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commanders still exercising authority, and also by the employment of the powers of the officials charged with the administration of the Freedmen's Bureau. As before stated the military authority was expressly recognized by Governor Orr in his proclamation issued in January, 1866.

On January 12, 1866, General Grant, as commanding general of the army, directed post commanders and others to protect persons from prosecution in State or municipal courts, when charged with offenses growing out of the enforcement of the military orders of the President, or other competent military authority; to protect from prosecution and penalties all occupants of abandoned lands and all persons holding property by the military authority of the President; and to protect colored persons from penalties not imposed on white persons.

On February 17 General Grant ordered his department commanders in the South to "transmit to headquarters, as soon as practicable, and from time to time thereafter, such copies of newspapers published in the department as contain sentiments of disloyalty and hostility to the Government, in any of its branches, and state whether such paper is habitual in its utterances of such sentiments"—the order further declaring that "the persistent publication of articles calculated to keep up the hostility between the different sections of the country cannot be tolerated, and this information is called for with a view to their suppression."

On July 13, 1866, certain civilians undergoing sentence for offenses committed in the "conquered territory" after the cessation of hostilities were, by authority of the President, ordered to be held in military custody.

On July 16, 1866, military officers on duty in any of the Southern States were, by order of General Grant, required to arrest persons charged with crime, if they should not have been apprehended by the civil authorities-this not in aid of the latter, but by virtue of the Federal authority acting independently.

Major-Gen. Daniel E. Sickles, having been assigned to duty in the department hitherto commanded by General Gilmore, formally assumed command by a general order dated January 1, 1866, whereby he not only indicated the relations of the military to the civil authority, but undertook to forbid certain acts theretofore authorized by the statute law of South Carolina. From this action on this line

there very soon arose a conflict between the civil court and the Federal commander. The general order referred to, among other restrictions upon the law officers of the State, forbade the infliction of corporal punishment.

At the spring term, 1866, of the Circuit Court in Charleston, Judge A. P. Aldrich sentenced to be whipped a white man who had been convicted of larceny. On the day after the sentence a soldier appeared at the courthouse and inquired for the Judge. Not finding him, the soldier reported the fact to his superior. On the next day. came a note from the post commander (Brigadier-General Bennett) asking the Judge to report at headquarters. The Judge respectfully declining, an officer called at his hotel and repeated the request. Thereupon the Judge, remarking, "I see I am under arrest," accompanied the officer into the General's presence. There was some colloquy about the case, the Judge firmly maintaining the authority of his court, and pointing out his inability to do anything to interfere with the execution of the sentence lawfully passed. A few days later the prisoner was taken by the military from the sheriff and discharged-this by an order of General Sickles, enforced in spite of the request of Governor Orr to the contrary. Judge Aldrich thereupon adjourned his court, and he refrained from holding any term until the apparent adjustment following the action of the Legislature, at the special session in September, in relation to the rights of the freedmen.

[The course of Judge Aldrich in declining to hold court while his judgments were subject to interference by the Federal military, was similar to that taken by the Justices of the United States Supreme Court, who until the summer of 1867 abstained from sitting in any of the "insurgent States," on the ground that "their process might be disregarded, and their judgments and decrees set aside, by military orders."]

In another case Judge Thomas N. Dawkins sentenced a prisoner to be whipped, and the commanding general interposed to prevent the enforcement of the judgment. Pending the correspondence between General Sickles and Governor Orr the prisoner was respited, but the time having expired, and that fact having apparently escaped the notice of both the executive and the military commander, the whipping was duly administered according to law.

In the latter part of 1865, while two citizens of Edgefield, standing in front of the courthouse, were discussing in an ordinary tone of voice some case about to come to trial, a white cavalryman, belonging to a company stationed in the town, stepped rudely and violently between them and pushed both backward with a threat. One of the citizens, having a stiff leg, fell to the ground, whereupon the soldier, evidently drunk, drew his pistol, got on top of the prostrate man, held him down and fired-the bullet passing under his neck into the ground. Some gentlemen standing a little distance off stepped up and remonstrated with the soldier. Refusing to release his hold, the soldier's conduct attracted a crowd whose evident purpose was to release the victim. Suddenly a young man stepped out in front of the crowd and deliberately fired upon the soldier-inflicting a wound from which he soon died. In a short while an infantry sergeant very excitedly marched his company to the public square, brandished his pistol and threatened vengeance upon the whole town. Gen. M. C. Butler informed him that if he did not cease his threats and march his company back to their quarters he and they must take the consequences-there being on the ground five or six hundred ex-Confederate soldiers who might not be longer restrained. The sergeant followed General Butler's advice, and quiet was soon restored. Both the citizen who had been maltreated and the one who had killed the soldier left the community. Several citizens of Edgefield, including Gen. M. W. Gary, were arrested on the charge of complicity in the killing of the trooper, huddled into an ambulance, taken to Columbia in the nighttime, and there incarcerated in the basement of the College chapel (outside the campus)-having for their fellow prisoners some of the most depraved and loathsome criminals in the country. To Gen. Adelbert Ames, the post commander, General Butler, who had promptly followed the ambulance, protested against this treatment of the accused gentlemen, whereupon that officer promptly had them transferred to comfortable tents in another part of the city. On hearing of this action, Maj. Alexander Moore, of General Sickles's staff, who had made the arrests, presented to General Ames a paper, "by order of General Sickles," directing that the accused be sent to Charleston. General Ames obeyed the order, and at once went in person to General Sickles to whom it was thought he protested against the arrest and imprisonment of the parties accused. These were kept in Charleston,

their prison guard being negro soldiers, but were after a time released. No charges were ever formulated and no trial was ever ordered.

In October, 1865, three soldiers of a Maine regiment, while guarding some cotton at Brown's Ferry, in Anderson District, were killed by unknown parties. Five men-four citizens of the district named, and one a resident of Georgia-were arrested on suspicion of complicity in the crime. The accused were first taken to Darlington and thence to Charleston, where they were tried by a military commission-Lieut.-Col. A. J. Willard (afterwards a justice of the State Supreme Court) representing the Government, and Gen. James Conner, of Charleston, with Mr. Armistead Burt, of Abbeville, appearing for the defense. Four of the defendants were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Application having been made to Judge Bryan, of the United States District Court, a writ of habeas corpus was issued, commanding General Sickles to produce the prisoners. That officer refused to obey the writ, declaring that the prisoners had been duly tried and convicted by a competent tribunal; that the case was before the President for review, and that the commanding general had no power by which he could in any manner interfere with the present disposition of the parties without the further order of the President. Thereupon, by the order of Judge Bryan, General Sickles was attached for contempt. He refused to be taken, writing on the writ these words: "In compliance with orders from superior authority I decline to be arrested." Shortly after this proceeding the sentence of the prisoners having been commuted by the President to life imprisonment on the Dry Tortugas, off the coast of Florida, they were removed from Castle Pinckney. Later they were transferred to Fort Delaware. Brought by habeas corpus before the Hon. Elisha Hall, judge of the United States Court for the District of Delaware, they were, on November 17, 1866, by him discharged from custody-this on the ground that the trial, conviction and sentence by military commission were contrary to the Federal Constitution, null and void. The accused were never prosecuted further.

On November 20, 1865, James Egan, a white citizen of Lexington, about eighty years of age, was tried by military commission on the charge of murder-the alleged killing of a negro boy-found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Albany penitentiary.

Taken before Associate Justice Nelson, of the United States Supreme Court, the prisoner was discharged on the ground that his trial and conviction had been without authority of law. In the course of his opinion Judge Nelson declared that, in pursuance of the appointment of the Provisional Governor of South Carolina, "a new Constitution had been formed, a Governor and Legislature had been elected under it, and the State was in the full enjoyment, or was entitled to the full enjoyment, of all her constitutional rights and privileges."

A decision similar to those above given was rendered by Judge Bryan in Charleston in February, 1867, when he discharged from prison a negro who had been convicted by a military court of assault and battery-this being the first effective assertion of the actual subordination of the military power to the civil authority since the occupation of the State by the Federal army.

There were numerous instances, of more or less enormity, of the employment of military force, represented by military courts, to punish accused parties for alleged violations of State laws, Federal statutes, military orders, or police regulations of post commanders. The cases cited must serve to indicate the condition of affairs.

THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU.

On March 3, 1865, President Lincoln had approved the "act to establish a bureau for the relief of freedmen and refugees," by which there was committed to such bureau during the war, and for one year thereafter, the "management of all abandoned lands and the control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen from rebel States," and the custody, disposition and sale of confiscated property.. On July 16, 1866, despite the veto of the President, Congress passed an act to "continue in force and amend" the act above noted, "and for other purposes." The new act, so far as it related to the Bureau, was continued in force for two years after its passage. The supervision and care of the bureau were extended "to all loyal refugees and freedmen so far as the same shall be necessary to enable them as speedily as practicable to become self-supporting citizens of the United States, and to aid them in making the freedom conferred by proclamation of the Commander-in-Chief, by emancipation, under the laws of States and by constitutional amendment, available to them and beneficial to the Republic." Various officials were pro

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