In completing the
organization of the Department provided by the act of 5th July. 1838,
several officers were selected from regiments for appointment as
assistant quartermasters whose lineal rank was greater than that held by
the assistant quartermasters then doing duty in the Department, and on
the 7th of July, the list being nearly completed, it was submitted to
the Senate for confirmation. All the assistant quartermasters thus
submitted to the Senate were confirmed to take rank from the 7th of
July, and in the order they were nominated, which was according to their
seniority in the line and agreeably to what was conceived to be the
intention of the law. Had the opposite course been pursued, the
lieutenants serving in the Department must either have outranked some of
the captains selected or else the selections must have been confined
altogether to the subaltern officers of the Army. It will appear,
therefore, that the relative rank of these officers has been properly
settled, both by a fair construction of the law and the long-established
regulation of the service which requires that "in cases where
commissions of the same grade and date interfere a retrospect is to be
had to former commissions in actual service at the time of appointment.
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