"declaration of the supremacy of martial law," might perhaps more clearly express the true state of fact to many persons of no legal or military education.

In time of peace, then, martial law is in abeyance; the civil law (using this term as expressing collectively all the laws of peace) reigns supreme, and to it are subordinated the military and naval law. In time of war, martial law is called into action, proprio vigore; but it does not necessarily become supreme: it and the civil law retain their several jurisdictions, the one over all matters of peace, and the other over all matters of war. But in such a state of war as corresponds to the European "state of siege," the martial law necessarily "overrides them all;" its supremacy is announced in a "declaration" or "proclamation ;" and all other codes are for the time subordinated to it. Our own history, for the past few years, abounds. in examples of all these different conditions of public affairs, and their corresponding systems of jurisprudence. Thus, although it has been said that "we are without law on the subject," we have practically the same three divisions of martial law as obtain in France; and we may well study their martial jurisprudence.

We have found nothing in any of the authorities to indicate the precise difference, if any exists, between "martial law" and "the law of war." Certain writers, indeed, seem to consider "martial law" as applying particularly to and governing civilians and civil institutions; and those holding this view would doubtless claim it to be a branch of "the laws of war." But the authorities are not agreed in assuming this distinction; it appears to be purely factitious, and of no practical benefit, and those who define martial law most closely, and seck to keep it within the bounds of law, as against those who would thrust it out into the region of despotism, quite generally use the terms as convertible. We may safely conclude, therefore, that "martial law" is, as its name signifies, simply "the law of war.'

Military and naval law, being principally the creatures of statute, designed for and in force no less in times of peace than in those of war, must be regarded as independent systems. But we find them to so great a degree connected and interwoven with martial law, and deriving so many features in common from the "common law of war," that it becomes necessary to study them in the same connection, as is the case with many other branches of the law. From these features in common of the different systems have doubtless arisen the opinions above quoted, teaching by inference that martial law is a branch of military law. It will doubtless be found that, so far as the two systems have principles in common, they are simply the principles of the common law of war,' 99 a branch of the laws of nations. We conclude, therefore, with Solicitor Whiting, that "mar

tial law is the law of war; it consists of a code of rules and principles regulating the rights, liabilities, and duties, the social, municipal, and international relations, in time of war, of all persons," and that it is, in time of war, constitutional law;" with Halleck, that "the right to declare, apply, and exercise martial law is one of the rights of sovereignty, and is as essential to the existence of a state as is the right to declare or carry on war; with Attorneys-General Randolph and Cushing, that it is "a part of the law of nations," and with Attorney-General Speed, that it is, as such, "a part of the laws of the land;" and with the Supreme Court, "that the power to establish it and declare its supremacy is a war power, vested in the executive department of the Government, by whose action both the legislative and judicial departments will be concluded, in time of war."

The discussion of the deeply interesting subject of the relation of the martial code to the civil and other codes over which it is established in time of war, and of the effect of this preferment of the code of war upon the laws, the legal authorities, the courts, and the people, thus brought within its influence, must be reserved to a future time.

I CHATTERED, peering out of a small opening in the door of my tent, very near the ground, "A m-m-m-merry C-c-c-christmas, old f-f-f-fellow!"

The old fellow was dear old Smallweed, his honest brown face shining friendship at me through the driving rain, and utterly refusing to be rendered dismal by the funereal appearance of the glazed rubber suit which effectually concealed all that was mortal of him save a pair of brown eyes, a short round nose, and a single wisp of tawny hair straggling from its ranks under the cap and resting on the forehead. The merry Christmas aforesaid was-well-Did you ever experience the delights of a norther? The night before had been warm and balmy. Rolles and I had sat up late, smoking the best of sutler's cigars, enjoying the last sentimental light of the old moon. We wore our summer clothes, it was so warm, and the boy went so far as to discard flannel under-garments and propose cobblers of sherry; a proposition which his companion, this W. Jenkins, would gladly have seconded but for the unfortunate absence, unpleasantly remembered, of two of the ingredients usually deemed essential, viz., 1, ice; 2, wine. Neither is brown sugar-but that is secondary. It was so warm that the contrabands who owned our mess and ruled its roast and fortunes, played "sevenup" for the mess funds until an unseemly hour, when the sergeant of the guard, feeling sleepy, put an end to their fun and losses and kicked the losers to bed. It was so warm that even the ever-prudent Jenkins, trained upon tucked-in bedclothes, cast off his thin army-blanket, and let it slide down to his feet, and lay down to rest on his couch of barrel-staves with no more than a woollen shirt between his manly form and the festive mosquito or furtive crotalis. It might have been an hour later, but probably wasn't, when the same gentleman awoke from his first nap in one or more shivers: "But soon I woke, my sleep was broke, and Fire! they cried "-They did cry certainly, mules and contrabands (and the poor horses too sighed piteously, and scraped), but not "Fire!" On the contrary, quite the reverse.

Frosty Caucasus! how cold it was! Was ever any one so cold? The mules crept under the lee of their wagons and rolled, shrieking dismally the while. The horses rubbed against one another, and snorted with pain. The contrabands, though lying six thick in a common A tent, mixed up with grease, pots, kettles, mess-chests, buffalo robes, candlesticks, crockery, and last, not least, cards, awoke, and began a series of doleful plaints that lasted during all that long Christmas Day, and the next and the next after that, until the storm abated. By sunrise the despondent mercury had fallen thirty of Herr Fahrenheit's little degrees and at least a hundred of Nature's; for what did the pale half-fluid know or heed of the keen and hungry northern blast that sawed its chilly way into our marrow, wrinkled into goose-flesh our cuticle, and converted all our poor humanity into sentient icicles? "Only fuf-fuf-forty!" jibbered Captain Rolles, as he shivered into my tent for breakfast; "it's gug-got n-nun-no s-sense ;" and he lit a match and warmed the thermometer till it jumped a full dozen degrees, as though scalded. “I dud-don't s-see that that mum-mum-makes it any w-warmer,” he shivered out, and begged Cæsar "for God's sake to bring some coffee, sus-sus-screeching hot." All this at or near camp of Head-Quarters Department and Army of the Southwest, on the march, on or near the Mud Springs road, on or about the 25th day of December, 1862, in the presence of officers and enlisted men of the Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh Army Corps, and other sufferers.

"C-c

Poor Smallweed! All this time he has been freezing and getting more and more shrivelled in the wind and rain. come in, old fuf-fellow," I said (rather sooner than I have done here, or he would have become a very cold corpse and have disappeared from these wandering papers from this very moment); and in he came, and presently he and I and Rolles, being joined by Colonel Cromwell, who glided noiselessly in without saying a word about the abominable weather, and who looked provokingly comfortable, scalded our throats with some of the hottest coffee ever boiled over a split-pine fire, and took turns at embracing the coffee-pot with our icy fingers. It was very provoking of Colonel Cromwell to sit there in his light-blue cavalry overcoat, with the fur collar unhooked in front, trying to look as if he were not nearly chilled to death like the rest of us. How a man who made it a point to look so aggravatingly cool on hot days could find it in his heart to appear so insolently comfortable now, I cannot conceive. He merely nodded as he entered the tent, giving a special nod of inquiry to Smallweed, and then-my blood congeals as I write it-took off his hat. Shade of Sir John Franklin! A man who could take off his hat in a norther-well! words cannot do justice to the subject; I am sorry I ever began it.

We had hardly finished scalding ourselves, and Rolles had just gone to bed again to keep warm, when a frost-bitten orderly clanked up and burst into the tent with a dispatch for the Colonel. He read it, and smiled, at the imminent risk, as I thought, of having his face frozen in that position. "Read that, and then take it to the General," he said, adding with almost an emphasis, "you'll find him in bed." A few weeks ago, on opening a buffalo robe I used during that norther, for the first and last time-having bought it under the impression we were going to winter on the Potomac, and discarded it on account of I... (not fleas)-I found the curious little scrap of yellow tis sue paper on which this note was written. Being valuable as exhibiting a style rather different from the notions which I find generally prevalent concerning military circumlocution, let me copy it:

"Lt. Colo. CROMWELL:

"Dr. Colo.,

"Hd.-Qrs., 27th A. C. (Provl.) Dec. 25th, 1862, 8 A. M.

"I don't know how the thermometer stands up your way, but mine says 34°-a fall of thirty-one in last 12 h.--and if my men have got to march just say so, and send a lot of those ambulances we hear so much about and see so little of-to follow along behind & keep picking up the loose ears, noses, &c. It's no sort of use trying to move while this norther lasts. Wait three days and we can go right along and clean out those fellows up at Muddy Fort, and the whole infernal pack-but now it's folly, and the poor boys will suffer awful bad. Still orders are orders and must be obeyed.

"Respy yr. mo. obt. st.,

"B. ARNOLD TORTILYE,
"B. G. C. Corps.

I put on two overcoats and a cape, wrapped over my ears the muffler that Sophy worked for me just before we left "the States," and, fortifying myself with a great gulp of "commissary," that is to say whiskey, sallied forth to breast the wireedge of the norther. Smallweed said he must return to camp, and would ride with me.

"The rummest thing, Bill," he exclaimed, grinning, as soon as we were mounted, "the rummest thing out! Guess!"

"Don't make me guess with this wind splitting my front teeth! Give it up.'

"You'd never guess in the world. Old Lastoe-acting Colonel Lastoe-I beg his Ryl 'Ighness's pardon-has-oh! Bill, can't you guess?"