Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field

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U.S. Government Printing Office, 1898 - Military law - 51 pages
 

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Page 3 - As martial law is executed by military force, it is incumbent upon those who administer it to be strictly guided by the principles 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.
Page 4 - Law, unless intermpted 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.
Page 19 - A prisoner of war is 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.
Page 24 - 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.
Page 7 - 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.
Page 10 - Ever since the formation and co-existence 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 defence 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.
Page 39 - When 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 so as from attacks by main force. But as there is a difference of opinion among martial jurists, whether the besieged have the right to repair breaches or to erect new works of defense within the place during an armistice, this point should be determined by express agreement...
Page 17 - States, whether by capture, 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, requiring redress or retaliation.
Page 25 - ... 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.
Page 5 - Military jurisdiction is of two kinds: first, that which is conferred and defined by statute; second, that which is derived from the common law of war.

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