Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

These three branches of the administrative department were alone empowered to conclude heavy contracts.

The surgeons, taken from the doctors already possessed of diplomas, were attached to the regiments, but did not constitute a component part of their staffs; at all the general headquarters there were brigade and division surgeons above them; and, finally, the surgeon-general of the army. Those placed in attendance in hospitals were under their direction, and received their supplies partly from the quartermaster and partly from the commissary of subsistence.

The paymasters were employes of the War Department, and not of the Treasury, inasmuch as each administrative department kept separate accounts, and was itself the disburser of the funds required to pay the expenses it had authorized; they had only to settle the pay, the bounties, and a few trifling expenses; consequently none of them remained with the army; mere birds of passage, they made their appearance at certain stated periods, settled the pay-accounts according to the company-rolls, and disappeared immediately after.

We will sum up this sketch by showing, first, what the composition of the headquarters of a general-in-chief, such as that of Scott in Mexico, is, and then the organization and interior administration of the regiment. We will thus be spared the necessity of recurring to these details when we shall have to speak of the volunteer armies which were formed on the same model.

All the members of the headquarters were designated as aides-decamp, and were distinguished by the addition to their titles of the three letters A. D. C., although their functions differed.

Near the general there was, first of all, the chief of staff, the intermediate agent between the former and his principal officers, but having no particular command himself. Under his immediate direction there were the personal aides to the general, who, apart from the special missions entrusted to them, had no other duties to perform than the name indicated, to accompany him, carry his orders, observe what he could not see for himself, and receive all the communications addressed directly to him.

All that depends upon the chief of staff with us was left to the care of the assistant adjutant-general, and, in a small portion, to the inspector-general of the army.

The administrative personnel was represented by the quartermastergeneral, the chief officer of ordnance, the chief commissary, and the surgeon-general. These heads of the administrative branches of the service had under their respective commands sole officers (or physicians)