Posts made by mehmood

Legal authority; extent of power. All sutlers and retainers to the camp, and all persons whatsoever serving with the armies of the United States in the field, though not enlisted soldiers, are to be subject to orders, according to the rules and discipline of war. To decide exactly where the boundary-line runs between civil and military jurisdiction as to the civilians attached to an army is difficult; but it is quite evident that they are within military jurisdiction, as provided for in the Articles of War, when their treachery, defection, or insubordination might endanger or embarrass the army to which they belong in its operations against what is known in military phrase as “an enemy.” Probably the fact that troops are found in a region of country chiefly inhabited by Indians, and remote from the exercise of civil authority, may enter into the description of “an army in the field.” Persons who attach themselves to an army going upon an expedition against hostile Indians may be understood as agreeing that they will submit themselves for the time being to military control. All officers, conductors, gunners, matrosses, drivers, or other persons whatsoever receiving pay or hire in the service of the artillery or corps of engineers of the United States, shall be subject to be tried by courts-martial. The officers and soldiers of any troops, whether militia or others, being mustered and in pay of the United States, shall, at all times and in all places, when joined, or acting in conjunction with the regular forces of the United States, be governed by the Rules and Articles of War, and shall be subject to be tried by courts-martial in like manner with the officers and soldiers in the regular forces; save only that such courts-martial shall be composed entirely of militia officers. No officer, non-commissioned officer, soldier, or follower of the army shall be tried the second time for the same offense. No person shall be liable to be tried and punished by a general court-martial for any offense which shall appear to have been committed more than two years before the issuing of the order for such trial, unless the person by reason of having absented himself, or some other manifest impediment, shall not have been amenable to justice within that period. No garrison or regimental court-martial shall have the power to try capital cases, or commissioned officers; neither shall they inflict a fine exceeding one month’s pay, nor imprison, nor put to hard labor any non-commissioned officer or soldier, for a longer time than one month.

Superfluity; superabundance.