Note 4 — A LATE CASE OF COURT-MARTIAL.[1]

The only article of war, beside this, which could be supposed, for a moment, to embrace the case, is the 108th, which says, that—“All crimes not capital, and all disorders and neglects which officers and soldiers may be guilty of, to the prejudice of good order and military discipline, though not specified in the foregoing cases, or in our Articles of War, shall be taken cognisance of by courts-martial, according to the nature and the degree of the offence.” But it is evident that this article applies to matters of a military nature. If the merely moral delinquency of which Captain Douglas is charged might be described as affecting “good order and military discipline,” there is no act of a man’s life that might not be designated in the same manner.