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Lincoln's Code: The Laws of War in American History
In the fateful closing days of 1862, three weeks before Emancipation, the administration of Abraham Lincoln commissioned a code setting forth the laws of war for the armies of the United States. The code announced standards of civilized conduct in wartime concerning issues such as torture, prisoners of war, civilians, spies, and slaves. The code Lincoln approved ultimately shaped the course of the Civil War. And when the war was over, the same code reshaped warfare the world over. By the twentieth century, the 157 articles of Lincoln’s code had become the basis of a new international law of war. European powers adopted the American code. International agreements like the Geneva Conventions incorporated and expanded it.
In this pathbreaking and deeply original book, John Fabian Witt tells the hidden story of the laws of war in the first century of the United States–and of the extraordinary code that emerged from it to change the course of world history. Lincoln’s Code is the haunting and inspiring story of an idea in American the idea that conduct in war can be regulated by law. For many, the very idea of a law for war has seemed like an oxymoron. But with sweep and vitality, Witt unfolds the story of the cast of characters who invented the modern laws of war. Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin championed Enlightenment rules for civilized warfare.
James Madison went to war in 1812 to vindicate them. Indian conflicts challenged and distorted them. The Mexican War quietly revolutionized them. In the Civil War, Lincoln and a small band of now forgotten figures helped remake those same laws to support Emancipation and advance the Union war effort. Three decades later, a new generation of Americans went into a war of American empire in the Philippines equipped with the very rules Lincoln had laid down.
In beautifully crafted prose, Witt brings to life the soldiers and the presidents, the war makers and the pacifists, the Indians and the slaves, the cynics, the utopians, and the pragmatists who struggled with enemies and with one another to shape the United States’ vision of the laws of war. A narrative of expansive range and significance, Lincoln’s Code depicts the drama of armed conflict and the anguish of human beings grappling with such vexing questions as whether prisoners could be executed; whether there were rules in Indian wars; whether military commissions could try unlawful combatants; whether torture might ever be justified; and whether slaves could be freed in wartime. The code Lincoln issued prohibited cruelty and the infliction of pain for its own sake but left room for vast destruction in the name of a just cause. It condoned the devastation inflicted in Sherman’s march to the sea. Yet it also provided a moral foundation for Emancipation and insisted that doing the right thing in situations of grave crisis was indispensable to the legitimacy of modern armies.
Witt’s engrossing exploration of the dilemmas at the heart of the laws of war is a prehistory of our own era. Today the world once again confronts raging legal and moral controversy over the conduct of war. Lincoln’s Code reveals that the controversies of the twenty-first century have roots going back to the beginnings of American history. In a time of heated controversy about the nation’s conduct in wartime, Lincoln’s Code is a compelling story of ideals under pressure and a landmark contribution to our understanding of the American experience.
512 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 4, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
March 23, 2021
Entry #6 in #LarryReadsTheBancroftWinners. Witt won the award in 2013. Perhaps not everyone's cup of tea, but "Lincoln's Code" struck this reviewer's fancy. A fine discussion of, well, "the laws of war in American history" (up to WWI, anyway). Witt shows how American governments took long-standing rules about civilized warfare and modified them to fit circumstances, and in doing so refined the definition of concepts like a "just war," a "humanitarian war," and neutrality in ways that the world has largely accepted as universal. The chapter on the Civil War was the best, but I also enjoyed Witt's discussion of legal standards of war when applied to both the War of 1812 and nineteenth-century conflicts with Native Americans. I have no problems with Witt's winning the Bancroft -- outstanding example of clear, well researched, and confidently argued history.
January 14, 2019
The premise of this most substantial work is that of the evolution of the rules or laws of war from an American historical perspective. Laws (such as privateering) that a nation advocates directly reflects the realities of an emerging nation's geography, ambitions and military capabilities. The author sets the stage for how the Federal government responded to international laws at the outbreak of the Civil War and how those codes were both respected and manipulated to national advantage. In the course of fighting a total war, the American experience then formed the template for an updated international standard that would govern warfare up until the present day. This was particularly fascinating to me as a Southern historian to understand the thinking behind such acts as Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas, the opposition to and the use of infernal machines (mines, torpedoes) and how emancipation became a revolutionary tool to prevail militarily.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 9, 2022
Brilliant, thorough, and interesting albeit a dense book about the history of the law of war in American history as used by the military and political branches to make war, pass law, and conduct foreign relations.
July 6, 2018
Solid introduction to American law of war, with a special focus on the Civil War's effects on it.
June 28, 2019
This is an excellent book for anyone interested in the American Civil War or US military history generally. Witt's writing is fluid throughout, making even complex sections feel easy to follow. It might sound like a dry topic to spend hours with Francis Lieber, dissecting his "code" that helped to redefine civilized warfare in the mid 19th century. But Witt's writing brings Lieber, as well Abraham Lincoln and a cast of related characters, to life in uncharacteristic detail for a scholarly history book.
The book offers insights into several key moments in US history, not just the Civil War. It goes back to the pre-Revolutionary era, while carrying the legacy of the discussion well into the early 20th century. From vivid depictions of war-torn Atlanta to conversations on how to treat prisoners, the book shows a thorough coverage of American military history with a special focus on themes like justice, fairness, and how a "Christian" and civilized nation ought to fight.
I would definitely use this book for comprehensive exams or graduate courses on US Military History. I am not certain the full book would work for an undergraduate audience, but an excerpt would be appropriate. Perhaps an excerpt from the section on Civil War trials would be appropriate for an upper division course on the Civil War.
This was a good read and a book that I will definitely revisit.
The book offers insights into several key moments in US history, not just the Civil War. It goes back to the pre-Revolutionary era, while carrying the legacy of the discussion well into the early 20th century. From vivid depictions of war-torn Atlanta to conversations on how to treat prisoners, the book shows a thorough coverage of American military history with a special focus on themes like justice, fairness, and how a "Christian" and civilized nation ought to fight.
I would definitely use this book for comprehensive exams or graduate courses on US Military History. I am not certain the full book would work for an undergraduate audience, but an excerpt would be appropriate. Perhaps an excerpt from the section on Civil War trials would be appropriate for an upper division course on the Civil War.
This was a good read and a book that I will definitely revisit.
April 8, 2021
This is a GREAT book but I have not read some twenty pages of it, but I can't figure out which twenty, so I'm going to mark is as read. Loved its discussion of just war, laws of war, US history, etc.
May 25, 2022
A fabulous book that thoroughly covers the historical development of the American laws of war between the American revolution and the beginning of the 20th century. The analysis is incredibly insightful and the author intersperses the book with memorable historical anecdotes that bring events and historical figures to life. Historical writing at its best.
July 15, 2017
John Fabian Witt has written an outstanding history of the laws of war culminating in the 1863 Lieber Code in the civil war. Lincoln's Code is scholarship at its finest.
September 18, 2017
I enjoyed this book. It was a great overview of the development of the law of war in the United States, from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War.
February 24, 2018
I managed to drag myself through about 15-20 pages and just couldn't get the slightest bit interested.
November 26, 2019
Such a fantastic book on such an important topic. Rules of engagement, history, the morality of war all superbly packed.
August 1, 2021
Some great history
January 20, 2024
This book is a masterful and thoughtful look at the laws of war as balancing ideals of justice (read: vengeance as well) and humanitarianism, told through American history.
February 5, 2017
This an unparalleled book of intellectual, legal, and military history, one that shows how ideas can exert real power in shaping events, and how events can in turn shape ideas.
Throughout much of history, the "laws of war" was regarded as an oxymoron. Cicero said that "in times of war, laws are mute," while Cervantes agreed that "all was fair" in war (or love). New Enlightenment ideals, however, tried to cabin the horrors of war and make it more civilized. The philosopher and poet Emmerich Vattel argued that since war was between two nations not two peoples, women, children, the old, and prisoners of war should be untouched. The "justice" of each side should be ignored while the war was ongoing, so mercy and restraint could be exercised. The United States, more than any other country, was founded on these new ideals about the legal practice of war. Our Declaration of Independence largely rested on the idea that the British King was waging a war "unworthy [of] the Head of a civilized nation," by attacking civilians, "plundering" ships, and quartering troops in private homes. The new nation went even farther than the legal ideals of Vattel, however, and formed treaties across Europe that promised that in any war between the two, both private persons AND property would not be attacked (and "free ships" of neutral parties would be untouched). Witt points out though, that our peculiar insistence on leaving "property" untouched came from our fear of opponents liberating American slaves, such as Lord Dunmore had attempted in the Revolution.
The attempt to make warface civilized, however, was upset when opponents acted in an "uncivilized" manner. Legal theorists had long claimed that the laws of war had no force against "savages," so American reprisals against Indians were untouched by these ideas. When Mexican guerillas attacked General Winfield Scott's forces in the Mexican-American War in 1848 in a manner similar to the Indians, however, he did not know what to do with them. They were technically civilized combatants, but they acted too like spies or "savages" who could be executed. Scott thus formed the first "military commissions" to try these guerillas, and brought a sort of private justice and punishment to even captured prisoners the laws of war once seemed to forbid.
The Civil War, however, was the real crucible of American ideals. The war itself eventually became a war to free slaves, which meant of course taking property away from the U.S.'s Southern opponents. Francis Lieber, a German lawyer and law professor at Columbia, wrote the first comprehensive law of war code for the U.S. Army in 1863, and it was aimed largely at eradicating slavery. It sanctioned harsh measures and pleaded the rights of "military necessity" to attack civilians and civilian property when deemed essential for the war effort. As Lieber said in the code, "Sharp wars are quick wars." In this war then, when the U.S. felt itself on a moral crusade, it brought harsher forms of war back, even as it created the first legal code to control them. As Witt shows, General Sherman's March to the Sea was not a denial of the new laws of war, it was the culmination of this new code of necessity. In order to free the slaves, such contraventions of previous ideals seemed necessary, and perhaps were. Even at the time people knew there was no easy answer here.
The book continues to deal with debates on the next Indian Wars, and the "water cure" tortures of rebels in the Philippines war (in a shocking parallel to the modern day, there was a debate at the time about whether harsh interrogation practices helped get information that led to the capture of the rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo). Lieber's Code was applied in these new wars, and was soon adopted in the Hague Conventions after 1899 and the future Geneva Conventions after World War II. This CIvil War code forms the basis of most of our modern laws of war. The book shows that legal theorists such as Lieber did shape how war was practiced throughout American history, even if personal and national interests always shaped their own views. It also shows that there is no simple answer to what is "legal" in a war, and that the debate about such practices must continue as long as war itself does.
Throughout much of history, the "laws of war" was regarded as an oxymoron. Cicero said that "in times of war, laws are mute," while Cervantes agreed that "all was fair" in war (or love). New Enlightenment ideals, however, tried to cabin the horrors of war and make it more civilized. The philosopher and poet Emmerich Vattel argued that since war was between two nations not two peoples, women, children, the old, and prisoners of war should be untouched. The "justice" of each side should be ignored while the war was ongoing, so mercy and restraint could be exercised. The United States, more than any other country, was founded on these new ideals about the legal practice of war. Our Declaration of Independence largely rested on the idea that the British King was waging a war "unworthy [of] the Head of a civilized nation," by attacking civilians, "plundering" ships, and quartering troops in private homes. The new nation went even farther than the legal ideals of Vattel, however, and formed treaties across Europe that promised that in any war between the two, both private persons AND property would not be attacked (and "free ships" of neutral parties would be untouched). Witt points out though, that our peculiar insistence on leaving "property" untouched came from our fear of opponents liberating American slaves, such as Lord Dunmore had attempted in the Revolution.
The attempt to make warface civilized, however, was upset when opponents acted in an "uncivilized" manner. Legal theorists had long claimed that the laws of war had no force against "savages," so American reprisals against Indians were untouched by these ideas. When Mexican guerillas attacked General Winfield Scott's forces in the Mexican-American War in 1848 in a manner similar to the Indians, however, he did not know what to do with them. They were technically civilized combatants, but they acted too like spies or "savages" who could be executed. Scott thus formed the first "military commissions" to try these guerillas, and brought a sort of private justice and punishment to even captured prisoners the laws of war once seemed to forbid.
The Civil War, however, was the real crucible of American ideals. The war itself eventually became a war to free slaves, which meant of course taking property away from the U.S.'s Southern opponents. Francis Lieber, a German lawyer and law professor at Columbia, wrote the first comprehensive law of war code for the U.S. Army in 1863, and it was aimed largely at eradicating slavery. It sanctioned harsh measures and pleaded the rights of "military necessity" to attack civilians and civilian property when deemed essential for the war effort. As Lieber said in the code, "Sharp wars are quick wars." In this war then, when the U.S. felt itself on a moral crusade, it brought harsher forms of war back, even as it created the first legal code to control them. As Witt shows, General Sherman's March to the Sea was not a denial of the new laws of war, it was the culmination of this new code of necessity. In order to free the slaves, such contraventions of previous ideals seemed necessary, and perhaps were. Even at the time people knew there was no easy answer here.
The book continues to deal with debates on the next Indian Wars, and the "water cure" tortures of rebels in the Philippines war (in a shocking parallel to the modern day, there was a debate at the time about whether harsh interrogation practices helped get information that led to the capture of the rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo). Lieber's Code was applied in these new wars, and was soon adopted in the Hague Conventions after 1899 and the future Geneva Conventions after World War II. This CIvil War code forms the basis of most of our modern laws of war. The book shows that legal theorists such as Lieber did shape how war was practiced throughout American history, even if personal and national interests always shaped their own views. It also shows that there is no simple answer to what is "legal" in a war, and that the debate about such practices must continue as long as war itself does.
June 14, 2014
Many people would regard the phrase 'laws of war' as an oxymoron - the idea that anything as destructive and barbaric as war could operate within a legal framework with rules and limits would seem laughable, and pointless besides. Prior to the Enlightenment that would have the opinion across much of the world. War was hell, war was brutal, in war anything was justified in the name of a righteous cause - and who would go to war without believing their cause was righteous? And yet how could both sides be righteous and just, how could God support both causes? It was in the wake of this philosophical dilemma that the idea of laws separating justice from humanity came into being. If both sides believed the ends justified the means it would only lead to ever-escalating brutality - but if justice was set aside and humanity to take its place, both sides would benefit.
This was the point in history when the United States was born - and legal arguments about the rights and wrongs of actions in war went hand-in-hand with the course of the Revolution. Indeed, the fascinating thing about American history is that, by virtue of its youth as a nation, it has run the full gamut of positions in terms of the laws of war: from using them as a defence against a stronger nation in the Revolution, to adapting them to serve its own purposes when facing a similar rebellion in the Civil War, to arguably defying them in the war in the Philippines, to, to a certain extent, being hamstrung by them now in its position as the only superpower left.
The heart of this book is about Lincoln's code, hence the title - the General Orders No 100 issued during the course of the Civil War that updated and codified the laws of war as the American government saw them at the time. These laws were a sterner, fiercer updating of the laws of the Enlightenment - whilst putting poison, assassination and torture beyond the pale, it did allow military commanders a vast amount of discretion in the name of 'military necessity'. It also codified a number of hitherto tenuous or contentious issues - paroles and prisoners of war, the treatment of non-combatants and neutrals, the punishment due to outlaws and guerillas versus recognised soldiers. It was these General Orders that hugely influenced the nations of Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries - adopted and adapted by most of the major nations of Europe, they formed the subsequent basis of the 1864 Geneva Convention and the 1899 Hague Convention and hence form the basis of the international laws of war as we know them today. When troops in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are condemned and prosecuted under international law, it is Lincoln's code at the heart of it.
As the length of this review attests, this is a dense and complicated book, and the amount of research that must have gone into it is daunting. And yet despite being on a topic as thorny as international law, this book is never dry, dusty or obtuse. It is not a 'law book' designed for a dusty afterlife on the shelves next to case reports and statute books, read only by judges and law students. I wouldn't be surprised to see this as a set text in some university reading list - it well deserves to be a pioneer in the field of American legal history.
This was the point in history when the United States was born - and legal arguments about the rights and wrongs of actions in war went hand-in-hand with the course of the Revolution. Indeed, the fascinating thing about American history is that, by virtue of its youth as a nation, it has run the full gamut of positions in terms of the laws of war: from using them as a defence against a stronger nation in the Revolution, to adapting them to serve its own purposes when facing a similar rebellion in the Civil War, to arguably defying them in the war in the Philippines, to, to a certain extent, being hamstrung by them now in its position as the only superpower left.
The heart of this book is about Lincoln's code, hence the title - the General Orders No 100 issued during the course of the Civil War that updated and codified the laws of war as the American government saw them at the time. These laws were a sterner, fiercer updating of the laws of the Enlightenment - whilst putting poison, assassination and torture beyond the pale, it did allow military commanders a vast amount of discretion in the name of 'military necessity'. It also codified a number of hitherto tenuous or contentious issues - paroles and prisoners of war, the treatment of non-combatants and neutrals, the punishment due to outlaws and guerillas versus recognised soldiers. It was these General Orders that hugely influenced the nations of Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries - adopted and adapted by most of the major nations of Europe, they formed the subsequent basis of the 1864 Geneva Convention and the 1899 Hague Convention and hence form the basis of the international laws of war as we know them today. When troops in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are condemned and prosecuted under international law, it is Lincoln's code at the heart of it.
As the length of this review attests, this is a dense and complicated book, and the amount of research that must have gone into it is daunting. And yet despite being on a topic as thorny as international law, this book is never dry, dusty or obtuse. It is not a 'law book' designed for a dusty afterlife on the shelves next to case reports and statute books, read only by judges and law students. I wouldn't be surprised to see this as a set text in some university reading list - it well deserves to be a pioneer in the field of American legal history.
October 22, 2014
The history of military commissions and the evolution of the laws of war in the US and how that evolution influenced the world of international laws of war.
The main focus is on the Civil War. There is discussion of how things evolved from there but it's brief. Some discussion on the 1898 war with Spain and conflict in the Philippines. Very little discussion relating to anything from WWI thru the first Gulf war but a chapter or two at the end discussing torture, which was mentioned only in passing in the Civil War context but discussed in the Philippine conflict and then briefly mentioned as something that should still be unacceptable in the current war on terror.
Good legal history relating to the laws of war from the Civil War perspective and the author does avoid to much editorializing in that context.
The main focus is on the Civil War. There is discussion of how things evolved from there but it's brief. Some discussion on the 1898 war with Spain and conflict in the Philippines. Very little discussion relating to anything from WWI thru the first Gulf war but a chapter or two at the end discussing torture, which was mentioned only in passing in the Civil War context but discussed in the Philippine conflict and then briefly mentioned as something that should still be unacceptable in the current war on terror.
Good legal history relating to the laws of war from the Civil War perspective and the author does avoid to much editorializing in that context.
August 31, 2013
Facinating examination of the evolution of American legal thought on warfare. Witt provides ample context for the actions of the Lincoln Administration with his examination of war in the first eight decades of the American Republic. He does an excellent job of exploring the idea that 'total war' is more humane due to a quicker and more lasting outcome than that fought under a set of arbitrary rules. This book touches on two of my favorite areas, the evolution of justifying conflict and the demystification of American History.
January 2, 2013
Excellent study of development of principles concerning ethical conduct of war (even if that may be a bit of an oxymoron). Lieber's work under Lincoln's direction has had lasting impact on the world. Witt does a great job of showing the factors that have played into this process, and some of the motivations behind them.
April 2, 2013
This was quite an interesting book--it taught me a lot about an aspect of the Civil War times (and President Lincoln) that I never knew before. Though it was a "slow read", I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in history, particularly those interested in Lincoln and the Civil War time period.
March 23, 2013
Very interesting. How do you deal with escaped slaves, guerrillas, what can you destroy, can you shell a town? The Rules of War tries to answer these questions. Lincoln's issuance of rules of war had world wide impact. Interesting book.
June 18, 2013
There's an interesting number of facts I wasn't aware of before reading this, but the prose is unfortunately droning, causing the book to feel like a rambling school lecture going on way too long, piling on details without any spark or humanity.
December 1, 2016
Fascinating overview of history and ideas behind laws of war. Focused on US but expansive in time going from before the Revolution and past the Civil War. Only a little comment on present day issues.
Central theme is how the country's interest at the time drove policy more than principle.
Central theme is how the country's interest at the time drove policy more than principle.
November 29, 2013
Best study of the laws of war in Lincoln's policy yet.
February 11, 2013
A fascinating look at the origins of the laws of armed conflict. This is a very relevant subject today. Just think armed drones.
March 11, 2013
An absolute must-read! Very well written and highly informative. I definitely recommend this text!
March 11, 2013
Was okay, very dry.
April 5, 2013
Interesting but tough, maybe my brain was tired. (too much like homework)
March 21, 2014
Interesting premise, but good lord did it drag on.
March 28, 2017
Very interesting summary of American views on the nature of war.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews