Posted on 08/20/2004 5:43:21 AM PDT by TexConfederate1861
Imagine that America had a Chief Justice of the United States who actually believed in enforcing the Constitution and, accordingly, issued an opinion that the war in Iraq was unconstitutional because Congress did not fulfill its constitutional duty in declaring war. Imagine also that the neocon media, think tanks, magazines, radio talk shows, and television talking heads then waged a vicious, months-long smear campaign against the chief justice, insinuating that he was guilty of treason and should face the punishment for it. Imagine that he is so demonized that President Bush is emboldened to issue an arrest warrant for the chief justice, effectively destroying the constitutional separation of powers and declaring himself dictator.
An event such as this happened in the first months of the Lincoln administration when Abraham Lincoln issued an arrest warrant for Chief Justice Roger B. Taney after the 84-year-old judge issued an opinion that only Congress, not the president, can suspend the writ of habeas corpus. Lincoln had declared the writ null and void and ordered the military to begin imprisoning thousands of political dissenters. Taney’s opinion, issued as part of his duties as a circuit court judge in Maryland, had to do with the case of Ex Parte Merryman (May 1861). The essence of his opinion was not that habeas corpus could not be suspended, only that the Constitution requires Congress to do it, not the president. In other words, if it was truly in "the public interest" to suspend the writ, the representatives of the people should have no problem doing so and, in fact, it is their constitutional prerogative.
As Charles Adams wrote in his LRC article, "Lincoln’s Presidential Warrant to Arrest Chief Justice Roger B. Taney," there were, at the time of his writing, three corroborating sources for the story that Lincoln actually issued an arrest warrant for the chief justice. It was never served for lack of a federal marshal who would perform the duty of dragging the elderly chief justice out of his chambers and throwing him into the dungeon-like military prison at Fort McHenry. (I present even further evidence below).
All of this infuriates the Lincoln Cult, for such behavior is unquestionably an atrocious act of tyranny and despotism. But it is true. It happened. And it was only one of many similar constitutional atrocities committed by the Lincoln administration in the name of "saving the Constitution."
The first source of the story is a history of the U.S. Marshal’s Service written by Frederick S. Calhoun, chief historian for the Service, entitled The Lawmen: United States Marshals and their Deputies, 1789–1989. Calhoun recounts the words of Lincoln’s former law partner Ward Hill Laman, who also worked in the Lincoln administration.
Upon hearing of Laman’s history of Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus and the mass arrest of Northern political opponents, Lincoln cultists immediately sought to discredit Laman by calling him a drunk. (Ulysses S. Grant was also an infamous drunk, but no such discrediting is ever perpetrated on him by the Lincoln "scholars".)
But Adams comes up with two more very reliable accounts of the same story. One is an 1887 book by George W. Brown, the mayor of Baltimore, entitled Baltimore and the Nineteenth of April, 1861: A Study of War (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1887). In it is the transcript of a conversation Mayor Brown had with Taney in which Taney talks of his knowledge that Lincoln had issued an arrest warrant for him.
Yet another source is A Memoir of Benjamin Robbins Curtis, a former U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Judge Curtis represented President Andrew Johnson in his impeachment trial before the U.S. Senate; wrote the dissenting opinion in the Dred Scott case; and resigned from the court over a dispute with Judge Taney over that case. Nevertheless, in his memoirs he praises the propriety of Justice Taney in upholding the Constitution by opposing Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus. He refers to Lincoln’s arrest warrant as a "great crime."
I recently discovered yet additional corroboration of Lincoln’s "great crime." Mr. Phil Magness sent me information suggesting that the intimidation of federal judges was a common practice in the early days of the Lincoln administration (and the later days as well). In October of 1861 Lincoln ordered the District of Columbia Provost Marshal to place armed sentries around the home of a Washington, D.C. Circuit Court judge and place him under house arrest. The reason was that the judge had issued a writ of habeas corpus to a young man being detained by the Provost Marshal, allowing the man to have due process. By placing the judge under house arrest Lincoln prevented the judge from attending the hearing of the case. The documentation of this is found in Murphy v. Porter (1861) and in United States ex re John Murphy v. Andrew Porter, Provost Marshal District of Columbia (2 Hay. & Haz. 395; 1861).
The second ruling contained a letter from Judge W.M. Merrick, the judge of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, explaining how, after issuing the writ of habeas corpus to the young man, he was placed under house arrest. Here is the final paragraph of the letter:
After dinner I visited my brother Judges in Georgetown, and returning home between half past seven and eight o’clock found an armed sentinel stationed at my door by order of the Provost-Marshal. I learned that this guard had been placed at my door as early as five o’clock. Armed sentries from that time continuously until now have been stationed in front of my house. Thus it appears that a military officer against whom a writ in the appointed form of law has first threatened with and afterwards arrested and imprisoned the attorney who rightfully served the writ upon him. He continued, and still continues, in contempt and disregard of the mandate of the law, and has ignominiously placed an armed guard to insult and intimidate by its presence the Judge who ordered the writ to issue, and still keeps up this armed array at his door, in defiance and contempt of the justice of the land. Under the circumstances I respectfully request the Chief Judge of the Circuit Court to cause this memorandum to be read in open Court, to show the reasons for my absence from my place upon the bench, and that he will cause this paper to be entered at length on the minutes of the Court . . . W.M. Merrick Assistant Judge of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia
As Adams writes, the Lincoln Cult is terrified that this truth will become public knowledge, for it if does, it means that Lincoln "destroyed the separation of powers; destroyed the place of the Supreme Court in the Constitutional scheme of government. It would have made the executive power supreme, over all others, and put the president, the military, and the executive branch of government, in total control of American society. The Constitution would have been at an end."
Exactly right.
August 19, 2004
Thomas J. DiLorenzo [send him mail] is the author of The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War, (Three Rivers Press/Random House). His latest book is How Capitalism Saved America: The Untold Story of Our Country’s History, from the Pilgrims to the Present (Crown Forum/Random House, August 2004).
Copyright © 2004 LewRockwell.com
You would like your cake and to eat it too. But it doesn't work that way.
Lincoln was correct to attempt to assert and reestablish legal control over the insurrectionist states. The insurrectionists, however, were afforded no personal protection under the Constitution they renounced. In the Prize Cases we find these easily understood statements:
"The laws of war, as established among nations, have their foundation in reason, and all tend to mitigate the cruelties and misery produced by the scourge of war. Hence the parties to a civil war usually concede to each other belligerent rights. They exchange prisoners, and adopt the other courtesies and rules common to public or national wars.
"A civil war," says Vattel, 'breaks the bands of society and government, or at least suspends their force and effect; it produces in the nation two independent parties, who consider each other as enemies and acknowledge no common judge. Those two parties, therefore, must necessarily be considered as constituting, at least for a time, two separate bodies, two distinct societies. Having no common superior to judge between them, they stand in precisely the same predicament as two nations who engage in a contest and have recourse to arms. This being the case, it is very evident that the common laws of war -- those maxims of humanity, moderation, and honor -- ought to be observed by both parties in every civil war. Should the sovereign conceive he has a right to hang up his prisoners as rebels, the opposite party will make reprisals, &c., &c.; the war will become cruel, horrible, and every day more destructive to the nation.'....
"The law of nations is also called the law of nature; it is founded on the common consent, as well as the common sense, of the world. It contains no such anomalous doctrine as that which this Court are now for the first time desired to pronounce, to-wit, that insurgents who have risen in rebellion against their sovereign, expelled her Courts, established a revolutionary government, organized armies, and commenced hostilities are not enemies because they are traitors, and a war levied on the Government by traitors, in order to dismember and destroy it, is not a war because it is an 'insurrection.'
"Whether the President, in fulfilling his duties as Commander-in-chief in suppressing an insurrection, has met with such armed hostile resistance and a civil war of such alarming proportions as will compel him to accord to them the character of belligerents is a question to be decided by him, and this Court must be governed by the decisions and acts of the political department of the Government to which this power was entrusted. 'He must determine what degree of force the crisis demands.' The proclamation of blockade is itself official and conclusive evidence to the Court that a state of war existed which demanded and authorized a recourse to such a measure under the circumstances peculiar to the case....
"The right of one belligerent not only to coerce the other by direct force, but also to cripple his resources by the seizure or destruction of his property, is a necessary result of a state of war. Money and wealth, the products of agriculture and commerce, are said to be the sinews of war, and as necessary in its conduct as numbers and physical force. Hence it is that the laws of war recognize the right of a belligerent to cut these sinews of the power of the enemy by capturing his property on the high seas."
No capitan. I am perfectly content in maintaining that Lincoln's laws did not apply over the confederacy, in which case all of his atrocities may be considered acts of agression that fall under the scope of international law.
Lincoln was correct to attempt to assert and reestablish legal control over the insurrectionist states.
That is your opinion. It is not a sound principle of right and wrong though.
With respect to Southern insurrectionists during the war, Lincoln's conduct is of no consequence. They were enemies and could assert no Constitutional rights.
By the way, Lincoln was elected to his Constitutional term both times. One who "reigned" would not have stood for re-election. Your characterization is laughable.
"I'm happy you noted that, but you should also note that such wanton killings did occur on Lincoln's watch at far to high of a frequency to tolerate."
It is conceded that wanton acts took place on both sides. It was the role of the courts to punish the offenders.
"I'm talking about yankee-sanctioned war criminals ... who patrolled behind the union lines and basically raped whatever the could out of the southern people who were unfortunate enough to live there as war spoils and to pass the boredom."
If the purpose of the destruction of the Confederate infrastructure was to sooner end the war and save Union lives, it was permissible and justified.
"Separation from a previous regime is the very thing this country was founded on. You can't get any more american than that."
Separation from the British empire was an act of revolution in response to oppression. It is justified under natural law. Unilateral secession purported to be a lawful, constitutional act. History and the courts have proved it was not.
"One thing that our country was NOT founded on, however, was tyranny and the usurpation of the civil authority and rule of law for military convenience."
Which country do you refer to? It is unclear from the context.
I would agree that the decison of the Supreme Court trumps any commentary. However, the decision must be applicable.
Wrong. Either the law applied to everybody in the south or it applied to nobody in the south. You and Saint Abe can't have it both ways because it's convenient for you. Besides, many of Abe's atrocities were committed against northerners and public officials in non-seceded states like Judge Merrick.
By the way, Lincoln was elected to his Constitutional term both times.
Yep, and he violated his oath to uphold the constitution barely a month after taking it! What do you call an executive who shuns the constitution he swore to defend and throws its safeguards and checks upon him (two of which were Judges Taney and Merrick) aside? A tyrant, that's what.
It is conceded that wanton acts took place on both sides. It was the role of the courts to punish the offenders.
Too bad Lincoln used his military to overrun those courts and intimidate the judges that could rule against the lawbreakers in his army.
If the purpose of the destruction of the Confederate infrastructure was to sooner end the war and save Union lives, it was permissible and justified.
Blah blah blah, the end justifies the means, might makes right...all straight out of the Bolshevik and Stalinist manuals, right?
Separation from the British empire was an act of revolution in response to oppression. It is justified under natural law. Unilateral secession purported to be a lawful, constitutional act.
You're straining at gnats and fabricating a false distinction that the secessionists themselves did not profess. A right is a right is a right, period, and the secessionists clearly stated they were acting upon their right: "THE REVOLUTION OF 1861" - Charleston Mercury
Which country do you refer to?
The one that cast off King George because "He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power." Kinda like Lincoln did against Judges Taney and Merrick.
This point has been well-discussed on FR, in relation to the recent recall of Governor Davis of California. The Lt. Governor, Cruz Bustamante, who was a candidate to replace the Governor, is a member of the racist organization known as MEChA. MEChA is the proponent of AZTLAN.
If racist secessionists showed up at my house, they would be introduced to Messrs. Remington & Winchester. Vaya con dios, amigos.
Not at all! The South was very much part of the Union. The secessionists were not.
So they got kicked out of the country? Then what right did Lincoln have to persecute them?
Then you should be able to relate with how southerners felt when racist war criminal Sherman and Jew-hating anti-Semite Grant showed up at their houses.
The overwhelming majority of southerners did not fight because they wanted something that wasn't theirs. They fought because Lincoln's army was on their doorsteps shooting at them, and when you get shot the obvious thing to do is shoot back!
During the insurrection the only law that the North was bound to respect in the south was the law of war. The southerners were belligerents in war, and were afford NO protections by the law of the United States, other than those the government chose to grant them.
"Yep, and he violated his oath to uphold the constitution barely a month after taking it!"
According to who? What authoritative body ruled as such?
"What do you call an executive who shuns the constitution he swore to defend and throws its safeguards and checks upon him (two of which were Judges Taney and Merrick) aside? A tyrant, that's what."
"Too bad Lincoln used his military to overrun those courts and intimidate the judges that could rule against the lawbreakers in his army."
I am quite confident that if your allegations were valid, the Court system would have sorted it out. In any case, that was not an insurrectionist matter to worry about; the insurrectionists had already committed their treachery.
As Lincoln ruled neither absolutely, nor oppressively, the epithet of "tyrant" or "despot" rings hollow. It is merely neo-confederate propaganda. The plaintive whine of a loser.
"The one that cast off King George because "He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power." Kinda like Lincoln did against Judges Taney and Merrick."
I don't recall any loyal states bolting the Union because of alleged wrongs to Taney or Merrick. A tyrant or despot would not have tolerated either one of them. Taney continued on, in his embittered dotage, as Chief Justice. Merrick was eventually released from house arrest once the crisis had passed.
"You're straining at gnats and fabricating a false distinction that the secessionists themselves did not profess. A right is a right is a right, period, and the secessionists clearly stated they were acting upon their right: "THE REVOLUTION OF 1861" - Charleston Mercury"
Charleston Mercury = Robert Barnwell Rhett, fire-eater extraordinary
The distinction was made by Madison in the 1830's. Let me review the quotation you know so well:
James Madison to Daniel Webster, March 15, 1833
"I return my thanks for the copy of your late very powerful Speech in the Senate of the United S. It crushes "nullification" and must hasten the abandonment of "Secession." But this dodges the blow by confounding the claim to secede at will, with the right of seceding from intolerable oppression. The former answers itself, being a violation, without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged. The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy. Its double aspect, nevertheless, with the countenance recd from certain quarters, is giving it a popular currency here which may influence the approaching elections both for Congress & for the State Legislature. It has gained some advantage also, by mixing itself with the question whether the Constitution of the U.S. was formed by the people or by the States, now under a theoretic discussion by animated partizans."
If the secessionists were claiming, like their ancestors some eighty year earlier, the natural right of revolution, then theirs was truly a war for independence. They were in conflict with the sovereign authority of the nation they purported to leave and could claim nothing from it.
Jaffa notes, "Lincoln was always careful to concede that secession might be a revolutionary right, as distinct from a constitutional right. But the right of revolution can justly be invoked only in the interest of human freedom, not of slavery. Jefferson, in his Note on Virginia, made plain that the slaves had the right of revolution, not the masters. In any servile uprising, he said, God would be on the side of the slaves. This is unquestionably why the confederate States always insisted that secession was a constitutional right, not a natural or revolutionary right."
If that is the case, then you recognize the correctness of Wheaton's commentary concerning the laws of war.
CR - "Lincoln was correct to attempt to assert and reestablish legal control over the insurrectionist states."
GOPc - "That is your opinion. It is not a sound principle of right and wrong though."
That is my conclusion, based on the facts. I believe, as Lincoln, that it was imperative to preserve the Union, by all reasonable force as needed. I believe that a successful secession by the South would have led to the balkanization of North America, and a future so fraught with misery and war, that the suffering in the WBTS would have seemed like a holiday vacation. I believe it is a good thing the South got whooped, as an object lesson to those who would try it again (i.e. MEChA, Aryan Nation, etc.). I believe it is a good thing that slavery was outlawed. I believe it is a good thing that most southerners, such as Robert E. Lee, were peacefully reintegrated into society, having given up on the failed idea of secession.
Grant and Sherman had a right to be there - your use of the epithets seem to be additional whimpers of the vanquished.
Tell, who do you consider a paragon of virtue in the American Civil War period?
"The overwhelming majority of southerners did not fight because they wanted something that wasn't theirs. They fought because Lincoln's army was on their doorsteps shooting at them, and when you get shot the obvious thing to do is shoot back!"
I agree that the majority of the rebel soldiers were fighting in behalf of their families and their homes. Like most Americans at that time, they had probably never been more than 50 miles away from their place of birth. I have never faulted the simple soldier who followed orders. But those giving the orders, that is a different question altogether.
The "overwhelming majority" of southerners did not participate militarily for the South in the war, if you include the Unionists of the border slave-states, in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, in Louisiana. This does not even include those southerners who were enslaved.
The insurrectionists exited themselves from the Union. Lincoln did not persecute them; he crushed their rebellion. The ACW was a cleansing process, in one sense. It was growth process in another. Jefferson's "tree of liberty" needed to be refreshed.
...and yet they couldn't even abide by that one. I won't even go into the other laws in their own parts of the country such as Washington D.C. and Maryland where Lincoln intimidated and arrested judges
According to who?
According to history. He suspended habeas corpus which the constitution and law plainly do not permit him to do. He intimidated and house arrested a judge which the constitution and law plainly do not permit him to do.
What authoritative body ruled as such?
Truth is truth is truth is truth no matter what ad verecundiam rendering anybody pulls about it. That said, five separate authoritative federal courts ruled against him on habeas corpus and the supreme court, at other times in history - one before Lincoln, one after Lincoln - has ruled against him on habeas corpus.
I am quite confident that if your allegations were valid, the Court system would have sorted it out.
How can the court system sort it out if the judge is locked in his house by armed sentries sent from Saint Abe? The DC Circuit court plainly stated that Abe was in the wrong and hit his henchman with a solid and uncontested contempt charge, but Lincoln personally intervened to prevent the contempt charge from even being served. The court was trying to do its business under the law and Lincoln SHUT THEM DOWN BY FORCE.
As Lincoln ruled neither absolutely, nor oppressively, the epithet of "tyrant" or "despot" rings hollow.
Circular garbage. Your premise is based upon your conclusion which is in turn based upon your premise: Lincoln did not rule oppressively, therefore he was not a tyrant, and since he was not a tyrant, he did not rule oppressively. That's been your line for quite some time around here, capitan. But wait...along comes something like the Merrick incident that shows Lincoln did indeed rule oppressively. No worries! Just slander and defame the judge, post unreasonable doubts and demands against the facts of the case, dismiss the entire matter out of hand, and crap in a bowl and call it ice cream. Praise be, as Saint Abe's reputation is thus restored!
I don't recall any loyal states bolting the Union because of alleged wrongs to Taney or Merrick.
"But in the Northern States the Cherokee people saw with alarm a violated Constitution, all civil liberty put in peril, and all the rules of civilized warfare and the dictates of common humanity and decency unhesitatingly disregarded. In States which still adhered to the Union a military despotism has displaced the civil power and the laws became silent amid arms. Free speech and almost free thought became a crime. The right to the writ of habeas corpus, guaranteed by the Constitution, disappeared at the nod of a Secretary of State or a general of the lowest grade. The mandate of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was set at naught by the military power, and this outrage on common right approved by a President sworn to support the Constitution." - Declaration of Causes of the Cherokee Nation that impell them to unite their fortunes with the Confederate States of America
And
"WHEREAS, the present administration of the government of the United States has utterly ignored the Constitution, subverted the government as constructed and intended by its makers, and established a despotic and arbitrary power instead thereof" - Missouri Ordinance of Secession
A tyrant or despot would not have tolerated either one of them.
Oh really? Here in Texas we know quite a bit about tyrants. One of them was a little mexican dictator named Santa Anna. One of the main causes that pushed Texas to take that final step was what happened to its envoy to Mexico City, Stephen F. Austin. Austin went down there to address the mounting grievances with Santa Anna and Santa Anna simply threw him in prison once he got there to get him out of the way. Am I supposed to believe then that Santa Anna was not a tyrant since he put Austin in a prison cell instead of simply having him shot on the spot?
Merrick was eventually released from house arrest once the crisis had passed.
And what "crisis" would that be, Capitan? The Great Underage Minor Enlistment Caper of 1861?
Merrick was house arrested because he gave a writ of habeas corpus to a child who lied about his age thinking he was going on an adventure then discovered the army wasn't all fun and games. Nowadays when that happens the army itself files the papers to get the kid out and back then the courts did it. But alas, Saint Abe would not win his battles if some mean old judge told him that he couldn't make kids fight for him so he solved it by getting rid of the judge till the case was over!
Charleston Mercury = Robert Barnwell Rhett, fire-eater extraordinary
Is your phonograph broken again, capitan? You say that exact same line whenever the Mercury headline is mentioned, yet you never bother to address the simple fact that it demonstrates a revolutionary belief among the secessionists.
The distinction was made by Madison in the 1830's.
And Madison was wrong. If throwing off a former regime that denies the consent of a people is a "right," then it is a right always and under all circumstances. Trying to insert false distinctions of whether that right, when exercised, is "legal" amounts to nothing more than obfuscation of the real issue. By its very DEFINITION the only real crime against sovereignty is that of being a traitor to the sovereign, or treason. And indeed one may be prosecuted as a traitor for true traitorous acts. But that status ends completely the moment a group breaks off from the former sovereign and thus no TRUE AND VALID criminal charge may be prosecuted upon it.
Do you know why the United States was NOT guilty of treason after July 4, 1776? Because on that date, or thereabouts, they formally cast off their allegiance to Britain! To be a traitor one must commit a treachery within the ruling regime, normally while still even professing friendship - like Benedict Arnold did. But once you declare that you aren't a part of their government anymore the term traitor no longer applies because you have exercised your right of consent to cast off that government and renegotiate the social contract, or whatever they call it. The southern states did this - they formally cast off their ties to the former northern government, and the very moment they did, the ONLY true criminal statute that could have formerly applied to them under that government was moot. It ceased to apply.
Jaffa notes
And Jaffa is well outside his only known credentialed expertise: ENGLISH LITERATURE. But let's look at what he says.
"Lincoln was always careful to concede that secession might be a revolutionary right, as distinct from a constitutional right.
No he wasn't. Lincoln mentioned the "revolutionary right" in detail once or twice, most notably when he was making a Jim McDermott-esque speech that praised the dictator of Mexico in the middle of a war with that nation in which they had attacked and invaded the sovereign borders of Texas. Given that Lincoln was not particularly versed in political philosophy of any sort, himself being more inclined to read Artemus Ward than, say, Tocqueville, it is highly doubtful that he even had a beginner's grasp on the false theories that Jaffa assigns to him, let alone being a defining proponent of them.
But the right of revolution can justly be invoked only in the interest of human freedom, not of slavery.
The consent of the governed is, by definition, in the interest of human freedom even if incidental attributes to that freedom are themselves not free. The same principle is precisely what permitted the founders in 1776 to act as they did despite slavery's continuation and in direct contradiction of Jaffa's simple minded and arbitrarily applied caveats.
Jefferson, in his Note on Virginia, made plain that the slaves had the right of revolution, not the masters.
In some respects a case could indeed be made that they had this right. That said, even for them to have the revolutionary right in no way precludes other people, including the non-slaves, from similarly exercising the revolutionary right on their own accord. As to the slave's actual exercise of that right though, St. Augustine addresses the issue with far greater philosophical value than Harry Jaffa could ever muster:
"But our Master in heaven says, "Every one who doeth sin is the servant of sin." And thus there are many wicked masters who have religious men as their slaves, and who are yet themselves in bondage; "for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage." And beyond question it is a happier thing to be the slave of a man than of a lust; for even this very lust of ruling, to mention no others, lays waste men's hearts with the most ruthless dominion. Moreover, when men are subjected to one another in a peaceful order, the lowly position does as much good to the servant as the proud position does harm to the master. But by nature, as God first created us, no one is the slave either of man or of sin...the apostle admonishes slaves to be subject to their masters, and to serve them heartily and with good-will, so that, if they cannot be freed by their masters, they may themselves make their slavery in some sort free, by serving not in crafty fear, but in faithful love, until all unrighteousness pass away, and all principality and every human power be brought to nothing, and God be all in all."
Put another way, sin exists and slavery is a product of that sin, but if casting it off entails such subsequent sins as to render that act similarly sinful, it should not be the path of resort.
In any servile uprising, he said, God would be on the side of the slaves. This is unquestionably why the confederate States always insisted that secession was a constitutional right, not a natural or revolutionary right."
...and thus the Abratollah gives us yet another giant load of esoterical bovine refuse with no substantiating historical evidence, no causal or logical necessity, and all the contrived leaps of convenience one needs to link two unassociated and distant concepts that could not be otherwise bridged by a factually grounded and factually valid means.
No man has a right to unjustly take the life and property of an innocent other, and especially not in the complete absence of a due process of law.
Tell, who do you consider a paragon of virtue in the American Civil War period?
War produces precious few of those. The one that comes closest out of the major figures is Jackson. When all are considered, the title of virtue belongs to the common soldier who fired in defense of his home and family, and there were thousands of those.
I have never faulted the simple soldier who followed orders.
That's what you don't understand, capitan. It's not even a matter of following orders - it's a matter of self defense, self preservation, and ultimately survival. If a yankee comes charging into my state, across my farm, through my house, and at my family I'm going to fire back at him regardless of whether I have orders from some distant government in Richmond or anywhere else. And if that government in Richmond is doing something that permits me to be more effective in defending myself, then yes - I would band with them. But that no more makes me a pawn of theirs than your farcical claims of "might makes right" and "ends justify the means" excuse the tangible and certain offenses against humanity and God committed by Abe and his wantonly destructive henchmen.
The "overwhelming majority" of southerners did not participate militarily for the South in the war, if you include the Unionists of the border slave-states, in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, in Louisiana.
Unsubstantiated garbage. Outside of Eastern Tennessee and the Wheeling region of Virginia (which wasn't really southern to begin with - it's north of the mason dixon line) the number of union troops from the south is virtually non-existant. Save for those two states, they numbered a couple thousand on average and in some cases a couple dozen. South Carolina sent zero recorded union troops for example. Mississippi sent 500, Georgia is unknown but estimated at less than a hundred, and the rest sent a couple thousand each.
Funny. That's what Stalin said about the Ukraine.
Stalin cleansed by way of genocide. Lincoln cleansed away the stain of human servitude.
There are a lot of modifiers in that sentence.
Let me simplify. In war, you have the right to kick the crap out of the enemy and to utterly destroy his war-making capacity. Presumably that does not include killing civilians and innocents. It does include taking or obliterating anything that adds to the enemy's war machine, including food and animal stock. If that leaves the civilian population destitute, that's too bad. It is up to their own forces to care for them - or capitulate. There is no "due process", because war is not a legal process.
When guerrilla warfare occurs, the number of civilian casualties necessarily increases.
"The one that comes closest out of the major figures is [Stonewall] Jackson."
Interesting that you would mention Thomas Jackson. Jackson was an early proponent of fighting a "psychological" war - one designed to break the will of the enemy. (See Bevin Alexander, How Great Generals Win, chapter: "Stonewall Jackson")
"Outside of Eastern Tennessee and the Wheeling region of Virginia (which wasn't really southern to begin with - it's north of the mason dixon line) the number of union troops from the south is virtually non-existant."
I did not say providing troops for the Union. I said "participate militarily." There were a great many southerners in the areas I listed who "sat out" the war.
My #1277 concerns the 2d and 3d objections and does not address the court's comments on the 1st objection.
[cr #1279 quoting from Hamdi] "Rejecting these arguments, Chief Justice Taney’s opinion for the Court found the government’s defense to be based on “rumors which reached the commanding officer.” Id. at 133. “Mere suspicions of an illegal intention,” the Court stated, “will not authorize a military officer to seize and detain the property of an American citizen. The fact that such an intention existed must be shown; and of that there is no evidence.” Id. If an Article III court, consistent with separation of powers principles, can inquire into the seizure of a citizen’s property by the military within a country at war with the United States as in Harmony, these same principles surely pose no barrier to an inquiry into the seizure of the citizen himself."
[cr #1279] It seems that Mitchell is not applicable to the situation of the South in the ACW. By their insurrection, the southern rebels forsook their claim to United States citizenship. I do not see how they could assert legal protections, if those protections were even applicable, from the document and country they renounced.
Mitchell was an officer of the army, and was sued in an action of trespass by Harmony for seizing his property in the Mexican State of Chihuahua. On appeal (Mitchell vs. Harmony) it is the loser in the lower court bringing an action to reverse the lower court ruling. The Government was not a party to the action.
The comment from Hamdi is taken from the section of the court decision commenting only upon the 1st objection. It has nothing whatever to do with objections 2 thru 5 and is not relevant to what I posted.
He justified the seizure on several grounds.1. That the plaintiff was engaged in trading with the enemy. 2. That he was compelled to remain with the American forces, and to move with them, to prevent the property from falling into the hands of the enemy. 3. That the property was taken for public use. 4. That if the defendant was liable for the original taking, he was released from damages for its subsequent loss, by the act of the plaintiff, who had resumed the possession and control of it before the loss happened. 5. That the defendant acted in obedience to the order of his commanding officer, and therefore is not liable.
The first objection was overruled by the court, and we think correctly. There is no dispute about the facts which relate to this part of the case, nor any contradiction in the testimony. The plaintiff entered the hostile country openly for the purpose of trading, in company with other traders, and under the protection of the American flag. The inhabitants with whom he traded had submitted to the American arms, and the country was in possession of the military authorities of the United States. The trade in which he was engaged was not only sanctioned by the commander of the American troops, but, as appears by the record, was permitted by the Executive Department of the government, whose policy it was to conciliate, by kindness and commercial intercourse, the Mexican provinces bordering on the United States, and by that means weaken the power of the hostile government of Mexico, with which we were at war. It was one of the means resorted to to bring the war to a successful conclusion.
It is certainly true, as a general rule, that no citizen can lawfully trade with a public enemy; and if found to be engaged in such illicit traffic his goods are liable to seizure and confiscation. But the rule has no application to a case of this kind; nor can an officer of the United States seize the property of an American citizen, for an act which the constituted authorities, acting within the scope of their lawful powers, have authorized to be done.
Indeed this ground of justification has not been pressed in the argument. The defence has been placed, rather on rumors which reached the commanding officer and suspicions which he appears to have entertained of a secret design in the plaintiff to leave the American forces and carry on an illicit trade with the enemy, injurious to the interests of the United States. And if such a design had been shown, and that he was preparing to leave the American troops for that purpose, the seizure and detention of his property, to prevent its execution, would have been fully justified. But there is no evidence in the record tending to show that these rumors and suspicions had any foundation. And certainly mere suspicions of an illegal intention will not authorize a military officer to seize and detain the property of an American citizen. The fact that such an intention existed must be shown; and of that there is no evidence.
The 2d and 3d objections will be considered together....
The rules of seizure of property are not dependent on U.S. citizenship. The citizenship of Harmony permitted him to file the action directly on his own behalf is New York. Your argument has nothing to do with reality. Perhaps going to FINDLAW and reading Mitchell vs. Harmony might help.
[cr #1269 to GOPcap] Under the law of nations and the law of war, it was lawful to "ravage and lay waste" to the South.
This comment remains categorically false and repugnant to the Laws of War. More significantly, it is in specific and direct violation of War Department General Order 100, and War Department General Order 288, which provide specific "Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field."
The following "Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Fiedl," prepared by Francis Lieber, LL. D., and revised by a board of officers, of which Major General E. A. Hitchcock is president, having been approved by the President of the United States, he commands that they be published for the information of all concerned.
By order of the Secretary of War:
E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE FIELD.
* * *
34. As general rule, the property belonging to churches, to hospitals, or other establishments of an exclusively charitable character, to establishments of education, or foundations for the promotion of knowledge, whether public schools, universities, academies of learning or observatories, museums of the fine arts, or of a scientific character--such property is not to be considered public property in the sense of paragraph 31; but it may be taxed or used when the public service may require it.
35. Classical works of art, libraries, scientific collections, or precious instruments, such as astronomical telescopes,as well as hospitals, must be secured against all avoidable injury, even when they are contained in fortified places whilst besieged or bombarded.
36. If such works of art, libraries, collections, or instruments belonging to a hostile nation or government, can be removed without injury, the ruler of the conquering state or nation may order them to be seized and removed for the benefit of the said nation. The ultimate ownership is to be settled by the ensuing treaty of peace.
In no case shall they be sold or given away, if captured by the armies or wantonly destroyed or injured.
37. The United States acknowledge and protect, in hostile countries occupied by them, religion and morality; strictly private property; the persons of the inhabitants, especially those of women; and the sacredness of domestic relations. Offenses to the contrary shall be rigorously punished.
This rule does not interfere with the right of the victorious invader to tax the people or their property, to levy forced loans, to billet soldiers, or to appropriate property, especially houses, lands, boasts or ships, and the churches, for temporary and military uses.
38. Private property, unless forfeited by crimes or by offenses of the owner, can be seized only by way of military necessity, for the support or other benefit of the Army or of the United States.
If the owner has not fled, the commanding officer will cause receipts to be given, which may serve the spoliated owner to obtain indemnity.
In every case of seizure of goods by officers acting under the authority of this Department, a true and perfect inventory thereof shall be taken in triplicate by the officer making the seizure, one copy of which shall be given to the person from whom the goods were taken, line copy retained by the officer, and the third copy will be forwarded with a report of the seizure, which will be immediately made to this Department. The officer making the seizure will be held accountable for the goods while they are under his charge, and until they are disposed of according to orders from this Department.
By order of the Secretary of War:
E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
OFFICIAL RECORDS: Series 3, vol 3, Part 1 (Union Letters, Orders, Reports)
GENERAL ORDERS,
WAR DEPT., ADJT. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 100.
Washington, April 24, 1863.
The following "Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field," prepared by Francis Lieber, LL. D., and revised by a board of officers, of which Major General E. A. Hitchcock is president, having been approved by the President of the United States, he commands that they be published for the information of all concerned.
By order of the Secretary of War:
E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE FIELD.
SECTION I.-Martial law-Military jurisdiction-Military necessity- Retaliation.
1. A place, district, or country occupied by an enemy stands, in consequence of the occupation, under the martial law of the invading or occupying army, whether any proclamation declaring martial law, or any public warning ot the inhabitants, has been issued or not. Martial law is the immediate and direct effect and consequence of occupation or conquers.
The presence of a hostile army proclamation its martial law.
2. Martial law does not cease during the hostile occupation, except by special proclamation, ordered by the command-in-chief, or by special mention in the treaty of peace concluding the war, when the occupation of a place or territory continues beyond the conclusion of peace as one of the conditions of the same.
3. Martial law in a hostile country consists in the suspension by the occupying military authority of the criminal and civil law, and of the domestic administration and government in the occupied place or territory, and in the substitution of military rule and force for the same, as well in the dictation of general laws, as far as military necessity requires this suspension, substitution, or dictation.
The commander of the forces may proclaim that the administration of all civil and penal law shall continue either wholly or in part, as in times of peace, unless otherwise ordered by the military authority.
4. Martial law is simply military authority exercised in accordance with the laws and usages of war. Military oppression is not martial law; it is the abuse of the power which that law confers. As martial law is executed by military force, it is incumbent upon those who administer it to be strictly guided by the principle of justice, honor, and humanity-virtues adorning a soldier even more than other men, for the very reason that he possesses the power of his arms against the unarmed.
5. Martial law should be less stringent in places and countries fully occupied and fairly conquered. Much greater severity may be exer-
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cised in places or regions where actual hostilities exist or are expected and must be prepared for. Its most complete sway is allowed-even in the commander's own country-when face to face with the enemy, because of the absolute necessities of the case, and of the paramount duty to defend the country against invasion.
To save the country is paramount to all other considerations.
6. All civil and penal law shall continue to take its usual course in the enemy's places and territories under martial law, unless interrupted or stopped by order of the occupying military power; but all the functions of the hostile government- legislative, executive, or administrative-whether of a general, provincial, or local character, cease under martial law, or continue only with the sanction, or, if deemed necessary, the participation of the occupier or invader.
7. Martial law extends to property, and to persons, whether they are subjects of the enemy or aliens to that government.
8. Consuls, among American and Europeans nations, are not diplomatic agents. Nevertheless, their officers and persons will be subjected to martial law in cases of urgent necessity only; their property and business are not exempted. Any delinquency they commit against the established military rule may be punished as in the case of any other inhabitant, and such punishment furnishes nor assignable ground for international complaint.
9. The functions of ambassadors, ministers, or other diplomatic agents, accredited by neutral powers to the hostile government, ease, so far as regards the displaced government. but the conquering or occupying power usually recognizes them as temporarily accredited to itself.
10. Martial law affects chiefly the police and collection of public revenue and taxes, whether imposed by the expelled government or by the invader, and refers mainly to the support and efficiency of the Army, its safety, and the safety, and the safety of its operations.
11. The law of war does not only disclaim all cruelty and bad faith concerning engagements concluded with the enemy during the war, but also the breaking of stipulations solemnly contracted by the belligerents in time of peace, and avowedly intended to remain in force in case of war between the contracting powers.
It disclaims all extortions and other transactions for individual gain; all acts of private revenge, or connivance at such acts.
Offenses ot the contrary shall be severely punished, and especially so if committed by officers.
12. Whenever feasible, martial law is carried out in cases of individual offenders by military courts; but sentence of death shall e executed only with the approval of the chief executive, proes not require a speedier execution, and then only with the approval of the chief commander.
13. Military jurisdiction is of two kinds: First, that which is conferred and defined by statue; second, that which is derived from the common law of war. Military offenses under the statute law must be tried in the manner therein directed; but military offenses which do not come within the statute must berried and punished under the common law of war. The character of the courts which exercise these jurisdictions depends upon the local laws of each particular country.
In the armies of the United States the first is exercised by courts-martial; while cases which do not come within the Rules and Articles of War, or the jurisdiction conferred by statute on courts-martial, are tried by military commissions.
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14. Military necessity, as understood by modern civilized nations, consists in the necessity of those measures which are indispensable for securing the ends of the war, and which are lawful according to the modern law and usages of war.
15. Military necessity admits of all direct destruction of life or limb of armed enemies, and of other persons whose destruction is incidentally unavoidable in the armed contests of the war; it allows of the capturing of every armed enemy, and every enemy of importance to the hostile government, or of peculiar danger to the captor; it allow of all destruction of property, and obstruction of the ways and channels of traffic, travel, or communication,a nd of al withholding of sustenance or means of life form the enemy; of the appropriation, of whatever an enemy's country affords necessary for the subsistence and safety of the Army, and of such deception as does not involve the breaking of good faith either positively pledged, regarding agreements entered into during the war, or supposed by the modern law of war to exist. Men who take up arms against one another in public war do not cease on this account to be moral beings, responsible to one another and to God.
16. Military necessity does not admit of cruelty -- that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions. It does not admit of the use of poison in any way, nor of the wanton devastation of a district. It admits of deception, but disclaims acts of perfidy; and, in general, military necessity does not include any act of hostility which make the return to peace unnecessarily difficult.
17. War is not carried on by arms alone. It is lawful to starve the hostile belligerent, armed or unarmed, so that it leads to the speedier subjection of the enemy.
18. When a commander of a besieged place expels the non-combatants, in order ot lessen the number of those who consume his stock of provisions, it is lawful, though an extreme measure, to drive them back, so as to hasten on the surrender.
19. Commanders, whenever admissible, inform the enemy of their intention to bombard a place, so that the non-combatants, and especially the women and children, may be removed before the bombardment commences. But it is no infraction of the common law of war to omit thus to inform the enemy. Surprise may be a necessity.
20. Public war is a state of armed hostility between sovereign nations or government. It is a law and requisite of civilized existence that men live in political, continuous societies, forming organized units, called states or nations, whose continuous societies, forming organized units, called states or nations, whose constituents bear, enjoy, and suffer, advance and retrograde together, in peace and in war.
21. The citizen or native of a hostile country is thus an enemy, as one of the constituents of the hostile state or nation, and as such is subjected to the hardship of the war.
22. Nevertheless, as civilization has advanced during the last centuries, so has likewise steadily advanced, especially in war on land, the distinction between the private individual belonging to a hostile country and the hostile country itself, with its men in arms. The principle has been more and more acknowledged that the unarmed citizen is to be spared in person, property, and honor as much as the exigencies of war will admit.
23. Private citizens are no longer murdered, enslaved, or carried off to distant parts, and the inoffensive individual is as little disturbed
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in his private relations as the commander of the hostile troops can afford to grant in the overruling demands of a vigorous war.
24. The almost universal rule in remote times was, and continues to be with barbarous armies, that the private individual of the hostile country is destined to suffer every privation of liberty and protection and every disruption of family ties. Protection was, and still is with uncivilized person.
25. In modern regular wars of the Europeans and their descendants in other portions of the globe, protection of the inoffensive citizen of the hostile country is the rule; privation and disturbance of private relations are the exceptions.
26. Commanding generals may cause civil officers of the hostile country to take the oath of temporary allegiance or an oath of fidelity to their own victorious government or rules, and they may expel every one who declines to do so. But whether they do so or not, the people and their civil officers owe strict obedience to them as long as they hold sway over the district or country, at the peril of their lives.
27. The law of war can no more wholly dispense with retaliation than can the law of nations, of which it is a branch. Yet civilized nations acknowledge retaliation as the sternest feature of war. A reckless enemy often leaves to his opponent no other means of securing himself against the repetition of barbarous outrage.
28. Retaliation will therefore never be resorted to as a measure of mere revenge, but only as a means of protective retribution, and moreover cautiously and unavoidably -- that is to say, relation shall only be resorted to after careful inquiry into the real occurrence and the character of the misdeeds that may demand retribution.
Unjust or inconsiderate retaliation removes the belligerent farther and farther from the mitigating rules of regular war, and by rapid steps leads them nearer to the internecine wars of savages.
29. Modern times are distinguished from earlier ages by the existence at one and the same time of many nations and great governments related to one another in close intercourse.
Peace is their normal condition; war is the exception. The ultimate object of all modern war is a renewed state of peace.
The more vigorously wars are pursued the better it is for humanity. Sharp wars are brief.
30. Ever since the formation and coexistence of modern nations, and ever since wars have become great national wars, war has come to be acknowledged not to be its own end, but the means to obtain great ends of state, or to consist in defense against wrong; and no conventional restriction of the modes adopted to injure the enemy is any longer admitted; but the law of war imposes many limitations and restrictions on principles of justice, faith, and honor.
SECTION II.-Public and private property of the enemy-Protection of persons, and especially of women; of religion, the arts and sciences--Punishment of crimes against the inhabitants of hostile countries.
31. A victorious army appropriates all public money, seizes all public movable property until further direction by its government, and sequesters for its own benefit or of that of its government all the revenues of real property belonging to the hostile government or nation. The title to such real property remains in abeyance during military occupation, and until the conquest is made compete.
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32. A victorious army, by the martial power inherent in the same, may suspend, change, or abolish, as far as the mortal power extends, the relations which arise from the services due, according to the existing laws of the invaded country, from one citizen, subject, or native of the same to another.
The commander of the army must leave it to the ultimate treaty of peace to settle the permanency of this change.
33. It is no longer considered lawful--on the contrary, it is held to be a serious breach of the law of war -- to force the subjects of the enemy into the service of the victorious government, except the latter should proclaim, after a fair and complete conquest of the hostile country or district, that it is resolved to keep the country, district, or place permanently as its own and make it a portion of its own country.
34. As general rule, the property belonging to churches, to hospitals, or other establishments of an exclusively charitable character, to establishments of education, or foundations for the promotion of knowledge, whether public schools, universities, academies of learning or observatories, museums of the fine arts, or of a scientific character--such property is not to be considered public property in the sense of paragraph 31; but it may be taxed or used when the public service may require it.
35. Classical works of art, libraries, scientific collections, or precious instruments, such as astronomical telescopes,as well as hospitals, must be secured against all avoidable injury, even when they are contained in fortified places whilst besieged or bombarded.
36. If such works of art, libraries, collections, or instruments belonging to a hostile nation or government, can be removed without injury, the ruler of the conquering state or nation may order them to be seized and removed for the benefit of the said nation. The ultimate ownership is to be settled by the ensuing treaty of peace.
In no case shall they be sold or given away, if captured by the armies or wantonly destroyed or injured.
37. The United States acknowledge and protect, in hostile countries occupied by them, religion and morality; strictly private property; the persons of the inhabitants, especially those of women; and the sacredness of domestic relations. Offenses to the contrary shall be rigorously punished.
This rule does not interfere with the right of the victorious invader to tax the people or their property, to levy forced loans, to billet soldiers, or to appropriate property, especially houses, lands, boasts or ships, and the churches, for temporary and military uses.
38. Private property, unless forfeited by crimes or by offenses of the owner, can be seized only by way of military necessity, for the support or other benefit of the Army or of the United States.
If the owner has not fled, the commanding officer will cause receipts to be given, which may serve the spoliated owner to obtain indemnity.
39. The salaries of civil officers of the hostile government who remain in the invaded territory, and continue the work, of their office, and can continue it according to the circumstances arising out of the war--such as judges, administrative or political officers, officers of city or communal governments-- are paid for the public revenue of the invaded territory until the military government has reason wholly or partially to discontinue it. Salaries or incomes connected with purely honorary titles are always stopped.
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40. There exists no law or body of authoritative rules of action between hostile armies, except that branch of the law of nature and nations which is called the law and usages of war on land.
41. All municipal law of the ground on which the armies stand, or of the countries to which they belong, is silent and of no effect between armies in the field.
42. Slavery, complicating and confounding the ideas of property (that is, of a thing), and of personality (that is, of humanity), exists according to municipal or local law only. The law of nature and nations has never acknowledged it. The digest of the Roman law enacts the early dictum of the pagan jurist, that 'so far as the law of nature is concerned, all men are equal." Fugitives escaping from a country in which they were slaves, villains, or serfs, into another country, have, for centuries past, been held free and acknowledged free by judicial decisions of European countries, even though the municipal law of the country in which the slave had taken refuge acknowledged slavery within its own dominions.
43. Therefore, in a war between the United States and a belligerent which admits of slavery, if a person held in bondage by that belligerent be captured by or come as a fugitive under the protection of the military forces of the United States, such person is immediately entitled to the rights and privileges of a freeman. To return such person into slavery would amount to enslaving a free person, and neither the United States nor any officer under their authority can law of war is under the shield of the law of nations, and the former owner or State can have, by the law of postliminy, no belligerent lien or claim of service.
44. All wanton violence in the invaded country, all destruction of property not commanded by the authorized officer, all robbery, all pillage or sacking, even after taking a place by main force, all rape, wounding, maiming, or killing of such inhabitants, are prohibited under the penalty of death, or such other severe punishment as may seem adequate for the gravity of the offense.
A soldier, officer, or private, in the act of committing such violence, and disobeying a superior ordering him to abstain from it, may be lawfully killed on the spot by such superior.
45. All captures and booty belong, according to the modern law of war, primarily to the government of the captor.
Prize money, whether on sea or land, can now only be claimed under local law.
46. Neither officers nor soldiers are allowed to make use of their position or power in the hostile country for private gain, not ever for commercial transactions otherwise legitimate. Offenses to the contrary committed by commissioned officers will be punished with cashiering or such other punishment as the nature of the offense may require; if by soldiers, they shall be punished according to the nature of the offense.
47. Crimes punishable by all penal codes, such as arson, murder, maiming, assaults, highway robbery, theft, burglary, fraud, forgery, and rape, if committed by an American soldier in a hostile country against its inhabitants, are not only punishable as at home, but in all cases in which death is not inflicted the severer punishment shall be preferred.
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SECTION III.-Deserters--Prisoners of war-Hostages--Booty on the battle-field.
48. Deserters from the American Army, having entered the service of the enemy, suffer death if they fall again into the hands of the United States, whether by captured or being delivered up to the American Army; and if a deserter from the enemy, having taken service in the Army of the United States, is captured by the enemy, and punished by them with death or otherwise, it is not a breach against the law and usages of war, reacquiring redress or retaliation.
49. A prisoners of war is a public enemy armed or attached to the hostile army for active aid, who has fallen into the hands of the captor, either fighting or wounded, on the field or in the hospital, by individual surrender or by capitulation.
All soldiers, of whatever species of arms; all men who belong to the rising en masse of the hostile country; all those who are attached to the Army for its efficiency and promote directly the object of the war, except such as are hereinafter provided for ; all disabled me nor officers on the field or elsewhere, if captured; all enemies who have thrown away their arms and ask for quarter, are prisoners of war, and as such exposed to the inconveniences as well as entitled to the privileges of a prancers of war.
50. Moreover, citizens, who accompany an army for whatever purpose, such as sutlers, editors, or reporters of journals, or contractors, if captured, may be made prisoners of war and be detained as such.
The monarch and members of the hostile reigning family, male or female, the chief, and chief officers of the hostile government, its diplomatic agents, and all persons who are of particular and singular use and benefit to the hostile army or its government, are, if captured on belligerent ground, and if unprovided with a safe-conduct granted by the captor's government, prisoners of war.
51. If the people of that portion of an invaded country which is not yet occupied by the enemy, or of the whole country, at the approach of a hostile army, they are now treated as public enemies, and, if captured, are prisoners of war.
52. No belligerent has the right to declare that he will treat every captured man in arms of a levy en masse as bird hand or bandit.
If,however, the people, of a country, or any portion of the same, already occupied by an army, rise against it, they are violators of the laws of war and are not entitled to their protection.
53. The enemy's chaplains, officers of the medical staff, apothecaries, hospital nurses, and servants, if they fall into the hands of the American Army, are not prisoners of war, unless the commander has reasons to retain them. In this latter case, or if, at their own desire, they are allowed to remain with their captured companies, they are treated as prisoners of war, and may be exchanged if the commander sees fit.
54. A hostage is a person accepted as a pledge for the fulfillment of an agreement concluded between belligerent during the war, or in consequence of a war. Hostages are rare in the present age.
55. If a hostage is accepted, he is treated like a prisoner of war, according to rank and condition, as circumstances may admit.
56. A prisoners of war in subject to no punishment for being a public enemy, nor is any revenge wreaked upon him by the intentional infliction of any suffering, or disgrace, by cruel imprisonment, want of food, by mutilation, death, or any other barbarity.
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57. So soon as a man in armed by a sovereign government and takes the soldier's oath of fidelity he is a belligerent; his killing, wounding, or other warlike acts are no individual crimes or offenses. No belligerent has right to declare that enemies of a certain class, color, or conditio organized as soldiers, will not be treated by him as public enemies.
58. The law of nations knows of no distinction of color, and if an enemy of the United States should enslave and sell any captured persons of their Army, it would be a case for the severest retaliation, if not redressed upon complaint.
The United States cannot retaliate by enslavement; therefore death must be the retaliation for this crime against the law of nations.
59. A prisoners of war remains answerable for his crimes committed against the captor's army or people, committed before he was captured, and for which he has not been punished by his own authorities.
All prisoners of war are liable to the infliction of retaliatory measures.
60. It is against the usage of modern war to resolve, in hatred and revenge, to give no quarter. No body of troops has the right to declare that it will not give, and therefore will not expect, quarter; but a commander is permitted to direct his troops to give no quarter, in great straits, when his own salvation makes it impossible to cumber himself with prisoners.
61. Troops that give no quarter have no right to kill enemies already disabled on the ground, or prisoners captured by other troops.
62. All enemy known or discovered to give no quarter in general, or to any portion of the Army, receive none.
63. Troops who fight in the uniform of their enemies, without any plain, striking, and uniform mark of distinction of their own, can expect no quarter.
64. If American troops capture a train containing uniforms of the enemy, and the commander considers it advisable to distribute them for use among his men, some striking mark or sign must be adopted to distinguish the American soldier from the enemy.
65. The use of the enemy's national standard, flag, or other emblem of nationality, for the purpose of deceiving the enemy in battle, is an act of perfidy by which they lose all claim to the protection of the laws of war having been given to an enemy by American troops, under a misapprehension of his true character, he may, nevertheless, be ordered to suffer death if, within three days after the battle, it be discovered that he belongs to a corps which gives no quarter.
67. The law of nations allows every sovereign government to make war upon another sovereign State, and, therefore, admits of no rules or laws different from those of regular warfare, regarding the treatment of prisoners of war, although they may belong to the army of a government which the captor may consider as a wanton and unjust assailant.
68. Modern wars are not internecine wars, in which the killing of the enemy is the object. The destruction of the enemy in modern war, and, indeed, modern war itself, are means to obtain that object of the belligerent which lies beyond the war.
Unnecessary or revengeful destruction of life is not lawful.
69. Outposts, sentinels, or pickets are not to be fired upon, except to drive them in, or when a positive order, special or general, has been issued to that effect.
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70. The use of poison in any manner, be it to poison wells, or food, or arms, is wholly excluded from modern warfare. He that uses it puts himself out of the pale of the law and usages of war.
71. Whenever intentionally inflicts additional wounds on an enemy already wholly disabled, or kills such an enemy, or who orders or encourages soldiers to do so, shall suffer death, if duly convicted, whether he belongs to the Army of the United States, or is an enemy captured after having committed his misdeed.
72. Money and other valuables on the person of a prisoner, such as watches or jewelry, as well as extra clothing, are regarded by the American Army as the private property of the prisoner, and the appropriation of such valuables or money is considered dishonorable, and is prohibited.
Nevertheless, if large sums are found upon the person of prisoners, or in their possession, they shall be taken from them, and the surplus, after providing for their own support, appropriated for the use of the Army, under the direction of the commander, unless otherwise ordered by the Government. Nor can prisoners claim, as private property, large sums found and captured in their train, although they have been placed in the private luggage of the prisoners.
73. All officers, when captured, must surrender their side-arms to the captor. They may be restored to the prisoners in marked case, by the commander, to signalize admiration of his distinguished bravery, or approbation of his humane treatment of prisoners before his capture. The captured officer to whom they may be restored cannot wear them during captivity.
74. A prisoner of war, being a public enemy, is the prisoner of the Government and not of the captor. No ransom can be paid by a prisoner of war to his individual captor, or to any officer in command. The Government alone releases captives, according to rules prescribed by itself.
75. Prisoners of war are subject to confinement or imprisonment such as may be deemed necessary on account of safety, but they are to be subjected to no other intentional suffering or indignity. The confinement and mode of treating a prisoner may be varied during his captivity according to the demands of safety.
76. Prisoners of war shall be fed upon plain and wholesome food, whenever practicable, and treated with humanity.
They may required to work for the benefit of the captor's government, according to their rank and condition.
77. Prisoner of war who escape may be shot, or otherwise killed, in his flight; but neither death nor any other punishment shall be inflicted upon him simply for his attempt to escape, which the law of does not consider a crime. Sticker means of security shall be used after an unsuccessful attempt at escape.
If, however, a conspiracy is discovered, the purpose of which is a united or general escape,. the conspirators may be rigorously punished, even with death; and capital punishment may also be inflicted upon prisoners of war discovered to have plotted rebellion against the authorities of the captors, whether in union with fellow-prisoners or other persons.
78. If prisoners of war, having given no pledge nor made any promise on their honor, forcibly or otherwise escape, and are captured again in battle, after having rejoined their won army, they shall not be punished, for their escape, but shall be treated as simple prisoners of war, although they will be subjected to stricter confinement.
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79. Every captured wounded enemy shall be medically treated, according to the ability of the medical staff.
80. Honorable men, when captured, will abstain from giving to the enemy information concerning their own army, and the modern law of war permits no longer the use of any violence against prisoners in order to extort the desired information, or to punish them for having given false information.
SECTION IV.--Partisans--Armed enemies not belonging to the hostile army--Scouts--Armed prowlers--War-rebels.
81. Partisans are soldiers armed and wearing the uniform of their army, but belonging to a corps which acts detached from the main body for the purpose of making inroads into territory occupied by the enemy. If captured they are entitled to all the privileges of the prisoner of war.
82. Men, or squads of men, who commit hostilities, whether by fighting, or inroads for destruction or plunder, or by raids of any kind, without commission, without being part and portion of the organized hostile army, and without sharing continuously in the war, but who do so with intermitting returns to their homes and avocations, or with the occasional assumption of the semblance of peaceful pursuits, divesting themselves of the character or appearance of soldiers-such men, or squads of men, are not public enemies, and therefore, if captured, are not entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war, but shall be treated summarily as highway robbers or pirates.
83. Scouts or single soldiers, if disguised in the dress of the country, or in the uniform of the army hostile to their own, employed in obtaining information, if found within or laking about the lines of the captor, are treated as spies, and suffer death.
84. Armed prowlers, by whatever names they may be called, or persons of the enemy's territory, who steal within the lines of the hostile army for the purpose of robbing, killing, or of destroying bridges, roads, or canals, or of robbing or destroying the mail, or of cutting the telegraph wires, are not entitled to the privileges of the prisoner of war.
85. War-rebels are persons within an occupied territory who rise in arms against the occupying or conquering army, or against the authorities established by the same. If captured, they may suffer death, whether they rise singly, in small or large banks, and whether called upon to do so by their own, but expelled, government or not. They are not prisoners of war; nor are they if discovered and secured before their conspiracy has matured to an actual rising or to armed violence.
SECTION V.-Safe-conduct-Spies--War-traitors--Captured messengers- -Abuse of the flag of truce.
86. All intercourse between the territories occupied by belligerent armies, whether by traffic, by letter, by travel, or in any other way, ceases. This is the general rule, to be observed without special proclamation.
Exceptions to this rule, whether by safe-conduct or permission to trade on a small or large scale, or by exchanging mails, or by travel from one territory into the other, can take place only according to a agreement approved by the Government or by the highest military authority.
Contravention of this rule are highly punishable.
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87. Ambassadors, and all other diplomatic agents of neutral powers accredited to the enemy may receive safe-conducts through the territories occupied by the belligerent, unless there are military reasons to the contrary,and unless they may reach the place of their destination conveniently by another route. It implies no international affront if the safe-conduct is declined. Such passes are usually given by the supreme authority of the state and not by subordinate officers.
88. A spy is a person who secretly, in disguise if under false pretense, seeks information with the intention of communicating it to the enemy,.
The spy is punishable with death by hanging by the neck, whether or not he succeed in obtaining the information or in conveying it to the enemy.
89. If a citizen of the United States obtains information in a legitimate manner and betrays it to the enemy, be he a military or civil officer, or a private citizen, he shall suffer death.
90. A traitor under the law of war, or a war-traitor, is a person in a place or district under martial law who, unauthorized by the military commander, gives information of any kind to the enemy, or holds intercourse with him.
91. The war-traitor is always severely punished. If his offense consists in betraying to the enemy anything concerning the condition, safety, operations, or plans of the troops holding or occupying the place or district, his punishment is dearth.
92. If the citizen or subject of a country or place invaded or conquered gives information to his own government, from which he is separate by the hostile army, or to the army of his government, he is a war-traitor, and death is the penalty of his offense.
93. All armies in the field stand in need of guides, and impress them if they cannot obtain them otherwise.
94. No person having been forced by the enemy to serve as guide is punishable for having done so.
95. If a citizen of a hostile and invaded district voluntarily serves as a guide to the enemy, or offers to do so, he is deemed a war-traitor and shall suffer death.
96. A citizen serving voluntarily as a guide against his own country commits treason, and will be dealt with according to the law of his country.
97. Guides, when it is clearly proved that they have misled intentionally, may be put to death.
98. All unauthorized or secret communication with the enemy is considered treasonable by the law of war.
Foreign residents in an invaded or occupied territory or foreign visitors in the same can claim no immunity form this law. They may communicate with foreign parts or with the inhabitants of the hostile country, so far as the military authority permits, but no further. Instant explosion from the occupied territory would be the very least punishment for the infraction of this rule.
99. A messenger carrying written dispatches or verbal messages from one portion of the army of from a besieged place to another portion of the same army of its government, if armed,and in the uniform of his army, and if captured while doing so in the territory occupied by the enemy, is treated by the captor as a prisoner of war. If not in uniform nor a soldier, the circumstances connected with his capture must determine the disposition that shall be made of him.
100. A messenger or agent who attempts to setae thorough the territory occupied by the enemy to further in any manner the interests of
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the enemy, if captured, is not entitled to the privileges of the prisoner of war, and may be dealt with according to the circumstance of the case.
101. While deception in war is admitted as a just and necessary means of hostility, and is consistent with Honorable warfare, the common law of war allows even capital punishment for clandestine or treacherous attempts to injure an enemy, because they are so dangerous, and it is so difficult to guard against them.
102. The law of war, like the criminal law regarding other offenses, makes no deference he difference of sexes, concerning the spy, the war-traitor, or the war-rebel.
103. Spies, war-traitors, and war-rebels are not exchanged according to the common law of war. The exchanged of such persons would require a special cartel, authorized by the Government, or, at a great distance from it, by the chief commander of the army in the field.
104. A successful spy or war-traitor, safely returned to his own army, and afterward captured as an enemy, is not subject to punishment for his acts as a spy or war-traitor, but he may be held in closer custody as a person individually dangerous.
SECTION VI.-Exchange of prisoners-Flags of truce--Flags of protection.
105. Exchanges of prisoners take place--number for number--rank for rank--wounded for wounded--with added condition for added condition--such, for instance, as not to serve for a certain period.
106. In exchanging prisoners of war, such numbers of persons of inferior rank may be substituted as an equivalent for one superior rank as may be agreed upon by cartel, which requires the sanction of the Government, or of the commander of the army in the field.
107. A prisoner of war is in honor bound truly to state to the captor his rank; and he is not to assume a lower rank than belongs to him, in order to cause a more advantageous exchange, nor a higher rank, for the purpose of obtaining better treatment.
Offenses to the contrary have been justly punished by the commanders of released prisoners, and may be good cause for refusing to release such prisoners.
108. The surplus number of prisoners of war remaining after an exchange has taken place is sometimes released either for the payment of a stipulated sum of money, or, in urgent cases, of provision, clothing, or other necessaries.
Such arrangement, however, requires the sanction of the highest authority.
109. The exchange of prisoners of war is an act of convenience to both belligerent. If no general care has been concluded, it cannot be demanded by either of them. No belligerent is obliged to exchange prisoners of war.
A cartel is voidable as soon as either party has violated it.
110. No exchange of prisoners shall be made except after complete capture, and after an accurate account of them, and a list of the captured officers, has been taken.
111. The bearer of a flag of truce cannot insist upon being admitted. He must always be admitted wit great caution. Unnecessary frequency is carefully to the avoided.
112. If the bearer of a flag of truce offer himself during an engagement, he can be admitted as a very rare exception only. It is no breach of good faith to retain such flag of truce, if admitted during
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the engagement. Firing is not required to cease on the appearanc.
113. If the bearer of a flag of truce, presenting himself during an engagement, is killed or wounded, it furnishes no ground of complaint whatever.
114. If it be discovered, and fairly proved, that a flag of truce has been abused for surreptitiously obtaining military knowledge, the bearer of the flag thus abusing his sacred character is deemed a spy.
So sacred is the character of a flag of truce, and so necessary is its sacredness, that while its abuse is an especially heinous offense, great caution is requisite, on the other hand, in convicting the bearer of a flag of truce as a spy.
115. It is customary to designate by certain flags (usually yellow) the hospitals in places which are shelled, so that the besieging enemy may avoid firing on them. The same has been done in battles when hospitals are situated within the field of the engagement.
116. Honorable belligerent often request that the hospitals within the territory of the enemy may be designated,so that they may be spared.
An Honorable belligerent allows himself to be guided by flags or signals of protection as much as the contingencies and the necessities of the fight will permit.
117. It is justly considered an act of bad faith, of infamy or fiendishness, to deceive the enemy by flags of protection. Such act of bad faith may be good cause for refusing to respect such flags.
118. The besieging belligerent has sometimes requested the besieged to designate the buildings containing collections of works of art, scientific museums, astronomical observaties, or precious libraries, so that their destruction may be avoided as much as possible.
SECTION VII.--The parole.
119. Prisoners of war may be released from captivity by exchange, and, under certain circumstances, also by parole.
120. The term parole designates the pledge of individual good faith and honor to do, or to omit doing, certain acts after he who gives his parole shall have been dismissed, wholly or partially, form the power of the captor.
121. The pledge of the parole is always an individual, but not a private act.
122. The parole applies chiefly to prisoners of war whom the captor allows to return to their country, or to live in greater freedom within the captor's country or territory, on conditions stated in the parole.
123. Release of prisoners of war by exchange is the general rule; release by parole is the exception.
124. Breaking the parole is punished with death when the person breaking the parole is captured again.
Accurate lists, therefore, of the paroled persons must be kept by the belligerent.
125. When paroles are given and received there must be an exchange of two written documents, in which the name and rank of the paroled individuals are accurately and truthfully stated.
126. Commissioned officers only are allowed to give their parole, and they can give it only with the permission of their superior, as long as a superior in rank is within reach.
127. No non-commissioned officer or private can give his parole except thorough an officer. Individual paroles not given thorough an
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officer are not only void, but subject the individuals giving them to the punishment of death as deserters. The only admissible exception is where individuals, property separated form their commands, have suffered long confinement without the possibility of being paroled through an officer.
128. NO paroling on the battle-field; no paroling of entire bodies of troops after a battle; and no dismissal of large numbers of prisoners, with a general declaration that they are paroled, is permitted, or of any value.
129. In capitulations for the surrender of strong places or fortified camps the commanding officer, in cases of urgent necessity, may agree that the troops under his command shall not fight again during the war unless exchanged.
130. The usual pledge given in the parole is not to serve during the existing war unless exchanged.
This pledge refers only to the active service in the field against the paroling belligerent or his allies actively engaged in the same war. These cases of breaking the parole are patent acts, and can be visited with the punishment of death; but the pledge does not refer to internal service, such as recruiting or drilling the recruits, fortifying places no besieged, quelling civil commotions, fighting against belligerent unconnected with the paroling belligerent, or to civil or diplomatic service for which the paroled officer may be employed.
131. If the government may declare, by a general order, whether it will allow paroling and on what conditions it will allow it. Such order is communicated to the enemy.
133. No prisoner of war can be forced by the hostile government to parole himself, and no government is obliged to parole prisoners of war or to parole all captured officers, if it paroles any. As the pledging of the parole is an individual act, so is paroling, on the other hand, an act of choice on the part of the belligerent.
134. The commander of an occupying army may require of the civil officers of the enemy, and of its citizens, any pledge he may consider necessary for the safety or security of his army, and upon their failure to give it he may arrest, confine, or detain them.
SECTION VIII.-Armistice--Capitulation.
135. An armistice is the cessation of active hostilities for a period agreed between belligerent. It must be agreed upon in writing and duly ratified by the highest authorities of the contending parties.
136. If an armistice be declared without conditions it extends no further than to require a total cessation of hostilities along the front of both parties. It either party violates any express condition, the armistice may be declared null and void by the other.
137. An armistice may be general, and valid for all points and lines of the belligerent; or special--that is, referring to certain troops or certain localities only.
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An armistice may be concluded for a definite time; or for an indefinite time, during which either belligerent may resume hostilities on giving the notice agreed upon to the other.
138. The motives which induce the one or the other belligerent to conclude an armistice, whether it be expected to be preliminary to a treaty of peace, or to prepare during the armies for a more vigorous prosection of the war, does in no way affect the character of the armistice itself.
139. An armistice is binding upon the belligerent form the day of the agreed commencement; but the officers of the armies are responsible from the day only when they receive official information of its existence.
140. Commanding officers have the right to conclude armistices binding on the district over which their command extends, but such armistice is subject to the ratification of the superior authority, and ceases so soon as it is made known to the enemy that the armistice is not ratified, even if a certain time for the elapsing between giving notice of cessation and the resumption of hostilities should have been stipulated for.
141. It is incumbent upon the contracting parties of an armistice to stipulate what intercourse of persons or traffic between the inhabitants of the territories occupied by the hostile armies shall be allowed, if any.
If nothing is stipulated the intercourse remains suspended, as during actual hostilities.
142. An armistice is concluded between a fortified place and the army besieging it, it is agreed by all the authorities on this subject that the besieger must cease all extension, perfection, or advance of his attacking works as much as from attacks by main force.
But as there is a difference of opinion among martial jurists whether the besieged have a right to repair breaches or to erect new works of defense within the place during an armistice, this express agreement between the parties.
144. So soon as capitulation is signed the capitulator has no right to demolish, his possession, during the time which elapses between the signing and the execution of the capitulation, unless otherwise stipulated in the same.
145. When an armistice is clearly broken by one of the parties the other party is released form all obligation to observe it.
146. Prisoners taken in the act of breaking and armistice must be treated as prisoners of war, the officer alone being responsible who gives the order for such a violation of an armistice. The highest authority of the belligerent aggrieved may demand redress for the infraction of an armistice.
147. Belligerent sometimes conclude an armistice while their plenipotentiaries are met to discuss the conditions of a treaty of peace; but plenipotentiaries may meet without a preliminary armistice; in the latter case the war is carried on without a preliminary armistice; in the latter case the war is carried on without any abatement.
SECTION IX.-Assassination.
148. The law of war does not allow proclaiming either an individual belonging to the hostile army, or a citizen, or a subject of the hostile
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government an outlaw, who may be slain without trial by any captor, any more than the modern law of peace allows such international outlawry; on the contrary, it abhors such outrage. The sternest retaliation should follow the murder committed in consequence of such proclamation, made by whatever authority. Civilized nations look without horror upon offers of rewards for the assassination of enemies as relapses into barbarism.
SECTION X.-Insurrection--Civil war--Rebellion.
149. Insurrection is the rising of people in arms against their government, or a portion of it, or against one or more of its laws, or against an officer or officers of the government. If may be confined to more armed resistance, or it may have greater ends in view.
150. Civil war is war between two or more portions of a country or state, each contending for the mastery of the whole, and each claiming to be the legitimate government. The term is also sometimes applied to war of rebellion, when the rebellious provinces or portions of the state are contiguous to those containing the seat of government.
151. The term rebellion is applied to an insurrection of large extent, and is usually as war between the legitimate government of a country and portions of provides of the same who seek to throw off their allegiance to it and set up a government of their own.
152. When humanity induces the adoption of the rules of regular war toward rebels, whether the adaption is partial or entire, it does in no way whatever imply a partial or complete acknowledgment of their government, if they have set up one, or of them, as an independent or sovereign power. Neutrals have no right to make the adoption of the rules of war by the assailed government toward rebels the ground of their own acknowledgment of the revolted people as an independent power.
153. Treating captured rebels as prisoners of war, exchanging them, concluding of cartels, capitulations, or other warlike agreements with them; addressing officers of a rebel army by the rank they amy have in the same; accepting flags of truce ;or, on the other hand, proclaiming martial law in their territory, or levying war taxes or forced loans, or doing any other act sanctioned or demanded by the law and usages of public war between severing belligerent, neither proves nor establishes acknowledgment of the rebellious people, or of the government which they many have erected, asr does the adoption of the rules of war toward rebels imply an engagement with them extending beyond the limits of these rules. It is victory in the field that ends the strife and settles the future relations between the contending parties.
154. Treating in the field the rebellious enemy according to the law and usages of war has never prevented the legitimate government form trying the leaders of the rebellion or chief rebels for high treason, and from treating them accordingly, unless they are included in a general amnesty.
155. All enemies in regular war are divided into two general classes--that is to say, into combatants and non-combatants, or unarmed citizens of the hostile government.
The military commander of the legitimate government, in a war of rebellion, distinguished between the loyal citizen in the revolted portion of the country and the disloyal citizen. The disloyal citizens may further be classified into those citizens known to sympathize with
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the rebellion without positively aiding it, and those who, without taking up arms, give positive aid and comfort to the rebellious enemy without being bodily forced thereto.
156. Common justice and plain expediency require that the miliary commander protect the manifestly loyal citizens in revolted territories against the hardships of the war as much as the common misfortune of all war admits.
The command will throw the burden of the war, as much as lies within his power, on the disloyal citizens, of revolted portion or province, subjecting them to a stricter police than the non-combatant enemies have to suffer in regular war; and if he deems it appropriate, or if his government demands of him that every citizens shall, by an oath of allegiance, or by some other manifest act, declare his fidelity to the legitimate government, he may expel, transfer, imprison, or fine the legitimate government, he may expel, transfer, imprison, or fine the revolted citizens who refuse to pledge themselves anew as citizens obedient to the law and loyal to the government.
Whether it is expedient to do so, and whether reliance can be placed upon such oaths, the commander or his government have the right to decide.
157. Armed or unarmed resistance by citizens of the United States against the lawful movements of their troops is levying war against the United States, and is therefore treason.
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OFFICIAL RECORDS: Series 3, vol 3, Part 1 (Union Letters, Orders, Reports)
GENERAL ORDERS,
WAR DEPT., ADJT. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 288.
Washington, August 18, 1863.
In every case of seizure of goods by officers acting under the authority of this Department, a true and perfect inventory thereof shall be taken in triplicate by the officer making the seizure, one copy of which shall be given to the person from whom the goods were taken, line copy retained by the officer, and the third copy will be forwarded with a report of the seizure, which will be immediately made to this Department. The officer making the seizure will be held accountable for the goods while they are under his charge, and until they are disposed of according to orders from this Department.
By order of the Secretary of War:
E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
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