Editing Lieber Code (section)

==History==
===Background===
At military age, the [[jurist]] [[Francis Lieber]] soldiered and fought in two wars, first for [[Prussia]] in the [[Napoleonic Wars]] (18 May 1803 – 20 November 1815) and then in the [[Greek War of Independence]] (21 February 1821 – 12 September 1829) from the [[Ottoman Empire]] (1299–1922). In his later career, Lieber was an academic at the [[College of South Carolina]], in the southern region of United States of America. Although not personally an [[abolitionist]], Lieber opposed slavery in principle and in practice because he had witnessed the brutalities of black [[slavery in the United States|chattel slavery]] in the South, from which he departed for New York City in 1857.<ref>{{cite book|last=Carnahan|first=Burrus M. |title=Lincoln on Trial: Southern Civilians and the Law of War |date=2010|publisher=The University Press of Kentucky |location=United States |page=30}}</ref> In 1860, Professor Lieber taught history and political science at the Columbia Law School, and publicly lectured about the "Laws and Usages of War" proposing that the laws of war correspond to a legitimate purpose for the war.<ref name="NY">Beard, Rick. [http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/the-lieber-codes/ "The Lieber Codes"]. ''The New York Times'', April 24, 2013.</ref>

During that time, Lieber had three sons who fought in the American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865): one in the [[Confederate Army]], who was killed at the [[Battle of Eltham's Landing]] (May 7, 1862), and two in the [[Union Army]]. Later in 1862, in St. Louis, Missouri, while searching for the Union-soldier son wounded at the [[Battle of Fort Donelson]] (February 11–16, 1862), Lieber asked the help of his professional acquaintance Major General [[Henry Halleck|Henry W. Halleck]], who had been a lawyer before the Civil War and was the author of ''International Law, or, Rules Regulating the Intercourse of States in Peace and War'' (1861), a book of political philosophy that emphasized legal correspondence between the ''[[casus belli]]'' and the purpose of the war.<ref name="NY"/>

[[image:Henry Halleck by Scholten, c1865.jpg|thumb|right|Gen. Henry W. Halleck commissioned the jurist Franz Lieber, LL.D., to modernize the military law of the 1806 Articles of War into General Orders No. 100 (1863), the Lieber Code, for the Union Army to fight the guerrilla warfare of the Confederacy during the American Civil War (1861–1865).]]

===Legal dilemma===
In fighting the Confederate Army, guerrillas, and civilian collaborators of the Confederacy, Union Army soldiers and officers faced ethical dilemmas of [[command responsibility]] concerning their [[summary execution]] ''in situ'', per military custom, because the [[Articles of war|1806 Articles of War]] did not address the management and disposition of prisoners of war and irregular fighters; nor the management and safe disposition of escaped black slaves – who were not to be repatriated to the Confederacy, per the [[Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves]] (1862).<ref>Article 43, Section II, General Orders No. 100, ''Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field'' (24 IV 1863)</ref>

To resolve the lack of military authority in the 1806 Articles of War, [[Commanding General of the United States Army|Commanding General of the Union Army]] Halleck commissioned Professor Lieber to write military laws specific to the modern warfare of the American Civil War. For the Union Army's management and disposal of irregular fighters (guerrillas, spies, saboteurs, ''et al.''), Lieber wrote the tract of military law ''Guerilla Parties Considered with Reference to the Laws and Usages of War'' (1862), which disallowed a soldier's POW-status to Confederate guerrillas and irregular fighters with three functional disqualifications: (i) guerrillas do not wear the army uniform of a belligerent party to the war; (ii) guerrillas have no formal chain of command, like a regular army unit; and (iii) guerrillas cannot take prisoners, as could an army unit.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/stream/guerrillaparties00lieb#page/n5/mode/2up|title=Guerrilla Parties: Considered with Reference to the Laws and Usages of War|website=archive.org|year=1862 }}</ref>

At the end of 1862, General Halleck and War Secretary Stanton commissioned Lieber to revise the military law of the 1806 Articles of War to include the practical considerations of military necessity and the humanitarian needs of civilian populations under military occupation. The editorial-revision committee, Major General [[Ethan A. Hitchcock (general)|Ethan A. Hitchcock]] and Major General [[George Cadwalader]], Major General [[George L. Hartsuff]] and Brigadier General [[John Henry Martindale]], requested from Lieber comprehensive military laws to govern the Union Army's prosecution of the Civil War. Gen. Halleck edited Lieber's military law to concur with the [[Emancipation Proclamation]] (1 January 1863), and, on April 24, 1863, President Lincoln promulgated General Orders No. 100, ''Instructions for the Government of the Armies of the United States in the Field'', the Lieber Code.<ref name="NY" />