Interesting Article About the Lieber Code

[nc native]

https://www.realclearhistory.com/ar...ion_from_war_tactic_to_war_crime_1036503.html

I didn't know where to post the link to this article about the Lieber Code which was authorized by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War so it put it here. The Lieber Code was controversial when it became a part of Union war strategy and is even more controversial today. There is no question that it hastened the end of the Civil War but did the harm it caused civilians caught up in the conflict outweigh the good in ending the fighting sooner and sparing the lives of many combatants.

 

[Belfoured]

https://www.realclearhistory.com/ar...ion_from_war_tactic_to_war_crime_1036503.html

I didn't know where to post the link to this article about the Lieber Code which was authorized by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War so it put it here. The Lieber Code was controversial when it became a part of Union war strategy and is even more controversial today. There is no question that it hastened the end of the Civil War but did the harm it caused civilians caught up in the conflict outweigh the good in ending the fighting sooner and sparing the lives of many combatants.

That's a complicated question. One big challenge is that it was adopted in the middle of a civil war. As for harm that may have ended up happening, the US example it would have been operating with was the level of violence in the southern colonies during the AWI, which was effectively a civil war with no rules - amplified by the British, including their treatment of POW's. At least the Code was tying to put some rules/limits in place.

 

[USS ALASKA]

The Cardinal Edge
Volume 1 Issue 1 Article 27
2021

The Lieber Code: A Historical Analysis of the Context and Drafting of General Orders No. 100
Alexander H. Mindrup
University of Louisville

This Literature Review is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Cardinal Edge by an authorized editor of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected].

ABSTRACT
During the American Civil War, the United States changed in dramatic fashion. The national crisis of the Civil War encompassed all aspects of the United States. In 1862, a forward-thinking German American intellectual named Francis Lieber lobbied the Lincoln administration to update the United States laws of war. On April 24, 1863, President Lincoln issued General Orders No. 100 or "Instructions for the Government of the Armies of the United States in the Field." General Orders No. 100, better known as the Lieber Code, modernized the United States laws of war. Not only that, but the Lieber Code traveled across the Atlantic Ocean and impacted European international and military law for decades after the Civil War. As a revolutionary document, the Lieber Code was an outworking of President Lincoln's goals for the Union in the Civil War. The Code answered vital questions regarding emancipation and how a massive, modern, biracial, and volunteer army would wage a Civil War against rebellious states. The Lieber Code was often an unsung hero in United States history outside of legal or military history, but upon closer inspection, the Lieber Code was a window into what Lincoln and his cabinet believed about the Civil War. The Lieber Code embodied the answers to the moral, political, constitutional, legal, and international problems that the Union faced. Since the Code played such a key role in the Civil War, this paper investigates the historical and legal context of the Code as well as the drafting and impact of the Code during and after the Civil War.

https://ir.library.louisville.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1040&context=tce

Cheers,
USS ALASKA