesaid.

Chapter 201 is entitled "An act to amend the act calling forth the Militia, &c.," and was approved July 17th, 1862. The President is authorized to raise 100,000 ninemonths volunteers, and pay them $25 bounty, and other volunteers, for one year, to fill vacancies in old regiments, who are to receive $50 bounty. Sections 5, 6, 7, and 8 provide for appointment of a judge-advocate general and judge-advocates for armies in the field, for modifying certain punishments, and for mustering out of service battalion adjutants and quartermasters of cavalry. Section 9 authorizes the President to form army corps his discretion. Section 10 relates to officers of army corps. Section 11 relates to cavalry organization. Section 12 authorizes the President to employ for any military or naval service for which they may be found competent, persons of African descent, to be enrolled and organized under such regulations, not inconsistent with law, as the President may prescribe. Section 13 gives freedom to certain slaves. Section 15 limits the pay of colored soldiers to $10 per month.

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By a joint resolution, No. 9, of February 6th, 1862, the Secretary of War was authorized to procure allotments of pay from prisoners of war in the hands of the enemy in favor of such persons' relatives, and to cause the same to be paid. This concludes the important military legislation of the second session of the Thirty-seventh Congress.

Chapter 68, of the third session of the Thirty-seventh Congress, approved March 2d, 1863, provides for the increase of brigadier generals and major-generals for the volunteer forces.

Chapter 75, entitled "An act for enrolling and calling out the National Forces, and for other purposes," approved March 3d, 1863. This is the act generally known as the "Conscription Act." A consideration of its details is not within the scope of this work. There are, however, some provisions in it of general importance. Section 18 enacts that such volunteers and militia, as are now in the service, who reënlist for one year, shall receive a bounty of fifty dollars, one half on reënlistment, and the other on expiration of the term; and such as may reënlist for two years shall receive twenty-five dollars of the one hundred dollars bounty provided by the act of July 22d, 1861. Section 19 provides for the consolidation of regiments, and section 20 that officers shall not be appointed to regiments reduced below one half the maximum number. Section 22 gives power to courts-martial to reduce officers to the ranks for absence without leave. The rest of the act makes provision regarding deserters, and the punishment of certain crimes.

The act entitled "An act to promote the Efficiency of the Corps of Engineers and of the Ordnance Department, and for other purposes," chapter 78, approved March 3d, 1863, merges the corps of topographical engineers in that of engineers. Section 7 provides that persons drafted or volunteering in the militia for nine months may enlist for a year, and receive fifty dollars bounty, to be paid in the manner provided by the act of July 22d, 1861.

Chapter 82, approved March 3d, 1863, authorizes the President to confer brevet rank on volunteer and other officers in the service of the United States.

Chapter 84, approved same day, so modifies that act of July 22d, 1861, as to give the bounty of one hundred dollars to those soldiers who were discharged by reason of

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