Union Organisations – Staff Bureaux
The staff bureaux or departments covered the following areas of responsibility: Quartermaster, Medical, Ordnance, Adjutant-General, Subsistence, Paymaster, Engineers, Inspector-General, Topographical Engineers (discontinued in 1863), and Judge Advocate-General.
The “Line and Staff Controversy”
There was continual controversy during Civil War until the end of the 19th Century about the separation of officers in the “Line” of the Army and the “Staff” bureaux. The controversy had its roots in a legally divided responsibility and a conception of war as a science and natural purpose of the military. Problems were inevitable because, as Army regulations put it as late as 1895, the military establishment in the territorial commands was under the Commanding General for matters of discipline and military control, while the Army’s fiscal affairs were conducted by the Secretary of War through the staff departments. At the same time, no statutory definition of the functions of the Commanding General existed except to a limited extent late in the century in the matter of research and development. In practice, this diluted the Commanding General’s control of the territorial departments, since the distribution and diversion of logistical support for these departments by the staff heads and the Secretary of War would affect troop operations.
Basic to the controversy was an assertion of the primacy of the Line over the Staff with a theoretical foundation in the concept of war as a science and its practice as the sole purpose of military forces. Since the Army existed only to fight, it followed that its organisation, training, and every activity should be directed to the single end of efficiency in combat. Therefore, staff departments and their technical expertise existed only to serve the professional purposes of the Line. It followed that the Line should control the Staff. “The regular Army now is a very curious compound,” General William Tecumseh Sherman observed in 1874 in hearings on a bill to reduce the Army. As the Commanding General, he had “no authority, control or influence over anything but the cavalry, artillery, and infantry, and such staff officers as are assigned by their respective chiefs, approved by the Secretary of War, and attached to these various bodies for actual service.” To him the three services that he named were “the Army of the United States,” while the rest simply went “to make up the military peace establishment.” If the Army had to be pruned, he advised pruning the branches of this peace establishment, not the active regiments. Sherman’s view did not prevail forever. In 1894 the situation in which heads of the staff departments spent their entire careers with their specialty and became technical rather than military experts was modified by the requirement that thereafter appointments to the staff departments should be from the line of the Army. However, this left the basic command problem still unresolved.
General in Chief
Winfield Scott 25 June 1841-1 November 1861
George Brinton McClellan 1 November 1861-17 March 1862 (22 July 1862)
(Ethan Allen Hitchcock Chairman of the War Board 17 March 1862-22 July 1862 interim)
Henry Wager Halleck 11 July 1862-4 March 1864
Ulysses Simpson Grant 4 March 1864-31 December 1865
Adjutant-General’s Department
Samuel Cooper, Adjutant-General 15 July 1852-7 March 1861
Lorenzo Thomas, Adjutant-General 7 March 1861-1 July 1861
Catharinus Putnam Buckingham, Acting Adjutant-General (Major-General Ohio Militia) 1 July 1861-3 August 1861
Lorenzo Thomas 3 August 1861-23 March 1863
Edward David Townsend, Acting Adjutant-General 23 March 1863-31 December 1865
Inspector-General’s Department
Sylvester Churchill, Inspector-General 25 June 1841-9 August 1861
Randolph Barnes Marcy, Inspector-General 9 August 1861-31 December 1865
Quartermaster-General’s Department
Joseph Eggleston Johnston, Quartermaster-General 28 June 1860-22 April 1861
Montgomery Cunningham Meigs, Quartermaster-General 15 May 1861-31 December 1865
Commissary Department
George Gibson, Commissary-General of Subsistence 18 April 1818-21 September 1861
Joseph Pannell Taylor, Commissary-General of Subsistence 21 September 1861-29 June 1864
Amos Beebe Eaton, Commissary-General of Subsistence 29 June 1864-31 December 1865
Ordnance Department
Henry Knox Craig, Chief of Ordnance 10 July 1851-23 April 1861
James Wolfe Ripley, Chief of Ordnance 23 April 1861-15 September 1863
George Douglas Ramsay, Chief of Ordnance 15 September 1863-12 September 1864
Alexander Brydie Dyer, Chief of Ordnance 12 September 1864-31 December 1865
Corps of Engineers
Joseph Gilbert Totten, Chief of Engineers 7 December 1838-22 April 1864
Richard Delafield, Chief of Engineers 22 April 1864-5 June 1864
John Gross Barnard, Chief of Engineers 5 June 1864-31 December 1865
Provost Marshal General’s Department
James Barnet Fry, Provost Marshal General 21 April 1864-31 December 1865
Paymaster-General’s Department
Benjamin Franklin Larned, Paymaster-General 20 July 1854-12 July 1862
Timothy Patrick Andrews, Paymaster-General 12 July 1862-29 November 1864
Benjamin Wilson Brice, Paymaster-General 29 November 1864-31 December 1865
Surgeon-General’s (Medical) Department
Thomas Lawson, Surgeon-General 30 November 1836-15 May 1861
Clement Alexander Finley, Surgeon-General 15 May 1861-14 April 1862
Robert C Wood, Acting Surgeon-General 14 April 1862-25 April 1862
William Alexander Hammond, Surgeon-General 25 April 1862-18 August 1864
Joseph K Barnes, Surgeon-General 18 August 1864-31 December 1865
Corps of Topographical Engineers
John James Abert, Chief of Topographical Engineers 1838-September 1861-31 March 1863
Judge Advocate-General’s Department
John Fitzgerald Lee, Judge Advocate-General 2 March 1849-3 September 1862
Joseph Holt, Judge Advocate-General 3 September 186231 December 1865
American Civil War High Command 