As soon as it was known
that the Military Committee of the House would report such an
amendment, it was assumed that the Senate would concur, and a
"slate" was made up accordingly. On the hypothesis that the list of
major-generals was thirteen in excess of the forty fixed by statute,
a new list of twenty-seven was made out, which would complete the
forty to be added by the new bill. A similar list was prepared for
the brigadiers and precisely similar negotiations went on, but for
brevity's sake I shall confine myself to the list for the highest
rank, in which I was personally concerned.
The House passed the amended bill on the 27th of February, and it
went back to the Senate for concurrence in the amendments. But now
an unexpected difficulty arose. The Senate refused to concur in the
changes made by the House. It matters little whether the senators
were offended at the determination of the lower House to have so
large a share in the nominations, or desired to punish the President
for having gone beyond the letter of the law in his promotions of
1862; the fact was that they voted down the amendments. A committee
of conference between the two houses was appointed, and a compromise
report was made fixing the additional number of major-generals at
thirty and of brigadiers at seventy-five.
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