In the Midst of the Civil War

Autograph manuscript signed, on war at sea versus over land.

[Boston]: September 30, 1864.

Price: $3,000.00


About the item

2pp on two large 8vo sheets. In the Midst of the Civil War. Mounted to larger sheets at an early date. With a mounted albumen carte-de-visite photograph.

Item #255269

In part: "War upon the sea is more humane, and accompanied with less danger to all that is most dear and sacred to humanity then war upon land. The ship of war traverses the common, uninhabited highway of the world. It does not, like an army, pass over cultivated fields, billet itself in towns, destroy crops, cut down trees, consume the necessaries of life taken on the spot by forced sales, or without purchase, causes alarm if not outrage to non-combattants, and leave women and children poorer [if] not wretched for its passage. War at sea deals only with men, and with men who go to the seas as combattants. The ship carries its own subsistence, even its water. It violates no homesteads, no altars, no monuments & touches nothing that is sacred or necessary to life ..."

Dana would offer similar thoughts within his edition of Wheaton's International Law, and the manuscript is dated the year following his defense before the U.S. Supreme Court on the federal seizure of vessels of enemy combattants and the legal legitimacy of the blockade.