306 President Johnson had relied on the clause: Richardson, 6: 312.
306 open-ended federal government intervention: Michael Les Benedict, A Compromise of Principle: Congressional Republicans and Reconstruction 1863–1869 (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1974), 215, 413 n. 29; Michael Les Benedict, “Preserving the Constitution: The Conservative Basis of Radical Reconstruction,” Journal of American History 61 (1974): 65, 66–76.
306 “hold the other in the grasp”: Benedict, Compromise of Principle, 125.
307 “the sovereign may exercise”: Samuel Shapiro, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., 1815–1882 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1961), 119.
307 “the same national authority”: The Works of Charles Sumner (Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1870–83), 9: 425.
307 “null and void”: Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st sess., 39, 41.
307 “The men who went into rebellion”: Benedict, “Preserving the Constitution,” 76.
307 an early champion: Herman Belz, Reconstructing the Union: Theory and Policy During the Civil War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1969), 10.
308 prosecution of Confederate naval officer: Diary of Gideon Welles, 2: 471–77.
308 “wished to put no more in Holt’s control”: Ibid., 2: 423.
308 “dupe of his own imaginings”: Ibid., 2: 423.
308 “arbitrary tribunals”: Richardson, 6: 399.
308 “are in time of peace dangerous”: Ibid., 6: 432.
308 prosecution of rebel captain Richard B. Winder: OR, series 2, 8: 887–88.
308 Holt confidently insisted: OR, series 2, 8: 890–92.
308 a citizen of Indiana named Lambdin Milligan: Samuel Klaus, ed., The Milligan Case (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1929), 27–35.
309 for conspiring against . . . and violating the laws of war: Ibid., 74–81.
309 “an inhabitant, resident”: Ibid., 66.
309 “in full exercise of their functions”: Ibid., 122.
309 “the laws of war”: Ibid., 140.
310 “take and kill”: Ibid., 124.
310 “dark and bloody machinery”: Ibid., 146.
310 “all peace provisions” . . . “by civilized nations”: Ibid., 91, 90.
310 “all municipal institutions”: Ibid., 215.
310 “all the powers incident” . . . “liberty, property, and life”: Ibid., 222.
310 Observers of the case: See, e.g., Professor Curtis A. Bradley’s excellent “The Story of Ex parte Milligan: Military Trials, Enemy Combatants, and Congressional Authorization,” in Christopher H. Schroeder & Curtis A. Bradley, eds., Presidential Power Stories (New York: Thomson Reuters / Foundation Press, 2009), 93, 120.
311 a judge in Florida ruled: Ex parte Mudd, 17 F. Cas. 954 (S. D. Fla. 1868).
311 grandson’s challenge to the accuracy: Mudd v. Caldera, 134 F. Supp. 2d 138 (D.D.C. 2001).
312 claimed (wrongly) that Lincoln never: Willard L. King, Lincoln’s Manager: David Davis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), 254. As president, Lincoln anticipated that commissions would try civilians in his September 1862 suspension of the writ of habeas corpus (Basler, 5: 436–37), and reaffirmed the practice just two weeks before he died (ibid., 8: 359–60). He defended the practice in a long letter on the Vallandigham case (ibid., 6: 303). And he routinely reviewed civilians’ convictions by military commission without apparent objection to the practice (e.g., ibid., 8: 180, 198, 211, 224, 251, 270, 303, and 326). See Mark E. Neely, Jr., The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 165–66.
312 “equally in war and in peace”: Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2, 120 (1865).
312 “If he cannot enjoy”: Milligan, 71 U.S. at 131.
313 “the locality of actual war”: Milligan, 71 U.S. at 127.
313 likened the ruling to the Dred Scott decision: Charles Fairman, History of the Supreme Court of the United States, Vol. 6: Reconstruction and Reunion, 1864–88 (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 1: 213–14, 232.
313 Milligan was worse: Hans L. Trefousse, Thaddeus Stevens: Nineteenth-Century Egalitarian (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 205.
313 “assailed the Union”: Bradley, “Story of Ex parte Milligan,” 117.
313 “the revolutionary proceedings”: Fairman, Reconstruction and Reunion, 1: 215.
313 “scenes of bloodshed”: Benjamin R. Curtis, Executive Power (Boston: Little, Brown, 1862), 13.
313 Now it was Curtis to whom: Fairman, Reconstruction and Reunion, 235–36. An aging Curtis pleaded illness and overwork and declined to take up Davis’s suggestion.
313 the Joint Committee on Reconstruction: Foner, Reconstruction, 253.
313 the House and the Senate proposed: Stat., 14: 358–59.
313–14 all but one of the white southern: Joseph B. James, The Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1984), 19–24; David E. Kyvig, Explicit & Authentic Acts: Amending the U.S. Constitution, 1776–1995 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995), 170–71.
314 Race riots: Foner, Reconstruction, 261–63.
314 Military Reconstruction Act: Stat., 14: 428–29.
314 his theory of the power of conquerors: Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 2nd sess., 1076.
314 “unlimited power for the common defense”: Ibid., 1082.
314 Zachariah Chandler: Ibid., 1135.
314 William D. Kelley: Ibid., 1177.
314 expressly authorized military commissions: Stat., 14: 428, §3.
315 In a blistering opinion: AG Opinions, 12: 182, 198–200 (June 12, 1867).
315 “only until the people”: Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 2nd sess., 1212.
315 Tenure of Office Act: Act Regulating the Tenure of Certain Civil Officers, Stat., 14: 430–32.
315 A rider to the annual appropriations act: An Act Making Appropriations for the Support of the Army, Stat., 14: 485, 486–87 §2.
316 More than 1,000 defendants: Neely, Fate of Liberty, 176–77.
316 under the shadow of Lambdin Milligan: At least two lower federal courts discharged men convicted by military commissions—see Detlev Vagts, “Military Commissions: A Concise History,” American Journal of International Law 101 (January 2007): 35, 40 n. 35.
316 William McCardle: Daniel Meltzer, “The Story of Ex parte McCardle: The Power of Congress to Limit the Supreme Court’s Appellate Jurisdiction,” in Vicki C. Jackson & Judith Resnik, eds., Federal Court Stories (New York: Foundation Press, 2010), 57–86.
316 by repealing the statute: An Act to Amend an Act Entitled “An Act to Amend the Judiciary Act Passed the Twenty-Fourth of September, Seventeen Hundred and Eighty-Nine,” Stat., 15: 44 (repealing Stat., 14: 385).
316 The Court reluctantly upheld: Ex parte McCardle, 74 U.S. 506, 514–15 (1868).
316 Edward Yerger: Fairman, Reconstruction and Reunion, 1: 558–91.
317 “Induce . . . the President to return”: FL to Charles Sumner, April 4, 1865, box 45, FLP HL.
317 “My God!”: FL to Henry Halleck, April 15, 1865, box 28, FLP HL.
317 ought to be tried for treason: FL to Charles Sumner, April 1, 1865, box 45, FLP HL.
317 Lieber traveled to Washington: Frank Freidel, Francis Lieber: Nineteenth-Century Liberal (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1947), 369–70.
318 the leading statement of the law: “The Status of Rebel Prisoners of War,” in The Miscellaneous Writings of Francis Lieber (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1881), 293–97; see also The Civil Status of Paroled Rebels After the Pacification of the Country, folder 30, box 2, FLP JHU.
318 “committed crimes”: Lieber, “Status of Rebel Prisoners of War,” 294.
318 “look like positive distrust”: A Memorandum: Reasons Why Jefferson Davis Ought Not to Be Tried by Military Commission for Complicity in the Unlawful Raiding, Burning, Etc. (July 1865), folder 33, box 2, FLP JHU.
318 “most calamitous”: Diary of Gideon Welles, 2: 337–40.
/> 318 a May 2 proclamation: Richardson, 6: 307–08.
319 to go into the Confederate archives: OR, series 3, 5: 95.
319 428 boxes, 69 barrels: Dallas Irvine, “The Archive Office of the War Department: Repository of Captured Confederate Archives, 1865–1881,” Military Affairs 10, no. 1 (Spring 1946): 93, 98.
319 “plots of assassination”: Carl L. Lokke, “The Captured Confederate Records Under Francis Lieber,” American Archivist 9, no. 4 (1946): 277, 279.
319 “to allow no person”: Ibid., 292–93, 305.
319 “emanated from or was countenanced by”: FL to Henry Halleck, April 26, 1865, box 28, FLP HL.
319 for use in the trial of John Gee: Lokke, “Captured Confederate Records,” 305.
319 between Davis and Confederate agents: E.g., FL to Joseph Holt, September 15, 1865, JHP LC.
319 proposing an assassination plot: House Report No. 104, 39th Cong., 1st sess. (1866), pp. 24–25; Lokke, “Captured Confederate Records,” 310.
320 a January 1866 report to Stanton: Lokke, “Captured Confederate Records,” 302 n. 109.
320 unable to identify anything: Leonard, Lincoln’s Avengers, 216; also Francis Lieber, Report of the Chief of the Archive Office, MSS 17,814, PEMS LC.
320 Boutwell’s report: House Report No. 104, 39th Cong., 1st sess. (1866), p. 1.
320 “The trial of Jeff. Davis”: FL to Henry Halleck, May 19, 1866, box 28, FLP HL.
320 would have to take place in Virginia: AG Opinions, 11: 411–13.
320 refused to sit in the Circuit Court: Roy Franklin Nichols, “United States vs. Jefferson Davis, 1865–1869,” American Historical Review 31, no. 2 (January 1926), 266, 267–68.
321 an abolitionist judge: Nichols, “United States vs. Jefferson Davis,” 268 & 268 n. 7.
321 had failed to assign justices: Fairman, Reconstruction and Reunion, 1: 608.
321 one last amnesty proclamation: Richardson, 6: 708.
322 “acceptance of the rules” . . . “legitimate conflict”: Bradley T. Johnson, ed., Reports of Cases Decided by Chief Justice Chase in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Fourth Circuit During the Years 1865 to 1869 (New York: Diossy & Co., 1876), 13–14.
322 “Our case is double”: The Works of Charles Sumner (Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1870–83), 7: 13.
323 “no life was forfeited”: James G. Randall, Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1926), 91.
323 a new species of offense: Francis Lieber, Memorandum, folder 33, box 2, FLP JHU.
Part III The Howling Desert
325 Epigraph: John M. Schofield, “Notes on ‘The Legitimate’ in War,” Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States 2 (1881): 1, 3.
Chapter 11. Glenn’s Brigade
327 “No modern state”: Trials or Courts-Martial in the Philippine Islands in Consequence of Certain Instructions, Senate Doc. no. 213, 57th Cong., 2nd sess. (1903), 42.
327 “Terrible!”: “Impending Changes in the Character of War,” Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States 19 (1896): 83, 88.
327 died suddenly: Thomas Sergeant Perry, The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber (Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1882), 430.
327 launched General Orders No. 100: E.g., FL to Henry Halleck, October 4, 1863, box 28, FLP HL.
327 “Old Hundred”: E.g., FL to Henry Halleck, May 28, 1866, box 28, FLP HL
327 Bluntschli . . . translated the code: Dr. Bluntschli, Das moderne Kriegsrecht der civilisirten Staten als Rechtsbuch dargestellt (Nördligen: C. H. Beck’schen Buchhandlung, 1866).
328 influential German code: Betsy Baker Röben, Johann Caspar Bluntschli, Francis Lieber und das moderne Völkerrecht 1861–1881 (Baden-Baden: NOMOS Verlagsgesellschaft, 2003); Theodor Meron, “Francis Lieber’s Code and Principles of Humanity,” Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 36 (1997): 269; Betsy Baker Roben, “The Method Behind Bluntschli’s ‘Modern’ International Law,” Journal of the History of International Law 4 (2002): 249–92.
328 unfinished manuscript: Untitled MS, box 3, Papers of Brig. General Norman Lieber, 1867–1898, Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate General, record group 153, NARA.
328 stint in the Department of Dakota: Report of the Secretary of War, House Exec. Doc. no. 1, 41st Cong., 2nd sess., part 2, vol. 1 (1870), p. 41.
328 teaching the laws of war: Robert Wolfe, “Francis Lieber’s Role as Archivist of the Confederate Records,” in Charles R. Mack & Henry H. Lesesne, eds., Francis Lieber and the Culture of the Mind (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2005), 42, 46.
328 became acting judge advocate general: The Army Lawyer: A History of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, 1775–1975 (Washington, DC: U.S. Judge Advocate General’s Department, 1975), 83–86; William Fratcher, “History of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, United States Army,” Military Law Review 4 (1959): 88, 98–99.
328 On April 11, 1873: For my account of the Modoc episode, I have relied on Keith A. Murray, The Modocs and Their War (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959); Robert M. Utley, The Indian Frontier, 1846–1890 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003); and the documents and scholarship cited below.
329 600 soldiers under: J. F. Santee, “Edward R. S. Canby, Modoc War, 1873,” Oregon Historical Quarterly 33 (1932): 70, 74.
329 “You are like an old squaw”: Francis S. Landrum, Guardhouse, Gallows, and Graves: The Trial and Execution of Indian Prisoners of the Modoc Indian War by the U.S. Army, 1873 (Klamath Falls, OR: Klamath County Museum, 1998), 128.
329 “utter extermination”: “The Modoc Massacre: Extermination of the Tribe Justified,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 15, 1873.
329 ordered a pontoon bridge: Joseph T. Glatthaar, The March to the Sea and Beyond: Sherman’s Troops in the Savannah and Carolina Campaigns (New York: New York University Press, 1985), 64.
329 “shoot the leaders”: Murray, Modocs and Their War, 276.
330 “no desire to stay the hand”: “New York Press Comments on the Modoc Massacre,” Augusta Chronicle, April 16, 1873.
330 “be exterminated”: “New York Press Comments on the Modoc Massacre,” Augusta Chronicle, April 16, 1873.
330 But as Davis drew up: Jefferson Davis to HQ, S.F.P. [San Francisco Presidio], June 5, 1873, vol. 3, #217, part 1, entry 706: Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1870–1902, Department of the Columbia, record group 393, NARA; Landrum, Guardhouse, Gallows, and Graves, 21–22.
330 would no longer enter into treaties: Nell Jessup Newton et al., Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law (Newark, NJ: LexisNexis, 2005), §1.03, p. 75.
330 in modern organized sovereign states: Instructions, art. 20; see also art. 25, 29, and 30.
330 the Dakota Indians in Minnesota: My account of the Dakota Sioux episode of 1862 relies on Carol Chomsky, “The United States–Dakota War Trials: A Study in Military Injustice,” Stanford Law Review 43, no. 1 (1990): 13–98; and Maeve Herbert, “Explaining the Sioux Military Commission of 1862,” Columbia Human Rights Law Review 40 (2009): 743–98.
330 “as maniacs or wild beasts”: Chomsky, “Dakota War Trials,” 23.
330 “Nits”: Herbert, “Sioux Military Commission,” 767.
331 “Daniel Boone”: Ibid., 791.
331 On the first day . . . it sentenced to death: Chomsky, “Dakota War Trials,” 25–28.
332 executed Indians with an ax: See chapter 1.
332 without even the pretense: See chapter 3.
332 “Kill the nits”: John W. Hall, Uncommon Defense: Indian Allies in the Black Hawk War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 1.
332 As recently as the 1850s: Herbert, “Sioux Military Commission,” 755–56.
332 some commanders in Missouri: Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 86–87; Daniel E. Sutherland, A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerrillas in the American Civil War (C
hapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 123.
332 In the Oregon Territory: Herbert, “Sioux Military Commission,” 756–57.
333 “their aiders and abettors”: Basler, 5: 436–37.
333 even if Indians inflicted it: FL to Henry Halleck, April 19, 1864, box 28, FLP HL; Law and Usages of War, No. IV, 17 December 1861 [Notebook No. 4], folder 16, box 2, FLP JHU.
333 as much like “barbarians”: Herbert, “Sioux Military Commission,” 778 n. 178.
333 “who have laid down”: Ibid., 779–80 n. 180.
333 by applying a principle drawn: Basler, 5: 542–43; Chomsky, “Dakota War Trials,” 32, 89.
333 named Wowinape: Chomsky, “Dakota War Trials,” 41–43.
334 “technical difficulty”: Ibid., 42.
334 General John M. Schofield: Murray, Modocs and Their War, 272–73.
334 personalized copy of General Orders: OR, series 1, 22 (part 2): 292.
334 Attorney General George Henry Williams: Leonard Schlup, “George Henry Williams,” American National Biography Online, February 2000.
334 established legal authority for military commissions: Modoc War: Message from the President of the United States, Transmitting Copies of the Correspondence and Papers Relative to the War with the Modoc Indians in Southern Oregon and Northern California, During the Years 1872 and 1873, February 10, 1874, House Exec. Doc. no. 122, 43d Cong., 1st sess. (1874), pp. 88–90.
335 “I thought to avoid”: Landrum, Guardhouse, Gallows, and Graves, 18.
335 murder in violation . . . each of them to death: Modoc War, House Exec. Doc. no. 122, pp. 133–35, 181–83.
335 “Everything connected with the execution”: Ludlow, Guardhouse, Gallows, and Graves, 74–75.
335 President Grover Cleveland expressed the hope: Letter from the Secretary of War, Transmitting, In response to Resolution of February 11, 1887, Correspondence with General Miles Relative to the Surrender of Geronimo, Senate Exec. Doc. no. 117, 49th Cong., 2nd sess. (1887), p. 4.
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