By OLIVER W. LONGAN,
Adjutant General’s Office, War Department.
Lest the term “military prisoner” should mislead some reader whose
recollection of the events of the late civil war, or of the stories
concerning the treatment of prisoners brings to mind the captured
soldier and his hardships and sufferings, it should be stated that a
“prisoner of war” and a “military prisoner” sustain entirely different
relations to the authority they serve. The former is a prisoner because
of capture and detention by an enemy. The latter is a prisoner undergoing
discipline or punishment because of some misdemeanor or crime committed
against military law or regulations. In the greatest number of cases the
offense is simply an _absence without leave_, now called _desertion_,
which is the act of one who wilfully absents himself from his proper
command with the intention not to return to it again. A military prisoner
may be called a convict, and he may be a criminal, but either name is
inappropriate in its ordinary sense. It is true the prisoner has been
convicted of an offense against a law, but if a single example may be
used to illustrate the majority, his offense has not been prompted
by a vicious disposition or an evil nature. His guilt is not such as
necessarily indicates degraded impulses or base endowments, hence it
is manifest that a well defined line of separation may easily be drawn
between the military prisoner and the one who may properly be called a
criminal or a convict. The reason is also manifest why the institution
where he is to be detained for punishment should be one especially set
apart for his class.
It has been stated that the majority of military prisoners have been
guilty of the one crime of desertion. The fact is the number will
reach eighty-five or ninety out of every hundred. It is proper in
this connection to refer to some of the causes or supposed causes for
the commission of so serious a crime which, if it could be entirely
prevented, would reduce the number of “military prisoners” to an
exceedingly small percentage of those who now suffer penalty for a crime
committed without criminal intent.
The number of men who applied during the last year for enlistment in the
military service of United States was nearly thirty thousand. Of the
number applying only about one-third were found qualified. The other
two-thirds were rejected on account of disqualifications either legal,
moral, social, mental, or physical. About one-twelfth of those rejected
were boys under the age of twenty-one years. About the same proportion
were foreigners who had not sufficient knowledge of the English language
to enable them to learn their duties. Now, if the standard for acceptance
be ever so high it can not reach absolute perfection, for there are
disabilities or disqualifications which it is impossible to discover,
particularly under the effort which is apt to be made by the applicant
to conceal his defects, until time and conduct develop them. Manifest
defects there are in all who are rejected, yet some, in the natural order
of things must come very near the standard, some again, who reach the
standard and are accepted, have so little margin upon which they succeed
that they are separated a very little from those who are rejected.
The motives are various which induce men in time of peace to relinquish
the privileges enjoyed as civilians, to give up their freedom of movement
and their right of choice in all things which aid in making up the sum of
their liberties, and to voluntarily enter into an agreement obligating
themselves for a term of years to render any service that may be ordered
by proper authority and accept such remuneration and privileges as may
be given them by the same authority, and they are perhaps impossible to
enumerate, but it is known that many seek the service for a livelihood,
others out of a desire for adventure, others to escape some threatened
penalty or impending difficulty likely to result from the commission
of some crime or misdemeanor. Very few enter the first time with any
intention of making a profession so poorly paid their own, and none, it
may be, have a good idea of what they are to encounter. They are met at
the outset with lessons which teach them subordination to a commander
rather than to a duty. They find that food and clothing are measured to
them by a rule which makes no discrimination between them, and the one
with great expectations is under no better care than the one of smallest
desires. They receive treatment at the hands of petty officers which they
choose to believe is cause for resentment. They incur sharp rebuke for
some error or delinquency and seeking redress in their own way, as for an
injury, they learn that “what in the captain is but a choleric word, in
the soldier is flat blasphemy.”
Recollections of home, and repentance for the hasty act which separated
them from it, and many other reasons, both real and imaginary, make them
feel that they must escape from contact with the source of so many woes,
and without designing to commit any crime they become “deserters.” It
must be admitted that the responsibility rests upon the individual as
the cause is primarily in him, and his surrounding circumstances are
only secondary, but there is no act called “crime” around which so many
mitigating circumstances may be found. We must view the matter as a
disease, the conditions for which are favorable in a service into which
men are hurried without any instruction in its duties. The _skeleton_
army, of which so much is required, demands the rapid replenishing of
new flesh to take the place of the old that has yielded to the disease
itself. The important question to follow is, what is the remedy and how
is it applied? A preventive has been sought with care and diligence, but
none has been found. A remedy then is the only recourse, and this must
be applied in the shape of discipline or punishment for the offender. If
he is of an inquiring turn of mind he may learn first of all that there
is an exact measure of value attached to him as a deserter, and that for
his capture and delivery to the military authorities the sum of thirty
dollars will be paid in full liquidation of the service.
A few words concerning the instrumentalities through which the “military
prisoner” receives his punishment will not be out of place. There are
three—more correctly four—kinds of tribunals before which a soldier
may be brought to answer for his misdeeds, and to receive judgment and
sentence. The first to be mentioned is the “field officer’s court,” which
can be appointed only in time of war. This court is one officer, either
a colonel, lieutenant-colonel, or major of a regiment, who is detailed
by order of a superior officer of the same regiment, or the commander of
a brigade, division or corps. The officer so detailed is counsel, jury
and judge, and may try the case of any soldier of his own regiment for
an offense not capital, and impose sentence. The next in order are the
“regimental” and the “garrison” court-martial, differing so little except
in the source of appointment, that they need no separate description.
They are composed of three officers, and may try and sentence any cases
not capital. The authority of these courts with respect to the sentences
they may impose is so limited that ordinarily only petty offenses are
brought before them, but because of the form of punishment usually
imposed the results are anything but beneficial, and it is a question
whether it would not be better to wink at the offense than to sensibly
degrade the offender and aid him in developing a disposition to repeat
breaches of discipline until stronger hands are laid upon him. The last
to be mentioned is the “general court-martial,” the appointment of which
may be made by the general commanding the army, by the general commanding
a military department, or in certain cases by the President of the United
States.
The system of the military courts which have been mentioned is no doubt
as carefully arranged as can be and contemplates as full recognition of
the individual rights of the soldier as can be obtained before a civil
court under civil law for a civilian. The selection of the officers to
compose the courts is a matter of discretion in the authority appointing
them, governed only by the exigencies of the service, but after their
appointment they are under no restrictions with reference to the extent
of the sentences which they shall impose in the cases of soldiers
whom they find guilty of desertion, except that in time of peace the
death penalty can not be inflicted, and in nearly all other cases the
law declares that the punishment shall be such “as a court-martial
may direct.” The result of this has been and still is a variation
in the degrees of punishment for the same offense which defies any
calculation outside the theory of chances. None can foresee or measure
the considerations or influences which shall give to any case, the
circumstances of which can not be just like those of an other case, its
quality or quantity of punishment. Probably the disposition to administer
severe discipline with the expectation that a pruning by the reviewing
authority and a mitigation by the executive authority will most likely
follow, is the most common cause of inequality in punishments. The remedy
for the evil in the law which fixes no limit must be sought in other
legislation, but the possibility of a remedy in a special prison system,
and a separate prison for military prisoners drew attention to the duty
of providing an institution where inequalities might be removed.
June 30, 1871, a board of officers was appointed of the Secretary of
War to investigate the subject of army prisons. The report of this
board was transmitted to Congress by the honorable Secretary of War
January 16, 1872, with a draft of a bill for consideration. The closing
sentence of the letter of transmittal reads as follows: “It is of the
utmost importance to the efficiency of our army that a thorough and
practical system of punishment and military discipline be established,
and experience has proven that the one now in use is wholly inadequate
to meet the end desired.” After due consideration the Committee on
Military Affairs of the House of Representatives made a favorable report
to the House May 7, 1872, in which, after mentioning certain facts
concerning 384 military prisoners then distributed in the penitentiaries
of eleven states, and the guard-houses of thirty-two military posts,
these words occur: “Many of these prisoners have been guilty of crimes
against military law, and not involving any moral turpitude. They are
cast into prison with the basest characters and punished with ‘those
stained by every crime known to the law.’ Your committee feel convinced
that this can not be done without injury to the prisoner whose offense
may have been affected with but slight moral obliquity. To prevent this
unnecessary contamination we think a separate prison should be provided.”
This was followed within a year by the passage of an act which was
approved by the President and became a law March 3, 1873, “to provide for
the establishment of a military prison, and for its government.”
The law required that the prison should be established on Rock Island,
Illinois, an island in the Mississippi of about 1,000 acres, and about
180 miles west of Chicago. It is now entirely devoted to the purposes
of an extensive government arsenal. It also required the appointment of
a board of commissioners, to consist of three officers of the army and
two persons from civil life,[B] who were to adopt a plan for a prison
building and to frame regulations for the prison. Its provisions required
frequent inspections—twice each year by the Secretary of War and the
board of commissioners, and four times a year by one of the inspectors
of the army (monthly inspections are also made by the principal medical
officer in the Department of the Missouri), all of which were intended
to be, and are, so many safeguards against any neglect or failure in the
proper and humane treatment of the prisoners. The law also provided for
mitigations of sentence for good conduct and industry, for the care
of the health and physical wants of prisoners. It gave the privilege
of using newspapers and books, and of writing letters to friends, and
directed that they be furnished decent clothing on discharge from the
prison. The location was afterward changed from Rock Island, Illinois,
to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. This change was authorized by an act of
Congress approved May 21, 1874, which placed the prison where it is now
situated, on the west bank of the Missouri river, about thirty miles
north of Kansas City, Mo., and three miles from the city of Leavenworth,
Kansas.
To trace the history of the prison through the first decade of its
existence would be more tedious than interesting. Its progress has
been similar to that of all other new institutions of this country
which are destined to become permanent. The obstacles in the way of its
establishment have not been trifling, and amongst those whose duties
brought them to take part in its affairs, not all have been favorable
to the system undertaken, particularly with reference to the idea of
utilizing the labor of the prisoners for the benefit of the army.
Prudence and zeal on the part of the commissioners of the prison and the
commandant have overcome all difficulties, and if there are to-day any
remaining objections of the kind indicated, they are not proclaimed.
The officers of the prison are a commandant, an executive, an adjutant,
a commissary, a chaplain, and a surgeon. The guard comprises two
officers and one hundred men. Within an enclosure of about five acres,
surrounded by a stone wall averaging in height about 18 feet, surmounted
at intervals of from two hundred to three hundred feet with brick watch
towers, are located the offices, the hospital, the chapel, the library,
the dormitories, the workshops and the store-houses of the prison. The
buildings, except the hospital, are of stone or brick, and upon all
of the new buildings, as well as the wall, the work has been done by
prisoners.
The great features of the institution are quiet and decorum under a kind
but absolutely firm administration. Its chief object is the reformation
of its inmates, to which end the efforts of the authorities are
constantly directed.
The labor of the prisoners is devoted to the manufacture of wagons,
harness, shoes, boots, clothing, chairs, brooms and brushes, solely for
army supplies and prison uses; to the manufacture of doors and windows
and their frames, and to the cultivation of a large farm to obtain
produce for the prison; also to the incidental work connected with the
prison in its buildings and repairs and sanitary condition. During the
eight working hours of each day except Sundays and holidays the hum of
machinery and the arrival of material and departure of manufactured
articles give the place the appearance of a large manufactory, and a tour
through the busy workshops may be made with scarcely a sight of anything
in dress or appearance to tell of the character of the place as a penal
institution. The greater number of prisoners being under sentence for
terms of two years (the sentences are equalized as far as possible by
executive orders, after the arrival of the men at the prison), the system
under which they are brought gives them knowledge in some mechanical
pursuit, trains them in habits of cleanliness, regularity, and sobriety,
and subjects them to wholesome discipline which, in that length of time,
must work a “correction of life and manners” as far as any human rule
can govern the matter. A Christian minister fills the office of chaplain
and devotes his entire time to the secular and religious instruction
of the prisoners. A library of 1,300 volumes is open to the use of the
prisoners, from which they obtain books for reading in leisure hours. As
an indication of their tastes the kind of books read may be divided by
the hundred into—light literature 56, magazines 25, biography 6, history
4, miscellany 4, travels and science each 3, religious 2.
Since the establishment of the prison more than thirty-two hundred men
have been received, and the average number constantly present is five
hundred. An abatement of five days for each month of good conduct is
allowed, and only thirty-seven have failed to obtain their liberty
prior to the expiration of their full terms. Only twenty-two deaths
have occurred, showing that even under the disadvantages always present
in prisons, and with the class of men found there, it is possible to
reduce the ill effects of prison life upon the physical system to almost
nothing. Punishment for bad conduct in the prison is in harmony with the
purposes of the prison, and in most cases the abatement above mentioned
forms a credit account against which the prisoners are careful not to
permit debits to be entered. On discharge from prison each prisoner
receives a suit of clothing and five dollars, and, if his conduct has
been good, a certificate which may enable him again to enter the service
as a soldier, if he so desires.
It is not an idle boast to say that the military prison system embodies
more than the good features of other systems, and in holding reformation
above punishment, providing food, clothing, treatment and surroundings
with as little of the stamp of _prison_ upon them as possible, placing
the control in the hands of officers thoroughly acquainted with the
service from which the prisoners come and the influences which bring
them under discipline, shutting out all the evils of the _contract
system_ under which prisoners are hired out as beasts of burden to toil
for money which they do not receive, and finally offering them the
confidence placed only in men intrusted with honorable public service,
the military authorities have found the method which shall inflict a
penalty sufficient for the offense and yet develop that sense in the
prisoner which will, as another self, acknowledge for him that at the end
of his term he has not paid that penalty in full and is not at liberty
to incur another. He will also feel that he has received something from
society and good government which demands from him as a willing subject
and copartner with all other good citizens of the commonwealth a more
careful restraint, which must be self-imposed until a correct observance
of all special obligations and a true attitude in all social relations
shall become a matter of natural desire.
[B] The places of the civilian commissioners were discontinued by act of
June 22, 1874.