The adjutant-general issues the military orders of his superiors, conducts the army correspondence, issues commissions, and keeps the army records.
The quartermaster-general provides quarters, food, clothing, and transportation for the army, and has charge of barracks and national cemeteries. He also supervises the payment of the army and the military academy.
The surgeon-general superintends the army hospitals, and the distribution of medical stores for the army.
The inspector-general attends to inspection of the arms and equipments of the soldiers.
The chief of engineers supervises the construction of forts, the improvement of rivers and harbors, and the surveys relating to them.
The chief of ordnance furnishes guns and ammunition to the army and to forts, and has charge of armories and arsenals.
The judge-advocate-general, who is chief of the bureau of military justice, prosecutes crimes committed in the army, and reviews all sentences passed by military courts and military commissions.
MILITARY ACADEMY.--The military academy at West Point is maintained for the education of officers for the army. Each member of Congress appoints two cadets to the academy, and the President appoints four from the District of Columbia and eighty from the United States at large. There are also appointed two from each territory, two from Porto Rico, and a certain number of enlisted men from the army. The academy is under the charge of an army officer, appointed by the secretary of war. Each cadet receives from the government an allowance sufficient to pay all necessary expenses.
NAVY DEPARTMENT.--The secretary of the navy presides over the navy department. He has control of all affairs relating to vessels of war, the naval forces, and naval operations. He has charge of the Naval Observatory at Washington, and of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. There is an assistant secretary of the navy.
The naval department issues sailing charts, sailing directions, and other publications for the use of seamen. Among these is the nautical almanac used in navigating ships.