Quote Originally Posted by JeromeGrasdyke
Nope, quite right. They're specialists which you can attach to a given general, giving him bonusses and allowing him to do certain things. For example, the surgeon returns a certain proportion of the casualties to the living after a battle has been won, and the siege engineer allows the building of more and better siege engines. Also they can be transferred between characters, although they're not present on the battlefield and cannot move on the campaign map by themselves.
that's awesome, yet another thing to micromanage