Editing Lieber Code (section)

===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" />