so
by a new appointment. The same remarks are applicable to the office of
Adjutant-General to the Army. It is an office of new creation, differing
from that of Adjutant and Inspector General, and likewise from that
of adjutant-general to a division, which were severally annulled. It
differs from the first in title, rank, and pay, and from the two latter
because they had been created by law each for a division, whereas the
new office, being instituted without such special designation, could
have relation only to the whole Army. It was manifest, therefore, that
neither of those officers had any right to this new station nor to
any other station unless he should be specially appointed to it, the
principle of reduction being applicable to every officer in every corps.
It is proper also to observe that the duties of Adjutant-General under
the existing arrangement correspond in almost every circumstance with
those of the late Adjutant and Inspector General, and not with those
of an adjutant-general of a division.

To give effect to this law the President was authorized by the twelfth
section to cause the officers, noncommissioned officers, artificers,
musicians, and privates of the several corps then in the service of the
United States to be arranged in such manner as to form and complete
out of the same the force thereby provided for, and to cause the
supernumerary officers, noncommissioned officers, artificers, musicians,
and privates to be discharged from the service.

In executing this very delicate and important trust I acted with the
utmost precaution. Sensible of what I owed to my country, I felt
strongly the obligation of observing the utmost impartiality in
selecting those officers who were to be retained. In executing this law
I had no personal object to accomplish or feeling to gratify--no one
to retain, no one to remove. Having on great consideration fixed the
principles on which the reduction should be made, I availed myself
of the example of my predecessor by appointing through the proper
department a board of general officers to make the selection, and
whose report I adopted.

In transferring the officers from the old to the new corps the utmost
care was taken to place them in the latter in the grades and corps to
which they had respectively belonged in the former, so far as it might
be practicable. This, though not enjoined by the law, appearing to be
just and proper, was never departed from except in pecu