The word “department,” as used in connection with the principal divisions through or by which the executive affairs of the government are administered, has very little if any significance, because it applies as well to the smallest subdivisions as to the three coördinate powers of our republic. Still another use was given it by a candidate for government appointment who, in response to a requirement of the Civil Service Commission to name the three great departments of the government, introduced a new application of the word by writing, “the Republican, the Democratic, and the Independent.” And so with the name “War Department,” its use applies it with equal propriety to the organization which administers the military affairs of the government and to the building in which its offices are located, just as the word church applies to the building and to the society of people which worships in it.

The War Department is one (the third in point of classification) of the seven divisions of the executive branch of the government whose chief officers form the President’s cabinet. It comprises, beside the office of the Secretary of War, ten minor divisions called “staff departments,” or “bureaus,” each under the direction of an officer who holds the rank and position of a brigadier-general in the United States army, and including a military force of officers of the several ranks from captain up to colonel, some of whom are on duty in the offices in Washington, but a majority performing the duties appertaining to their respective bureaus at military posts, or at the headquarters of the military geographical departments and divisions, or elsewhere as they may be directed by the Secretary of War. Each bureau has also a force of civilian employes who perform the clerical duties of the department under the direction of their respective officers. The clerks are divided into grades as follows, the salaries being determined by the grades: Chief clerks, $2,000; clerks, class four, $1,800; class three, $1,600; class two, $1,400; class one, $1,200; clerks, $1,000; copyists, $900; the other employes being messengers, assistant messengers, watchmen, mechanics, laborers, etc. The names of the subdivisions are the Adjutant-General’s, the Inspector General’s, the Judge Advocate-General’s, the Quartermaster’s, the Subsistence, the Medical, the Pay, and the Ordnance Departments, the Corps of Engineers and the Signal Corps. The business of these bureaus will be mentioned in their order.

During the first year of the revolutionary war, and before the colonists had abandoned all hope that their difficulties with the mother country might be settled by a just recognition of their rights as English subjects, the colonial army under Washington was directed by the Continental Congress at Philadelphia. Ten days prior to the first anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill, a resolution to absolve all allegiance to the British crown was introduced in Congress, and five days thereafter a resolution was adopted to appoint a “Board of War and Ordnance,” to consist of five members of the Congress, to be organized as a war office which was to be the channel for military correspondence and orders, and an office of record to which the officers commanding in the army were required to send reports of the condition and disposition of troops. Washington wrote in reply to a dispatch from the President of the Congress, informing him of the institution of the board, that it “is certainly an event of great importance, and in all probability will be recorded as such in the historic page.” As a beginning it possesses the interest to us to-day which attaches to all our institutions whose history can be traced up to the present degree of efficiency and finished organization which we regard with such pride and satisfaction, and which brings the feeling of security we enjoy in the midst of the most trying times of uncertainty. After a little more than one year of administration of military affairs by the Board of War and Ordnance as an advisory committee to Congress, a new organization was made called the “Board of War,” consisting of three persons not members of the Congress, and the number was soon afterward increased to five members, who are frequently mentioned in the resolutions pertaining to the conduct of the war as Commissioners of the War Office, and the board is sometimes mentioned under the old, and sometimes under the new name. A review of the instructions and resolves of Congress to the board, and through it to the army, making regulations, appointing committees, creating offices for the control of supplies, money and war material, conferring or restricting authority and responsibility, reveals the character of the times and the inexperience of men better than the history of their individual acts can do it, and increases the marvel that success was ever reached through such apparent confusion; but it must have been a grand period for men who did not hesitate to undertake and plan and execute without the aid of “precedent,” that potent influence which gives shape to a large proportion of executive administration to-day. But the time approached when the question of national organization must be settled, and although the prospect at the time (early in 1781) appeared to afford no more promise of final success than at any time during the struggle there seemed to be an intuition which led to a disposition of military affairs, so that the details might be gradually relinquished by the Congress to the charge of one executive officer in addition to the Commander-in-Chief whose authority was never curtailed by a department up to the hour he returned his commission to the body which had conferred it upon him. Early in 1781 the Congress undertook a plan for the establishment of executive departments, and one of the offices created was that of “Secretary at War”—notice the preposition—with powers similar to those of the “Board of War,” but enlarged in their scope, and released in a measure from supervisory direction. The board continued to act, however, for several months, probably because the Congress was unable to select the right man to fill the new office, but on the 30th of October, 1781, the officer who, ten days before, had received the sword of the defeated British general at Yorktown, was elected Secretary at War. The coincidence of surnames justifies the remark here that the first Secretary at War and the present Secretary of War bear the same. Step by step for a few succeeding years the duties and powers of the office were specifically defined by legislation, but at such intervals as to make the rules appear fragmentary, until on the 27th of January, 1785, a revision was made and all the loose lines were gathered into one instrument, which had for its enacting clause, “Be it ordained by the United States in Congress assembled,” and directed the Secretary at War to “keep a public and convenient office in the place where Congress shall reside,” and that office for the first time was dignified with the name “Department of War.” The resolves of Congress began also to take the form of instructions to the Secretary at War to issue his orders to the army, thus indirectly raising his position in the scale of authority and control to one not yet specifically recognized. An even administration follows until the end of the confederation and the new organization of executive departments under the constitution of the United States. A report made to Congress October 2, 1788, by a committee which had been appointed for the purpose of inquiring into the business of the Department of War, shows that the number of employes then in the department was four, whose aggregate annual compensation was $1,500. To-day the force of more than fifteen hundred employes, receiving the gross sum of $1,820,830, makes a notable contrast, and indicates the volume of increase in the business and the wonderful change of values.

The new government, under the constitution, went into operation practically on the 30th of April, 1789, when Washington was inaugurated at the old City Hall in New York as the first President of the United States, and became the “commander-in-chief of the army and navy.” The first act of Congress relating to military affairs, to be approved by him, was the act of August 7, 1789, which directed “that there shall be an executive department, to be denominated the Department of War; and that there shall be a principal officer therein to be called the Secretary for the Department of War.” This officer was to perform such duties as the President should direct relating to military commissions, land or naval forces, ships, or warlike stores, or Indian affairs, or the granting of bounty lands, or “such other matters respecting military or naval affairs as the President of the United States shall assign to said department.” He was also authorized to appoint a chief clerk, who in the event of the removal of the Secretary, or the occurrence of a vacancy, should have charge of the records, books, and papers of the department (naval affairs, public lands, Indian affairs, and pensions were afterward transferred to other departments).

The title of “Secretary of War” appears to have been adopted as a matter of choice by the first Secretary appointed by Washington, the only change from the old title, it will be noticed, being the use of the preposition of for at, a change which we will agree could not to-day be reversed without provoking a liberal amount of criticism, both serious and humorous, if judgment may be taken from the notice universally given to trifling matters for the purpose of seasoning the news as we season our food, to give it a relish which an educated but not always cultivated taste demands.

During a period of years succeeding the establishing of the War Department, up to the war of 1812, it appeared to be an agency, simple in organization and limited in authority, which is rarely mentioned in legislative acts, for it is a notable fact that the acts of Congress during this period relating to military affairs were almost all addressed to the President of the United States. Time and the progress of events brought to the Department other and more important matters than the clerical work of correspondence and keeping records, and the work not only of obtaining and preserving all manner of army supplies, but of providing for their production, led to the establishment of minor agencies, each one as it was brought into existence, adding to the functions of the Secretary of War, and giving him a superior directing authority. These agencies became subordinate to the War Department, but were liable to and did share with the army in the legislation which from time to time created or disbanded the active forces as the circumstances required. The departmental divisions of business were continued, however, and when one and another of the offices which corresponded with our present staff departments were discontinued the duties were maintained by provisional means until they were restored, or others of similar nature were created to take their places. In the course of time the bureaus became permanently established, and formed the links which connected the War Department, a civil office, with the army, and the Secretary of War, whose position in the beginning was simply that of an agent of the President for the administration of military affairs has come to be recognized as holding discretionary power and authority, although no change has taken place in his relations to the President on the one hand, or to the army on the other, except that in later years the laws and resolves of Congress relating to the business which he administers are addressed to him directly, instead of to the President, as in former years.

The interval which we must make here in the history of the department might be filled with items indicating its place and power during the period omitted, but the line of progress has been direct, and regularly approaching the condition which makes it possible at any time to accelerate its operations for the prosecution of active warfare, or to permit them to sink to the dream of peace, without, in either case, disturbing the perfect system of business.

That portion of the business of the War Department transacted under the immediate direction of the Secretary of War and the chief clerk of the Department, comprises divisions of records, correspondence, requisitions and accounts, advertising accounts, miscellaneous supplies, and connected therewith is a library of about sixteen thousand five hundred volumes, from which any employe of the Department may obtain books for temporary use. No proper idea of the business can be given in a written description without taking too much space for this article. As the central office of the Department, and having direction of the affairs of the several bureaus, all important matters connected therewith pass through it for the action of the Secretary.

The Adjutant-General now has charge of the records which in the early days were received and preserved in the War Office. He publishes all orders and conducts all correspondence from the Secretary of War and the commanding General to the army, issues appointments and commissions, receives, records and arranges for use and preservation rolls, reports and other official papers pertaining to the personal history of every officer and soldier in the army, from the day of appointment or enlistment up to the date the service ceases, from whatever cause; has charge of the business pertaining to the military academy, the military prisons, the recruiting service, the military reservations, and the records of bureaus and commands which existed during the war of the rebellion, and have since been discontinued; and from the records in his department the information necessary to the settlement of pension and other claims of officers and soldiers, of whatever nature, growing out of their service, is furnished.