supplies, etc., for same, destroyed by General Sherman in Atlanta, after the capture of that city, and before his advance upon Savannah. The establishment had been employed in the manufacture of shot, shell, and other military supplies for the Confederate government.

"The claim was unanimously disallowed.

"The case of James and Richard Martin, No. 434, was a claim for the value of the British ship York, which, in January 1862, on a voyage in ballast from Valencia, Spain, to Lewistown, Delaware, was alleged to have been driven ashore on the coast of North Carolina, one of the insurrectionary States, and while there stranded to have been destroyed by United States cruisers. "The proofs satisfactorily established that the vessel was actually wrecked without intent of her officers and while on a lawful voyage. An officer of the United States Navy, believing her to have been intentionally beached for the purpose of running in her cargo for the use of the enemy, and that the cargo, with the rigging and furniture of the vessel, was actually available to the rebels, boarded and burned her.

"The commission made an award for her value in favor of the claimants, in which all joined.

"The case of James A. Macaulay, No. 260, was a claim for certain cotton, the cargo of the steamship Blanche, which was alleged to have sailed from the port of Lavaca, Texas, in June 1862, and on her voyage to Havana to have been pursued by the United States war vessel Montgomery, commanded by Lieutenant Hunter, to have run aground on the coast of the island of Cuba, and while so aground to have been boarded by the crew of the Montgomery, set on fire, and, with her cargo, totally destroyed.

"The case was unanimously disallowed for lack of proof of the material allegations in the memorial."

Cotton Claims.

Am. and Br. Claims Commission, treaty of May 8, 1871, Hale's Report, 50. "A large number of claims was brought for cotton destroyed by the United States forces at various points in the insurrectionary States. Among these were the cases of Brown and Sharp, No. 33; John Cairns & Co., No. 39, and several others, for cotton destroyed at Camden, South Carolina; of George Collie, No. 458; Christopher Atkinson, No. 380, and others, at Columbia, South Carolina; of Samuel Hall Haddon, No. 107, in Screven County,

Georgia; of Alexander Collie, No. 376, at Oxford, Georgia; of A. R. McDonald, No. 42; John C. Forbes, No. 300, and others, in Arkansas and Louisiana; and various other claims for like alleged destruction at different points.

In several of these cases the proof was clear and undisputed that the cotton was destroyed under express orders of the commanding officers, and for the purpose of preventing it from falling into the hands of the enemy, and of weakening the resources of the enemy. In other cases questions of fact were in dispute, as to the fact of destruction by the United States forces; as to such destruction, if committed, being by order or authority of any competent officer; as to the title of the claimants to the cotton alleged to have been destroyed; and as to whether the cotton, when destroyed, was within the enemy's country.

"The question as to the right of the United States to destroy cotton of private owners in the enemy's country was discussed by the counsel of the United States in his arguments filed in the cases of S. H. Haddon, No. 107, and of Brown and Sharp, No. 33; and to some extent in several other cases.

"On the same subject arguments were filed by Her Majesty's counsel and by counsel for the respective claimants in the cases of S. H. Haddon, No. 107; Brown and Sharp, No. 33; David Jacobs, No. 236; Martha M. Calderwood, No. 360; John W. Carmalt, No. 89; Wood & Heyworth, No. 103; James Borron, No. 144, and in some other cases.

"On the part of the United States it was maintained that a belligerent might lawfully in the enemy's country destroy any property, public or private, the possession or control of which might in any degree contribute to sustain the enemy and increase his ability to carry on the war. That the occasion for such destruction and its extent must always be left solely to the discretion of the invading belligerent, who is of necessity the sole judge as to the requirements of his military position, and of the necessity or propriety of the destruction of property, and of the extent to which such destruction shall be carried. That the actual ownership of such property within the enemy's country by the subjects of a neutral power, whether domiciled within the enemy's country or not, did not relieve such property from its liability to such destruction. That cotton in the insurrectionary States was peculiarly and eminently a legiti mate subject for such destruction, from its relation to the

enemy's government, as the great staple from which were derived the principal means of that government for the carrying on of the war, which was the principal basis of its credit, the source of its military and naval supplies, and on which it relied to maintain its independent existence and to carry on the war against the United States. That the control of this staple as to production, sale, and exportation, had been, to a large extent, assumed by that government. That by the laws, military orders, and practice of the Confederate States and their authorities, the destruction of cotton, whenever likely to fall into the hands of their enemies, was enjoined and practiced, and that this practice of the Confederate Government and its officers had received the express and formal approval of the British Government as a legitimate practice under the laws of war.

"Proofs were made in the case of Wood and Heyworth, No. 103 (proofs for defense, pp. 16, 20, 24, 37 to 47, 51 to 65), of the statutes of the Confederate Government in regard to their control of this staple, and in regard to its destruction when necessary to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy; of the practice of the Confederate Government in controlling its production, sale, and exportation; of the acts of its president and other executive and administrative officers in this regard, and of the military orders and practice under the same for its destruction when exposed to capture by the enemy. Other proofs in regard to this practice of destruction by the Confederates were made in the cases of James Cumming, No. 94; A. R. McDonald, No. 42, and various other cases.

"The counsel for the United States, in his arguments, cited the letter from Earl Russell to Lord Lyons of 31st May 1862, from the British Blue Book relating to the United States, 1863, vol. 2, p. 33, in which his lordship said:

"Mr. Seward, in his conversation with your lordship, reported in your dispatch of the 16th instant, appeared to attribute blame to the Confederates for destroying cotton and tobacco in places which they evacuate on the approach of the Federal forces. But it appears to be unreasonable to make this a matter of blame to them, for they could not be expected to leave such articles in warehouses to become prize of war, and to be sold for the profit of the Federal Government, which would apply the proceeds to the purchase of arms to be used against the South.

"He cited also Vattel (Am. ed. of 1861), pp. 364 to 370, §§ 161 to 173; the case of Mrs. Alexander's Cotton in the Supreme

Court of the United States (2 Wall. 404, 420); and the opinion of Sir Hugh Cairns and Mr. Reilly, given in March 1865, on the application of the Canadian Government, and published in the 'Saint Albans Raid,' compiled by L. N. Benjamin, Montreal, 1865, page 479, as follows:

"Though in the conduct of war on land the capture by the officers and soldiers of one belligerent of the private property of subjects of the other belligerent is not often in ordinary crises avowedly practiced, it is yet legitimate.'

"In the arguments filed by Iler Majesty's counsel in the cases of Brown and Sharp, No. 33, and Samuel H. Haddon, No. 107, it was maintained that, by the modern law of war and the practice of civilized nations under it, private property of noncombatants on land is exempt from seizure, confiscation, or destruction, and that this principle was fully recognized, in theory at least, by the United States in the exercise of their belligerent rights in the late civil war; that the article of cotton, the property of noncombatants, was no exception to this general principle, this in fact having constituted the great mass of the property the proceeds of which were allowed to be recovered in the Court of Claims; that as to noncombatant citizens the United States recognized the rule of the exemp tion of their private property from capture and destruction; and that as to neutral aliens, peaceably residing in the United States, upon the faith of treaties of amity and commerce, at least an equally favorable doctrine must be applied; that if, in any case, the capture or destruction of such property became a military necessity, such capture or destruction was accompanied by liability to compensation.

"Her Majesty's counsel cited the case of the United States v. Klein, in the Supreme Court of the United States (13 Wall. 128); also the case of Mitchell v. Harmony, in the same court (13 How. 115); also the case of U. S. Grant v. United States (1 C. Cls. 41); also Brown r. United States (8 Cranch, 110); also Lawrence's Wheaton, Part IV, c. 2, pp. 586-626, 635n, 640n; Halleck, p. 546, § 12; Calvo, §§ 434, 436, 443, 444, 450; Vattel, pp. 368-9, § 173.

"All the claims for cotton destroyed in the enemy's country, with a single exception (that of A. R. McDonald, No. 42), were disallowed by the unanimous voice of the commission

ers.

"In the case of A. R. McDonald, Nos. 42 McDonald's Case. and 334, the commission made an award in favor of the claimant, Mr. Commissioner Frazer dissenting. In that case the cotton was alleged to have been purchased by the claimant principally in Ashley County, Arkansas, under permits issued by the proper officers of the United States Treasury, under the statutes regulating trade in the insurrectionary States, and the regulations of the Secretary of the Treasury made pursuant to said statutes, and to have been destroyed in the same region by United States forces under the command of General Osband in February, 1865. These statutes and regulations only authorized trade in the insurrectionary States within the lines of military occupancy of the United States forces; and it was contended on the part of the claimants that the issuing of such permits by the Treasury officers was controlling evidence that the region covered by the permits, and within which the cotton was alleged to have been purchased and destroyed, was actually within the military lines of the United States.

"On the part of the United States it was claimed that the evidence conclusively showed that at the time of the issuing of the permits in question, and of the alleged purchases under the same, as well as at the time of the alleged destruction, the region where the cotton was situated was entirely outside the lines of military occupancy of the United States, and within the control, civil and military, of the Confederate Government; that the permits in question were irregularly and unlawfully issued; that they gave no authority to the claimant to purchase within the district in question; that the cotton was purchased, if at all, within the enemy's country, and under collusive arrangements between the claimant and the Confederate cotton bureau; that the permits, even if valid when issued, afforded no protection to the cotton when actually within the enemy's lines at the time of its destruction; that the claimant, by his unlawful dealings with the enemy, had forfeited any possible right which he might have had under his alleged permits, and that the claim was, to a large extent, fraudulent, both as to the alleged purchase and destruction.

"The entire claim of this claimant amounted, including interest, to over $3,000,000. The award was for the sum $197,190, including interest. I am advised that, in the making of this 5627-VOL. 4-29