TWENTY-FOURTH CONGRESS. SESS. I. CH. 81,82. 1836.
CHAP. LXXX.--An Act authorizing the President of the United States to
accept the service of volunteers, and to raise an additional regiment of
dragoons or mounted riflemen.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled, That the President of the
United States be, and he hereby is authorized to accept volunteers who may
offer their services either as infantry or cavalry not exceeding ten
thousand men, to serve six or twelve months after they shall have arrived
at the place of rendezvous, unless sooner discharged; and the said
volunteers shall furnish their own clothes, and, if cavalry, their own
horses, and when mustered into service, shall be armed and equipped at the
expense of the United States.
SEC. 2. And he it further enacted, That the said volunteers shall
be liable to be called upon to do military duty only in cases of Indian
hostilities, or to repel invasions, when ever the President shall judge
proper, and when called into actual service and while remaining therein,
shall be subject to the rules and articles of war, and shall be in all
respects, except as to clothing, placed on the same footing with similar
corps of
the United States army, and in lieu of clothing every non-commissioned
officer and private, in any company, who may thus offer themselves, shall
be entitled, when called into actual service, to receive in money a sum
equal to the cost of the clothing of a non-commissioned officer or private
(as the case may be) in the regular troops of the United States.
SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the said volunteers, so
offering their services, shall be accepted by the President in companies,
battalions, squadrons, regiments, brigades, or divisions, whose officers
shall be appointed in the manner prescribed by law in the several States
and Territories, to which such companies, battalions, squadrons,
regiments, brigades, or divisions, shall respectively belong. Provided,
That, where any company, battalion, squadron, regiment, brigade, or
division, of militia, already organized, shall tender their voluntary
service to the United States, such company, battalion, squadron, regiment,
brigade, or division, shall continue to be commanded by the officers
holding commissions in the same, at the time of such tender; and any
vacancy thereafter occurring shall be filled in the mode pointed out by
law in the State or Territory wherein the said company, battalion,
squadron, regiment, brigade or division, shall have been originally
raised.
SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That the President of the United
States be, and be is hereby authorized to organize companies, so tendering
their services, into battalions or squadrons, battalions or squadrons into
regiments, regiments into brigades, and brigades into divisions, as soon
as the number of volunteers shall render such organization in his Judgment
expedient; and the President shall, if necessary, apportion the staff,
field and general officers among the respective States or Territories from
which the volunteers shall tender their services as he may deem proper;
but, until called into actual service, such companies, battalions,
squadrons, regiments, brigades or divisions shall not be considered as
exempt from the performance of militia duty as is required by law, in like
manner as before the passage of this act.
SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That the volunteers who may be
received into the service of the United States, by virtue of the
provisions of this act, shall be entitled to all the benefits which may be
conferred on persons wounded in the service of the United States.
SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That there shall be raised and
organized, under the direction of the President of the United States, one
additional regiment of dragoons or mounted riflemen, to be composed of the
same number and rank of the officers, non-commissioned officers, musicians
and privates, composing the regiment of dragoons now in the service of the
United States, who shall receive the same pay and allowances, be subject
to the same rules and regulations, and be engaged for the like term, and
upon the same conditions, in all respects whatever as are stipulated for
the said regiment of dragoons now in service.
SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That the President of the United
States may disband the said regiment whenever, in his opinion, the public
interest no longer requires their services; and that the sum of three
hundred thousand dollars, required to carry into effect the provisions of
this act is hereby appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not
otherwise appropriated.
SEC. 8. And be it further enacted, That so much of this act as
relates to volunteers shall be in force for two years from and after the
passage of this act, and no longer.
APPROVED, May 23, 1836.
Source:
United States Statutes at Large,
Volume 5: 24th Congress, Statute I, 1836, p.p. 32-33. Published by Little, Brown
and Company, Boston, 1856.
