[PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE SECRETARY OF WAR.] WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. SECOND THOUSAND, Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 1 PREFACE. The opinions, of which abstracts are presented in this work, consist of a selection from a mass of opinions recorded in the forty four volumes of the Reports of the Bureau of Military Justice, and furnished-mainly to the Secretary of War-by BVT. MAJ. GEN. JOSEPH HOLT, Judge Advocate General, from September, 1862, to December, 1875, and by BRIG. GEN. WM. MCKEE DUNN, Judge Advocate General, from the latter date to the present time. These opinions embrace those given by the Judge Advocate General in the course of his official reviews of the proceedings of military courts, or otherwise in connection with the subject of the administration of justice in the Army; as also those rendered by him in his ex officio capacity of general legal adviser to the Secretary of War or law officer of the War Department, upon questions of law arising in the business of that Department, and referred to him for opinion by its Head. The present work is not properly a later edition of the Digest of which the last issue was published in 1868, but is intended quite to supersede that publication. All that was deemed of permanent value therein has indeed been retained, but much the greater portion of the present volume consists of matter entirely new, or in part new and newly presented. Where practicable, such an arrangement has been made of the extracts as to divest them in a degree of the effect of disjecta membra and give them connection and sequence. With the view of adding to the interest as well as value of the work, the text has been illustrated by notes; the authorities cited being taken from compilations commenced, for personal use, some fifteen years ago, and kept up with the new adjudications, orders, enactments, &c., as they appeared. The references-especially those made to cases in General Orders-might have been considerably extended, but it has been preferred to select such as were especially III |