The causes of these conditions are not far to seek. The United States
has not had an army since 1866. There has been no such a thing as a
brigade, a division, or a corps. There has been no opportunity to study
and practice on a large scale, in a practical way, the problems of
organization and supply. The Army has been administered as a unit, and
the usual routine of business gradually became such that not a wheel
could be turned nor a nail driven in any of the supply departments
without express permission, previously obtained from the bureau chief
in Washington. The same remarks apply equally to all the other staff
departments. The administration had become a bureaucracy because the
whole Army for thirty years had been administered as one body, without
the subdivisions into organizations which are inevitable in war-time
and in larger bodies.
War became a reality with great suddenness. Those who have grown gray
in the service, and whose capacity, honesty, and industry had never
been and can not be impeached, found themselves confronted with the
problem of handling nearly three hundred thousand men, without
authority to change the system of supply and transportation. The
minutest acts of officers of these departments are regulated by laws of
Congress, enacted with a view of the small regular force in time of
peace, and with no provisions for modifications in war. In authorizing
the formation of large volunteer armies, Congress did not authorize any
change in the system of administration or make any emergency provision.
As before, every detail of supply and transportation had to be
authorized from the central head.
The administrative bureaus were handicapped to some extent by
incompetent and ignorant members. Late in the campaign it was learned
that the way to a “soft snap” was through the Capitol, and some came in
that way who would certainly never have entered the Army in any other.
There were alleged staff officers who had tried to enter the service
through the regular channels and who had failed, either by lack of
ability or bad conduct, to keep up with the pace set by classmates at
the Academy; there were others who were known as failures in civil life
and as the “black sheep” of eminent families; and there were some who
must have been utterly unknown before the war, as they will be
afterward.
How these persons ever obtained places high above deserving officers of
capacity and experience is a question which cries aloud for
exposure—but in a good many cases they did. Indeed, it is to be
observed that, for that matter, the next register of the Army will show
a great many more promotions into the Volunteer service, of officers
who never heard a hostile bullet during the war, who never left the
United States at all, than it will of deserving officers who bore the
heat and burden of the march and the battle.
“Reina Mercedes” Sunk by the “Iowa” near Mouth of Harbor of Santiago.
The most discouraging thing about it all to a line officer is that this
same register will afford no means of determining who did the service
and who did the “baby act.” Lieut. Blank will be borne thereon as major
and subsequently colonel of the Steenth Volunteers (which never left
the State rendezvous, probably) during the war with Spain; Lieut. Blank
No. 2 will be carried on the same book as second lieutenant, ——
Infantry, during the same war. The gentle reader will at once “spot”
the man who was so highly promoted as a gallant fellow who
distinguished himself upon the bloody field; the other will be set down
as the man who did nothing and deserved nothing.
Yet—the ones who went received no promotion, and those who staid behind
and by their careless incompetence permitted camps amid the peaceful
scenes of homes and plenty to become the hot-beds of fever and
disease—these are the ones borne as field and other officers of the
Volunteers.
To illustrate some of the material with big titles sent to “assist” in
running the staff departments, two incidents will suffice.
On the 11th of June, at a certain headquarters, it was desired to send
a message, demanding reply, to each transport. A gray-haired officer
turned to another and said, “Whom shall we send with this? Will
So-and-so do?” naming one of the before-mentioned civil appointments.
“For heaven’s sake, no! He would tie up the whole business. Send an
orderly,” was the reply. The orderly, an enlisted man of the Regulars,
was sent. The officer thus adjudged less competent to carry a message
than a private soldier was perhaps actuated by a high sense of duty;
but he filled a place which should have been occupied by an experienced
and able officer—no, he did not fill it, but he prevented such a man
from doing so.
The second incident was related by an officer on a transport bound for
home. Say his name was—oh well, Smith.
Smith went, on the 20th of July, to a certain headquarters in the field
on business. Those who could have attended to it were absent, but there
was one of the recent arrivals, a high-ranking aide, there, and he,
sorry for Smith’s worn-out look of hunger, heat, and thirst, asked if
he would have a drink. Smith, expecting at the best a canteen of San
Juan River water, said he was a little dry.
The newly-arrived clapped his hands, and, at the summons, a colored
waiter in spotless white duck appeared. “Waitah, take this gentleman’s
ordah,” said the host. Smith, greatly astonished, asked what could be
had, and was yet more astonished to learn that he could be served with
Canadian or domestic whisky, claret, champagne, or sherry. Much
bewildered, and utterly forgetting the awful dangers of liquor in the
tropics, he called for Canadian Club. When it came, on a napkin-covered
tray, he looked for water, and was about to use some from a bucket full
of ice which he at that moment espied. “Aw! hold on,” exclaimed the
host; “we nevah use that, don’t y’ know, except to cool the
apollinaris. Waitah, bring the gentleman a bottle of apollinaris to
wash down his liquor.”
Within half a mile were soldiers and officers lying sick in hospital on
the ground, eating hardtack and bacon, and drinking San Juan straight,
because hospital supplies and rations could not be got to the front!
It was this same officer who explained that he approached his
headquarters “by rushes,” upon his arrival, for fear the enemy would
see him and consider this reinforcement a violation of the truce.
These are two examples of some of the able assistants from civil life
who were sent to help feed, clothe, and transport the 5th Corps.
With such assistants, is it any wonder that, under such extraordinary
circumstances as those encountered in Cuba, a system designed for peace
and 25,000 men weakened in some respects when the attempt was made to
apply it to 300,000 in time of war?
The great wonder is that it did the work as well as it did. And this
was due to the superhuman exertions of the chief officers of the supply
departments and their experienced assistants. These men knew no rest.
They were untiring and zealous. On their own responsibility they cut
the red tape to the very smallest limit. Instead of the regular returns
and requisitions, the merest form of lead-pencil memorandum was
sufficient to obtain the necessary supplies, whenever they were
available. This much was absolutely necessary, for these officers were
personally responsible for every dollar’s worth of supplies and had to
protect themselves in some degree. As it is now, many of them will find
it years before their accounts are finally settled, unless some
provision be made by law for their relief. This disregard of routine
was essential; but how much to be desired is a system suited to the
exigencies of the service, both in peace and war!
There is a lesson to be learned from these experiences, and it is this:
The commanding officer of any army organization should not be hampered
in the matter of supplies by having to obtain the approval or
disapproval of a junior in rank, in a distant bureau, who knows nothing
about the circumstances. In other words, the system which causes the
staff departments of the United States Army to regard a civilian as
their head, and makes them virtually independent of their line
commanders, is an utterly vicious system. If an officer is competent to
command an organization, he should be considered competent to look
after the details of its administration, and should be held
responsible, not only for its serviceable condition at all times, but
for the care of its property and for all the other details connected
with its service.
The quartermaster, or commissary, or other officer of a supply
department should not know any authority on earth higher or other than
the officer in command of the force he is to serve, except those in the
line above such chief, and then only when such orders come through his
chief.
The commanding officer having ordered supplies to be procured, there
should be no question whatever in regard to their being furnished. They
should come at once and without fail. If they were not necessary, hold
him responsible.
This theory of administration eliminates the bureaucracy which has
insidiously crept upon the Army, and relegates to their proper position
the supply departments.
The General Staff proper has a higher field of usefulness than the mere
problems of supply. Its business is to care for the organization,
mobilization, and strategic disposition of all the forces, both naval
and military, of the United States. Its head should be the President,
and the two divisions should be under the general commanding the Army
and the admiral commanding the Navy. The remainder of this staff should
be composed of a small but select personnel, and should limit its
duties exclusively to those set forth above.