a minimum, both numbers easily divisible, divided into three battalions of 800 each, consisting of companies of 100 men each, captain, and first, second, and brevet second lieutenants. Each battalion in the field should be under command of lieutenant- colonel and two majors, the whole to be commanded by a colonel. The men should be enlisted or drafted for three years, never less. To each battalion for the field there should be an adjutant and quartermaster, taken from the line of lieutenant by appointment of the colonel. The staff of the regiment should be a regimental quartermaster, commissary, adjutant, paymaster, surgeon-all with the rank of colonel [sic]-and assistant surgeon. To each battalion for the field should be two assistant surgeons, rank of lieutenant, a first and second, and a difference of grade between the first and second of 15 per cent. of pay; an ordnance officer, a lieutenant, who should be responsible for the arms and ordnance stores of the regiment; a chaplain, with the rank of captain. The company organization, other than herein prescribed, to be as at present. An essential requisite of this organization is that each regiment should have a home at some post, fixed by the order of the War Department, not to be changed except upon the discontinuance of the post or the disbanding of the regiment, and in case of discontinuance of the spot a new home to be given to the regiment. Having a very extended frontier, where it has been and will be necessary to maintain permanent garrisons or posts, I would make each a home of a regiment, and its home battalion, as herein described, the garrison of one of those permanent posts. This post, or home, of the regiment should be under command of the colonel, who should be selected for his qualities for uprightness, as a disciplinarian, as a man of business, and as an instructor in military science. To illustrate the workings of the system which I propose I take for example Fort Warren or Fortress Monroe. That, we will say, is the home of the first regiment. One battalion garrisons the fort and can be instructed in light and heavy artillery as well as infantry. There should be the regimental hospital, there the regimental quarters, there its records, there its paymaster, there its clothing depot, and its depot of arms and equipments, and all under the command of its, colonel, and for the safe-keeping and proper use of which the colonel should be made responsible. The colonel should be responsible to the bureaus at Washington for all material for his regiments save the transportation and supplies of the battalion in the field. Any divided responsibility simply allows waste. We will suppose the regiment assembled at its home. Two of its battalions are sent into the field, 1,600 strong, under command of the senior and junior lieutenant-colonels, consisting of the most experienced officers and the best drilled men. The other battalion remains at its home, which should be a school of instruction for the officers and soldiers. The records of its organization as a military body, i.e., the rank of its officers, the enlistment and discharge of the men, should be kept by the adjutant; its records as an administrative body, to wit, its equipment pay, and allowances clothing, rations, stoppage, &c., of its officers, which should be kept by the paymaster in books of record well secured to be forwarded to the War Office on the disbandment of the regiment.

All reports excepting field returns should be made to the regiment, and the colonel of the regiment should forward duplicates of tri-monthly abstracts to the commander of the army in the field and to the War Office. Everything else of muster- rolls, pay-rolls, equipment-rolls, and other records should be at the home of the regiment.