Then followed military interference in elections, and the repeated
use of the military in aid of the revenue law under circumstances of
doubtful legality, until at last General Halleck and General Sherman
protested: the former in his report of October 24, 1870, saying, “I
respectfully repeat the recommendation of my last Annual Report, that
military officers should not interfere in local civil difficulties,
unless called out in the manner provided by law;”[142] and the latter,
in his Report of November 10, 1870, “I think the soldiers ought
not to be expected to make individual arrests, or to do any act of
violence, except in their organized capacity as a _posse comitatus_
duly summoned by the United States marshal, and acting in his personal
presence.”[143] And so this military pretension, invading civil
affairs, was arrested.