QUARTERMASTER

August Kautz, Customs of Service for Officers

271.	LIEUTENANTS are selected to perform the staff duties of the Regiment in the capacity of Adjutant, Quartermaster, and Commissary. Their duties to be given in detail are so extensive and important as to require a separate book. Only a general outline of their duties will here be given.
282.	QUARTERMASTER.- The Regimental Quartermaster is also selected with a view to his special fitness for the position, and there is no post in the service that is so hard to fill with credit and good will to all. Every one in the Regiment is more or less dependent upon the usefulness and efficiency of this officer
283.	His duties, which do not differ in the main from a Staff officer of the Quartermaster's Department, are so extensive as to make only an outline of his duties possible here, hoping some day to make them the subject of a separate text.
284.	He is appointed by the Colonel or Commanding Officer of the Regiment, subject to the approval of the Secretary of War. (Reg. 73.) In his duties he is governed by the same rules, regulations, and laws that apply to all Quartermasters. He has the same accountability for money and property, and makes the same returns and reports. He differs only from a Quartermaster of the department in his appointment, and he may, therefore, be relieved from his position at any time by the Commanding Officer, unless, as in the case of Volunteer Regiments, he has been mustered into the service as a Quartermaster of the Regiment; the rule is that, if he has been appointed by the Commanding Officer of the Regiment, he can be relieved by the same authority. The same is true of Acting Quartermasters at a military post.
285.	The duties of a Regimental Quartermaster are limited to supplying the wants of the Regiment; in an Infantry Regiment he will have much less to do than in a Cavalry Regiment, or an Artillery Regiment, where horses and forage and an additional amount of transportation must be provided by him. Through him are obtained all the supplies furnished by the Quartermaster's department. (Reg. 1064-5.)
286.	He obtains from the Company Commanders requisitions and estimates of what they require, revises them, and sees that they are correct as required by regulations and orders, and consolidates them, and procures the supplies from the brigade or depot Quartermaster, and issues them to the Company Commanders.
287.	The position of Quartermaster requires two essentially different qualifications, the out-door or active work, and the in-door or clerical duty, that is the practical and the theoretical, which are not often in the same man.
288.	The practical involves the qualities of the foreman to direct and keep employed a large force of workmen; of the intelligent and active business man, whose knowledge of the markets of trade and materials, enables him to buy and sell for the government to the greatest advantage; and the engineer, architect, and artisan, who can direct the building of public quarters, storehouses, railroads, and steamboats, and their repairs, and thus provide or troops in garrison or in motion.
289.	The theoretical requires that he shall fully understand the mechanism of his department, and lie system of accountability as established by law ad regulations, to enable him to account correctly for the money and property that passes through his nods; it includes a knowledge of all the forms and papers required by the treasury department in the settlement of his money and property accounts.
290.	The following general principles must be borne in mind, viz.: All public money received must be accounted for, and sustained by receipts from the party to whom the money has been paid, whether disbursed for services or purchases; these receipts are made in a required form, depending upon the nature of lie disbursement. (See forms of vouchers to Abstracts A, B, and C, Quartermaster's Regulations.)
291.	All public property must be accounted for, whether received by transfer from officers (Abstract E), by purchase (Abstract D), by capture, impressment, manufacture, saving, or discovery (Abstract N); whether the property has been transferred to other officers (Abstract M), or issued for use or service (Abstracts F, G, H, I, and K), or extended, lost, destroyed or captured (Abstract L).
292.	All accountability may be rendered so far as the papers are concerned, if for all property or money received care is taken to obtain corresponding invoices, or lists, signed by the party from whom it is received, or inventories made at the time, and duly certified to by disinterested officers, or affidavits of citizens or soldiers; and where money or property is transferred to another party to obtain the required receipt in proper form according to the nature of the transfer; and in all cases to be able to show proper authority for the transaction, whether it be the written order of the superior, his approval as on requisition and abstract, or the necessity of service as set forth in certificates of officers or affidavits of citizens or enlisted men; and, finally, the officer's own certificate. These papers must be procured and filed at the time, any delay or postponement, may defer the opportunity past return, as the dangers of battle, the exigencies of service, the elements, or death may intervene and prevent another opportunity.
293.	Clothing, camp and garrison equipage must be kept separate from other Quartermaster's property, and be accounted for on separate returns; in exchanging invoices and receipts, therefore, the different kinds of property should not be included on the same invoice and receipt, and it must be borne in mind that the property of one department cannot be gratuitously transferred to another; ordnance property, commissary property, quartermaster's property, clothing, camp and garrison equipage, and money of the same departments must be kept separate, on returns, receipts, and invoices.
294.	In large armies the Regimental Quartermaster will have, ordinarily, no disbursements to make, and his duties will be limited to the regular supplies, and the wants of his Regiment, which will not be very difficult or laborious, but still constantly recurring, and, therefore, requiring strict and prompt attention.
295.	There is one general principle that should govern throughout all his duties; never to postpone any duty, or the completion of a paper beyond the time required to perfect it; the time when it can be done will always be the most convenient, and if put off the opportunity may be entirely lost or recovered with difficulty.