Lincoln's Code

by John Fabian Witt

  335 should be tried and punished: Letter from the Secretary of War, Senate Exec. Doc. no. 117, p. 10.

  335 General O. O. Howard objected: Ibid., p. 12.

  335 forced to ask Geronimo himself: Ibid., pp. 21–22.

  336 a prisoner of war status like few others: John Anthony Turcheneske, Jr., The Chiricahua Apache Prisoners of War: Fort Sill 1894–1914 (Niwot, CO.: University Press of Colorado, 1997); H. Henrietta Stockel, Survival of the Spirit: Chiricahua Apaches in Captivity (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1993); Peter Aleshire, The Fox and the Whirlwind: General George Crook and Geronimo (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000); Odie B. Faulk, The Geronimo Campaign (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), 210–12; Frederick Turner, ed., Geronimo: His Own Story, as Told to S. M. Barrett (New York: Meridian, 1970).

  336 The sixty-nine Dakota Sioux acquitted: Chomsky, “Dakota War Trials,” 28.

  336 establishment of a school in Carlisle: Richard H. Pratt, “Violated Principles the Cause of Failure in Indian Civilization,” Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States 7 (1886): 46, 58–60.

  336 the indefinite detention: G. Norman Lieber to Adjutant General, August 26, 1893, Letters Sent (“Record Books”), 1889–1895, Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate General (Army), 1792–2010, record group 153, NARA.

  336 “Kill and scalp all”: Katie Kane, “Nits Make Lice: Drogheda, Sand Creek, and the Poetics of Colonial Extermination,” Cultural Critique 42 (1999): 81, 82–84; see also Stan Hoig, The Sand Creek Massacre (Norman, OK: Oklahoma University Press, 1961).

  337 the peculiarity of the legal status: AG Opinions, 13: 470, 472.

  337 “the blessing of a knowledge”: “Laws of War in Ashantee,” New York Times, April 20, 1884; see also Sunday Oregonian (Portland), July 6, 1884. On Howard, see Richard N. Ellis, “The Humanitarian Generals,” Western Historical Quarterly 3, no. 2 (1972): 169, 169–72.

  337 Some historians have argued: See Lance Janda, “Shutting the Gates of Mercy: The American Origins of Total War, 1860–1880,” Journal of Military History 59, no. 1 (1995): 7–26; and Harry Stout, Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War (New York: Penguin Books, 2007), 460.

  337 Others object: Mark E. Neely, Jr., The Civil War and the Limits of Destruction (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007); Mark Grimsley, The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Toward Southern Civilians, 1861–1865 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

  337 “only good Indians”: Wolfgang Mieder, “ ‘The Only Good Indian Is a Dead Indian’: History and Meaning of a Proverbial Stereotype,” Journal of American Folklore 106, no. 419 (Winter 1993): 38, 45–46.

  337 “During the war”: Letter from the Secretary of War in Answer to a Resolution of the House, of March 3, 1870, in Relation to the Late Expedition Against the Piegan Indians, in the Territory of Montana, House Ex. Doc. no. 269, 41st Cong., 2nd sess., p. 70.

  338 Robert K. Evans . . . stern vision of the 1863 code: Robert K. Evans, “The Indian Question in Arizona,” Atlantic Monthly (August 1886): 171–73.

  338 banker named Henri Dunant: Caroline Moorehead, Dunant’s Dream: War, Switzerland, and the History of the Red Cross (London: HarperCollins, 1998), 2–7.

  339 In Great Britain: Mark Bostridge, Florence Nightingale: The Making of an Icon (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008).

  339 Ferdinando Palasciano: Moorehead, Dunant’s Dream, 27.

  339 Henri Arrault: Ibid., 26.

  339 founded a Sanitary Commission: Charles J. Stillé, History of the United States Sanitary Commission: Being the General Report of Its Work During the War of the Rebellion (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1866).

  339 a stunning exposé: J. Henry Dunant, A Memory of Solferino (Washington, DC: American Red Cross, 1939), (trans. of the 1862 French original).

  340 The first Geneva Convention: Bevans, 1: 7–11; see Martha Finnemore, National Interests in International Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), 69–88.

  340 “Am I not the man”: FL to Charles Sumner, June 20 & 21, 1864, box 44, FLP HL; see also FL to Charles Sumner, June 24, 1864, box 44, FLP HL; FL to Henry Halleck, June 18, 1864, and June 25, 1864, box 28, FLP HL.

  340 A skeletal delegation: Report of Charles S. P. Bowles, Foreign Agent of the United States Sanitary Commission Upon the International Congress of Geneva (London: R. Clay, Son, & Taylor, 1864).

  340 “Our No. 100”: FL to Henry Halleck, June 18, 1864, box 28, FLP HL.

  340 Henry Raymond: Francis Brown, Raymond of the Times (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1951), 167–79. On the press and humanitarianism, see Gary J. Bass, Freedom’s Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), 35–37.

  340 War photographers: Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003), 48–58.

  340 given way to vast mobilizations: David A. Bell, The First Total War: Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007).

  341 Improved rifling technology: Compare John Keegan, A History of Warfare (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), 342–43, describing the tight formations of eighteenth-century musket tactics, with Max Boot, War Made New: Weapons, Warriors, and the Making of the Modern World (New York: Gotham Books, 2007), 127–28, describing the rise of rifled barrels and the dispersion of troops that followed, though only after terrible lessons were inflicted on hundreds of thousands of soldiers.

  341 as evidence of just such moral progress: Charles Loring Brace, Gesta Christi: or, A History of Humane Progress Under Christianity (New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son, 1883), 335; Richard S. Storrs, The Divine Origin of Christianity, Indicated by Its Historical Effects (New York: Anson D. F. Randolph & Co., 1884), 204, 521.

  341 “the very moral sentiment”: Sheldon Amos, Political and Legal Remedies for War (London: Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., 1880), 336.

  341 turned men into murderers: Dunant, Memory of Solferino, 28.

  341 “La civilisation de la guerre”: Geoffrey Best, Humanity in Warfare (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 10.

  341 The militarists of Prussia: Geoffrey Wawro, War and Society in Europe, 1792–1914 (London: Routledge, 2000), 77.

  342 120 different networks: Moorehead, Dunant’s Dream, 53.

  342 James “Jingo Jim” Blaine: Clara Barton, The Red Cross: A History of This Remarkable International Movement in the Interest of Humanity (Washington, DC: American National Red Cross, 1898), 36–45.

  342 “perpetual peace” . . . “speedy conclusion”: Count von Moltke to Johan Caspar Bluntschli, December 11, 1880, reprinted in Thomas Erskine Holland, ed., Letters to The Times Upon War and Neutrality, 1881–1909 (New York: Longmans Green, 2nd ed., 1914), 25–26.

  342 “it was impossible both”: Peter Holquist, The Russian Empire as a “Civilized State”: International Law as Principle and Practice in Imperial Russia, 1874–1878. National Council for Eurasian and East European Research Working Paper, July 14, 2006, pp. 13–14 (available at http://www.nceer.org/papers).

  342 the dense thicket of European rivalries: Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress with the Annual Message of the President, December 6, 1875, House Exec. Doc. no. 1, part 1, vol. 2, 44th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 1014–46; [Brussels Conference], New York Herald, July 28, 1874; Martin Aust, “Western European and German Perceptions of Fedor Martens and Russian Developments in the Field of International Law (1870s to 1900s).” Paper presented to the American Historical Association Conference, New York, New York, January 2009; Geoffrey Best, “Restraints on War by Land Before 1945,” in Michael Howard, ed., Restraints on War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 33–34; Calvin deArmond Davis, The United States and the First Hague Peace Conference (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1962), 38–44.

  343 Berlin: FL to Henry Halleck, October 4, 1863, box 28, FLP HL (Heffter); Frank Freidel, Francis Lieber: Nineteenth-Century Liberal (Baton Rouge: Lou
isiana State University Press, 1947), 402.

  343 “Professor Dr. Franz Lieber in New-York”: Dr. J. C. Bluntschli, Das moderne Völkerrecht der civilisirten Staten als Rechtsbuch dargestellt (Nördlingen: C. H. Beck’schen Buchhandlung, 1878), iii–iv; see also Bluntschli, Moderne Kriegsrecht, iii (“Professor Lieber in New-York . . . und . . . Präsident Lincoln).

  343 He cited Lieber as inspiring: Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law, 1870–1960 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 42.

  343 “war crime,” or Kriegsverbrechen: Bluntschli, Moderne Völkerrecht, §643a, p. 360.

  343 Netherlands (1871) . . . Italy (1896): G. I. A. D. Draper, “Implementation of International Law in Armed Conflicts,” International Affairs 48 (1972): 46, 55; War Office, Manual of Military Law (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1894), 303–20; see also Thomas Erskine Holland, Studies in International Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 87 n. 1.

  343 by the time of the Russo-Turkish War: Holquist, Russian Empire as a “Civilized State,” 14.

  343 “the formation of a practical Manual”: Henry Sumner Maine, International Law: A Series of Lectures Delivered Before the University of Cambridge, 1887 (London: John Murray, 1888), 129.

  344 prepared a private draft: V. V. Pustogarov, Our Martens: F. F. Martens International Lawyer and Architect of Peace, ed. & trans W. E. Butler (London: Simmonds & Hill, 2000), 108–09; Holquist, Russian Empire as a “Civilized State,” 12–13 n. 37.

  344 as an amended version of Lieber’s work: Holquist, Russian Empire as a “Civilized State,” 12–13.

  344 Martens described the parole: Project for an International Convention on the Laws and Customs of War Presented by the Russian Government, in Documents Relating to the Program of the First Hague Peace Conference (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921), §35–36, p. 44.

  344 noncombatants who rose up in a territory: Ibid., §45, p. 45.

  344 even the execution of prisoners: Ibid., §12 (c), p. 45.

  344 “seizure and destruction”: Ibid., §13(b) & (c), p. 45.

  344 As humanitarian critics noted: Foreign Relations of the United States, House Exec. Doc. no. 1, part 1, vol. 2, 44th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 1027–29.

  344 “to whom does the right”: Holquist, Russian Empire as a “Civilized State,” 13.

  345 “in direct subordination”: Ibid., 14–15.

  345 Martens adopted Lieber’s functional: Project of an International Declaration Concerning the Laws and Customs of War, Brussels, 27 August 1874, art. 9, available at http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/135?OpenDocument.

  345 it has lasted as such: Convention (III) Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Geneva, 12 August 1949, art. 4(A)(2), available at http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/375.

  345 “fully aware that”: Meron, “Francis Lieber’s Code,” 271.

  346 “strict military obedience”: Robert Seager II, “Alfred Thayer Mahan,” American National Biography Online, http://www.anb.org/articles/05/05-00466.html; Robert Seager II, “Alfred Thayer Mahan: Christian Expansionist, Navalist, and Historian,” in James C. Bradford, ed., Admirals of the New Steel Navy: Makers of the American Naval Tradition, 1880–1930 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990), 24–72.

  347 “a dim religious world”: Philip A. Crowl, “Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Naval Historian,” in Peter Parat, ed., The Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), 444.

  347 “Step by step”: Alfred Thayer Mahan, Some Neglected Aspects of War (London: Sampson Low, Marston, & Co., 1899), 45.

  347 “Power”: Mahan, Some Neglected Aspects, 46; see also p. 107.

  347 without undue deference: Ibid., 37–42.

  348 Ethan Allen Hitchcock . . . accepted the message: Davis, First Hague Peace Conference, 37–38.

  348 electrified peace movements: Ibid., 61; James J. Sheehan, Where Have All the Soldiers Gone? The Transformation of Modern Europe (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008), 22–34.

  348 Mahan saw the czar’s call: Davis, First Hague Peace Conference, 38.

  348 “the humanitarian”: Ibid., 42.

  348 to slow a European arms race: Ibid., 43–44.

  348 “hopeless skepticism”: Andrew D. White, The First Hague Conference (Boston: World Peace Foundation, 1912), 8.

  348 seventeenth-century summer palace: Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890–1914 (New York: Macmillan, 1966), 257; Davis, First Hague Peace Conference, 92; Stephen Barcroft, “The Hague Peace Conference of 1899,” Irish Studies in International Affairs 3, no. 1 (1989): 55, 62.

  349 they were not to enter into any: James Brown Scott, ed., The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907: A Series of Lectures Delivered Before the Johns Hopkins University in the Year 1908 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1909), 2: 7.

  349 Mahan did too: Davis, First Hague Peace Conference, 187; Mahan, Some Neglected Aspects, 25.

  349 “to really nothing”: Davis, First Hague Peace Conference, 188.

  349 generously credited Lincoln: William I. Hull, The Two Hague Conferences and Their Contributions to International Law (Boston: International School of Peace, 1908), 214–15.

  349 distinct advance on the Civil War code: James Brown Scott, ed., Instructions to the American Delegates to the Hague Peace Conferences and Their Official Reports (New York: Oxford University Press, 1916), 46.

  350 prohibited prisoner execution: Regulations Concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land. The Hague, 29 July 1899, art. 4 & 23(c), available at http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/150?.

  350 “populations and belligerents”: Convention (II) with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land, [preamble], available at http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/150.

  350 “heard the opinion expressed”: “Session Is Brief,” Dallas Morning News, June 16, 1907.

  350 “when he speaks”: Tuchman, Proud Tower, 267.

  350 “doubtful if wars” . . . “inventive genius”: Scott, ed., Instructions to the American Delegates, 7.

  351 White was no lightweight: See Andrew D. White, The Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White (New York: Century, 1905).

  351 an inventor of artillery devices: Davis, First Hague Peace Conference, 75.

  351 he had to order copies: Ibid., 132.

  351 New technologies: Tuchman, Proud Tower, 262.

  351 dumdum bullets could stop: Davis, First Hague Peace Conference, 121.

  351 “wounds of useless cruelty”: Scott, ed., Hague Peace Conferences, 2: 33–35; Scott, ed., Instructions to the American Delegates, 29.

  352 “would prove to be rather harmful”: White, First Hague Conference, 40.

  352 “tender about asphyxiating”: Scott, ed., Hague Peace Conferences, 2: 37; see also Robert Seager II & Doris D. Maguire, eds., Letters and Papers of Alfred Thayer Mahan (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1975), 2: 642, 650–51.

  352 Though White initially opposed: Davis, First Hague Peace Conference, 119.

  352 to push for the immunity of private property at sea: Scott, ed., Instructions to the American Delegates, 9.

  352 Mahan was violently opposed: Alfred T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1890), 539–40; Seager & Maguire, eds., Letters and Papers of Alfred Thayer Mahan, 3: 112–13, 157, and also 2: 638.

  352 even resisted the old American position: Seager, Alfred Thayer Mahan, 28.

  352 persuaded President Theodore Roosevelt: Richard W. Turk, The Ambiguous Relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), 135–36.

  353 “limited liability”: Calvin DeArmond Davis, The United States and the Second Hague Peace Conference: American Diplomacy and International Organization, 1899–1914 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1975), 140, 171.

  353 it required its signatory states: Convention (II) with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land
, art. 1.

  353 as ratification of the kinds of global power: Stuart Creighton Miller, “Benevolent Assimilation”: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899–1903 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982), 7; also Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 170–216.

  353 “divinely commissioned”: Stanley Karnow, In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines (New York: Random House, 1989), 81.

  354 “a war for liberty”: Miller, “Benevolent Assimilation,” 102.

  354 millions of nonwhite people: Christina Burnett & Burke Marshall, eds., Foreign in a Domestic Sense: Puerto Rico, American Expansion, and the Constitution (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001).

  354 longed for a coaling station: Turk, Ambiguous Relationship, 36.

  354 irredeemable savages: Miller, “Benevolent Assimilation,” 124–28.

  354 “a civilized”: Paul A. Kramer, “Race-Making and Colonial Violence in the U.S. Empire: The Philippine-American War as Race War,” Diplomatic History 30, no. 2 (April 2006): 169, 181.

  354 the United States’ intent to cooperate: Paul A. Kramer, The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, & the Philippines (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 94–96.

  354 a combination of untruths: Ibid., 94–111.

  354 who admired the combat tactics: Ibid., 76.

  354 resistance to Spain and the Boer War against the British: Ibid., 131.

  354 often horrific: E.g., Karnow, In Our Own Image, 190–91.

  355 used poison and killed: Trials or Courts-Martial in the Philippine Islands in Consequence of Certain Instructions, Senate Doc. no. 213, 57th Cong., 2nd sess. (1903), 9.

  355 filling reports with hundreds: Charges of cruelty, etc., to the natives of the Philippines. Letter from the Secretary of War relative to the reports and charges in the public press of cruelty and oppression exercised by our soldiers toward natives of the Philippines. February 19, 1902, Senate Doc. no. 205, 57th Cong., 1st sess.

  355 “the brains of the revolution”: Karnow, In Our Own Image, 116.