Mr. SCHENCK. I desire to submit some little explanation of the bill before the vote is taken. I do not propose to debate it at length. There has been enough ofincidental debate in its progress through the House. The bill, as reported by the committee, has not been in any respect materiall altered by any of the amendments that have conmade. Its general scope and purposes remain about the same as I in dicated they were when the bill was 1st introduced and submitted for consideration; and it cannot be pretended that full and fair opportunity for amendment and discussion has not been allowed upon each section of the bill in its proress through the House. heiill, it will be remembered, is one which provides, new when the time has arrived for us to determine what our Army shall be in the future, for an establishment to consist of 50,000 men, capable of expansion to 80 2000, as the ultimate or maximum number. The bill, in its various provisions, is a most liberal one in relation to introducing into this Army those who have served with fidelity and efficiency in the late struggle for the preservation of this Government. It throws the doors wide open for the admission of vol untecrs. Perhaps gentlemen are not fully aware of what is the present character, even with the changes already made, of the regular Army of the U.S. as it relates to the material of which its officers are made up, or of what it I would be if this bill should become a law, and the Army be eventually reorganized under its provisions. I have here some tables, which Iwill not detain the House by giving in detail, but which contain some interesting statistics in relation to this subject, and such as may perhaps be new, even to many members of the House. Let me take, in the 1st place, the present staff corps of the Army. It consists, includin general officers, of a total of 300 on 27. Ofthose, 256 in the different staff Depts are grad uates of the U.S. Military Academy. They are divided in this way: In the Adjutant GeneralsDept, where there are 21 officers, 3 are not graduates, and 18 graduates. In the quartermasters Dept there are 26 who have not been educated at WestPoint, and 39 who have been. In the subsistence Dept, out of 20 iiine as a total, 2 have not been rsduates, or are not now on the Army list, whi e 20 7 have been. I may here remark that this list was taken from the present Arm Revister of the lst of January, 1866, sndit should contain the names or 2 other officers who have been appointed in the subsistence Dept from among the commissaries of volunteers. So that there are really 4 who are not graduates. In the pay Dept 17 are not graduates, and ten are. In the Engineer corps the whole number em loed are graduates of WestPoint. in so on until we reach the total which is given as I before recited it. Among the general officers in the Army, as it now exists, we have a lieutenant general, who is a graduate of the Military Academy, 5 major generals, all graduates, and 9 lirigadier generals, 8 of whom are gradu ates, and one of whom, General Terry, is not a graduate. The list which I have here shows only 8 brigadier generals; being taken from the Army Register of last January it does not contain the name of General Terry. Thus it will be seen that the staff Depts proper, with the exception of the quartermusters Dept to a considerable extent, and the pay Dept and ordnance Dept to some extent, are made up of those who have been educated at the Military Academy. Buta change has commenced in the line, and is extending upward through the different grades of officers; and it may astonish gentlemen to learn that as the Army now stands, of ii total of 1124 officers of the line, in the 3 arms of the service cavalr, artillery, and infantry only 284 have been graduates of the Military cademy; while 840 have been appointed from among vol unteers or directly from civil life. But there are vacancies which are not included in my list, which have recently been and are now being filled, of a number of 1st and 2nd lieutenants, which will make the relative proportion still different. Of 500 antr64 vacancies to be filled, the whole of them are to be filled by apointments from volunteers. The bill before the House, without reference to what the Army will be when these 564r vacancies are filled, provides for 630 subaltern officers, who will also all be taken from the volunteers., Thus goin on through the different items in this table, I ind as the eneml aggregate, if this bill shall pass, that the whole number of officers, in all arms of the service, will be 2,780, of whom 2, 432, being the entire number with the exception of 348 who are grad uates of the Military Academy, will be appoiiited either directly from civil life or for the most part from among those who have served as volunteers in the late war. . The following are the tables to which I have referred: THE STAFFCORPS. Numberr uofice rain the venom!nlqffcor paof the army accord ingto the army Hamster for1865. long 22o“ Gradnotes. Corpsor Dept. Graduates. Adjutant Generals Dept. gnnrtermusters depurtmsnt. ubsistence Dept. Pay Dept. Corps of Engineers. ooEQSSSZ; 4bs l: moo 15 wmigfiiggi Total. Ordnanced cpartmon. 2;) Bureau of Military Ju 2 Inspectors Genera. 1 General officers: $2 71 Lieutenant genernl. 1 Major generuls. 5 Brigadier generuls. 8 Total. j 256 l 71 327 The Army Remoter for 1865 shows that there are 1124 officersof all grade. in flu mumlri4artilkry, and mfanlru regiment:q the U.S. Army, divided aa followl: 3 3 3 g S, s is U G H In the 6 regimentsof cavalry, all 54 154 208 237 funtry, all grades. 879. 115“ The followmg VMBJJOIO Sexrstsd (Jupuary 1, 1866.)in the some regiments, and have been filled. orsrenowbemgfilled, byofficers of the volunteerssrvicc, namely, cavalry. 56; null 98 in funtry, 410. 564 564 The billnow be videsforeighteonncwre iments o finfuntry, tobeofficero exclusively by appointments from the Involunteer service. 630 630 the 34 companies to be nddodto the 27 bat tsaelrivoinese, of infantry now in the all officersof thogrndes of 1st and 2nd lieutenants m to befrom officorsof volun ors. 108 108 2/3rds of all other fromvolunteers 30 60 90 Inaltrhye, 6 new regi nv there Will be 254officer divided as follows: all 1st and 2nd lieutenants and 2/3rds of all other gradesfrom volunteers. 34 230 234 34812.43 2.1m The object of this bill, therefore, it will be seen, is to make a volunteer Army as it were, so far as deriving the material which is to compose the number of its officers is concemed. jection is made to an extension of the Army at thlis time, or to the creation of an Army at n. Now, in regard to the extension of the Army, I have only to say, it has become, in the o, inion at least of those who have chargeo the military affairs of the country, on of the Dept presiding over those military af fairs, an absolute necessity to have something done which shall increase our regular Army, and put it upon that more extended footing which it is to have if the wants and needs of the Government are to be supplied. The House may not be aware of the gradual diminution of the volunteer Army. I have statistics upon the subject, which I will state briefly. Even while we have been progressing with this bill volunteers have been necessarily mustered out of service from the expiration of their terms of enlistment and the necessity of treating them at the close of hostilities as entitled to their discharge until there remained on the 18th of April only 12,002 I mention this matter, because of 101 white volunteers and 18,358 colored volunteers, or a total of 30,559 volunteers, out of an army of one million 516 men which we had in the service at the close of the war. Let me restate it. At the close of the war we had an arm of regulars and volunteers of one million 516 men. Of these 15,000 were regulars, leaving a total of volunteers in service at the close of the war of 985,516. Of these there have been mustered out to the 18th of last month, until the number remaining was only 30,559 and since the 18th of April there are known to have been mustered out of service because of expiration of terms of service and of orders already issued about 1500 men. Perhaps another 500 should be added to that number for the past week, for those sta tistics are a week old. But countin these 1500 only, it will be seen that the volunteer force of the Army, including colored as well as white troops, has been reduced to 29,059 men. This leaves, therefore, scarcely anything to be relied upon excc it the regular Army, and nothing whatever to be relied upon ufter a few weeks more. It is natural, therefore, that those having charge of the military service of the country should be turning their eyes anxiously in the direction of Congress to see what is to he done in order to provide a sufficient army for all the needs of the Government. whether on the frontier or throughout the interior of the country, or upon our widely extended coast, wherever garrisons are kc t up. The present strength of the regular Army, in consequence of the more rapid enlistments since the discharge of the volunteers, is about 30,000. There can be an extension altogether to the number of from 42 to fort3000, which is the entire limit of the present regular Army. In the course of a few months, or even weeks, we shall find our selves entirely destitute of any volunteer force whatever under the operation of the orders already existing, and uness some bill be passed to continue in service the colored troops and other troops, we shall find ourselves with an army which at itsmaximum can be only a little over 40,000. Now, sir, admitting the necessity of n Military establishment, extended to meet the requirements of the country, and equal to that which we are told from the headquarters of the Army, and from the Military Dept itself, is absolutely essential, the next question is whether this is an a prorinte time for creating such an army. T hold that this is n peculiarly appropriate time. We are now in the transition state from war to a peace establishment. We have now in the country on abun dance of skilled officers and skilled soldiers. We have above all 11 proposition to embody into an army system a number of Officers constituting the great bulk of that army, who will enter the new organization fresh from this war to suppress the rebellion, and full of all the sympathies, all the sentiments, all the love of country, and all the zeal to maintain at all hazards the honor of the flag and the integrity of the country in all time hereafter, which they learned in their exierience and in their noble service during the late war. I hold, therefore, that adopting as we do a system of examinations so that officers shall be thoroughly tried as to their merit, including their efficiency and fidelity in the service in which they have been so lately engaged, we can select no better time to put into the independent position of officers who will hold their offices during good behavior a body of men thoroughly adapted to maintain and defend our institutions through all time to come, than now when we can make up that army from men fresh from the field of war, on which they have nobly defended our institutions and the of our Government. Sir, do not propose to extend these remarks. I wish merely to call the attention of the House to these 2 propositions: that, in the 1st place, the army which we propose to create is an army no greater than is rotortioned, according to the indgment of al t use best qualified tojudge oft nomatter, to the needs of the country in its extended interests; and in the next place that this army in its component character is made up of those who have served the country faithfully, and who thus have been imbued with such sentiments of devotion to the country and its flag and all its highest interests as will make them the best possible material from which to select such an army. Mr. Speaker, I now call for the previous question on the passage of the bill.