ching battalions or companies to gather up
isolated men or small detachments moving in either direction
between the army and its base of operations.

16. In case of sieges, ordering and supervising the employment of
the troops in the trenches, making arrangements with the chiefs of
artillery and engineers as to the labors to be performed by those
troops and as to their management in sorties and assaults.

17. In retreats, taking precautionary measures for preserving
order; posting fresh troops to support and relieve the rear-guard;
causing intelligent officers to examine and select positions where
the rear-guard may advantageously halt, engage the enemy, check his
pursuit, and thus gain time; making provision in advance for the
movement of trains, that nothing shall be left behind, and that
they shall proceed in the most perfect order, taking all proper
precautions to insure safety.

18. In cantonments, assigning positions to the different corps;
indicating to each principal division of the army a place of
assembly in case of alarm; taking measures to see that all orders,
instructions, and regulations are implicitly observed.

An examination of this long list--which might easily be made much longer
by entering into greater detail--will lead every reader to remark that
these are the duties rather of the general-in-chief than of staff
officers. This truth I announced some time ago; and it is for the very
purpose of permitting the general-in-chief to give his whole attention
to the supreme direction of the operations that he ought to be provided
with staff officers competent to relieve him of details of execution.
Their functions are therefore necessarily very intimately connected; and
woe to an army where these authorities cease to act in concert! This
want of harmony is often seen,--first, because generals are men and have
faults, and secondly, because in every army there are found individual
interests and pretensions, producing rivalry of the chiefs of staff and
hindering them in performing their duties.[34]

It is not to be expected that this treatise shall contain rules for the
guidance of staff officers in all the details of their multifarious
duties; for, in the first place, every different nation has staff
officers with different names and rounds of duties,--so that I should be
obliged to write new rules for each army; i