Officers, MILITARY AND NAVAL.—Military Officers are combatant and non-combatant, the latter term including paymasters, medical officers, commissariat, and other departmental officers. The great divisions of rank in the British army are commissioned, warrant, and non-commissioned officers. Commissioned officers hold commissions from the crown, and comprise all of the rank of second-lieutenant or corresponding or superior rank. Some warrant officers also hold honorary commissions. Classified by duties, they are staff or regimental officers; divided by rank, General Officers (q.v.), Field-officers (q.v.), and troop or company officers. The last are captains, lieutenants, and second-lieutenants. Warrant officers in the army are master-gunners (1st and 2d class), bandmasters, schoolmasters, garrison and regimental sergeant-majors, superintending clerks, and conductors of the army service and ordnance store corps. Non-commissioned officers are described under that heading.
Naval Officers are divided into three classes: commissioned, warrant, and subordinate officers. The commissioned officers are admirals, captains, commanders, lieutenants, sub-lieutenants, chief warrant officers, paymasters, doctors, engineers, and naval instructors. All officers of the civil branches of the navy, as paymasters, doctors, and engineers, rank relatively with officers of the military branch according to their standing in the service, as, for instance, an inspector-general of hospitals ranks with a rear-admiral, a chief-paymaster with a captain, and so on. The warrant officers are the boatswains, gunners, and carpenters. The third class comprises midshipmen, naval cadets, clerks, and engineer students; these officers have neither commissions nor warrants, but are simply appointed by the Admiralty; they are on probation, and are liable to be summarily removed at any time for such causes as failure to make satisfactory progress in their studies, general inefficiency, &c. No officer of the civil branch, no matter how high may be his relative rank, can ever assume any command, so long as an officer of the military branch is present. Petty officers are not officers, they are analogous to non-commissioned officers in the army; they will be described under their own heading, as they constitute a very important body of men in the navy.