Court Opinion

ID: 9421902
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:00:26.4768+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:38.793824
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Whittaker,
with whom Mr. Justice Stewart joins,
concurring in part and dissenting in part. 
In No. 22, one Joanna Dial (whose cause is prosecuted here by respondent Singleton), an American civilian wife accompanying her husband, an American soldier serving in Germany, was there'tried and convicted in 1957 by a general court-martial for manslaughter in violation of Article 119 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice,1 10 U. S. C. § 919, and was sentenced to imprisonment for a term of three years. In No. 21, respondent Guagliardo, an American civilian employed as an electrical lineman by the United States Air Force at Nouasseur Air Depot in Morocco, was there tried and convicted in 1957 by a general court-martial for conspiring to commit larceny from the stores of the Air Force in violation of Article 81 of the Code, 10 U. S. C. § 881, and was sentenced to imprisonment for a term of three years. In No. 37, petitioner Wilson, an American civilian employed as an auditor by the United States Army in Berlin, Germany, was there tried and convicted in 1956 by a general court-*260martial for three acts of sodomy committed upon military personnel in violation of Article 134 of the Code, 50 U. S. C. § 728, and was sentenced to imprisonment for a term of five years. In No. 58, petitioner Grisham, an American civilian employed as a cost accountant by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in Orleans, France, was there tried by a general court-martial for the capital offense of premeditated murder and convicted of the lesser included offense of unpremeditated murder in violation of Article 118 of the Code, 50 U. S. C. § 712,. and was sentenced, as reduced by clemency action of the Secretary of the Army, in 1957, to imprisonment for a term of 35 years.
Each of the accused persons objected to trial by court-martial upon the ground that it had no jurisdiction to try him. After their convictions, sentences, and return to the United States, each sought release by habeas corpus in a Federal District Court. Two were successful— Singleton (164 F. Supp. 707, D. C. S. D. W. Va.) and Guagliardo (104 U. S. App. D. C. 112, 259 F. 2d 927)— but the other two were not — Wilson (167 F. Supp. 791, D. C. Colo.) and Grisham (261 F. 2d 204, C. A. 3d Cir.)— and the four cases were brought here for review.
These cases fall into three categories. No. 22, the Singleton case, involves a civilian dependent tried for a noncapital offense; Nos. 21 and 37; the Guagliardo and Wilson cases, involve civilian employees of the military tried for noncapital offenses, and No. 58, the Grisham case, involves a civilian employee of the military tried for a capital offense. Each claims that, being a civilian, he was not constitutionally subject to trial by court-martial but, instead, could constitutionally be tried by the United States only in an Article III court, upon an indictment of a grand jury under the Fifth Amendment, and by an impartial petit jury under the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution.
*261The cases present grave questions and, for .me at least, ones of great difficulty. Our recent decision in Reid v. Covert, 354 U. S. 1, makes clear that the United States Constitution extends beyond our territorial boundaries and reaches to and applies within all foreign areas where jurisdiction is or may be exercised by the United States over its citizens — that when the United States proceeds against its citizens abroad “[i]t can only act in accordance with all the limitations imposed by the Constitution,” 354 U. S., at 6.
The broad question presented, then, is whether our Constitution authorizes trials and punishments by courts-martial in foreign lands in time of peace of civilian dependents “accompanying” members of the armed forces and of civilians “employed by” the armed forces, for conduct made an offense by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, whether capital or noncapital in character.
The source of the power, if it exists, is Aft. I, § 8, cl. 14, of the Constitution.2 It provides:
“The Congress shall have power ...
“To make Rules for thé Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.”
Pursuant to that grant of power, Congress by the Act off August 10, 1956, c. 1041, 70A Stat. 36 et seg.—revising the pre-existing Articles of War—enacted the Uniform *262Code of Military Justice. Article 2 (11) of that Code provides, in pertinent part:
“The following persons are subject to this chapter:
“(11) Subject to any treaty or agreement to which the United States-is or may be a party or to any accepted rule of international law, persons serving with, employed by, or-accompanying the armed forces outside the United States . . . .”
It is not disputed that existing treaties with each of the foreign sovereignties, within whose territory the alleged offenses occurred, permitted the armed forces of the United States to punish offenses against the laws of the United States committed by persons embraced by Article 2 (11) of the Code. Arguments challenging the reasonableness of Article 2 (11) are presently put aside, for if Clause 14 does not grant to Congress the power to provide for the court-martial trial and punishment of the persons embraced in Article 2(11) of the Code it may not do so, however reasonable. Reid v. Covert, supra, 354 U. S., at 74 (concurring opinion).
Did Clause 14 empower Congress to enact Article 2(11) of the Code? Certain aspects of that broad question have recently been determined, in Reid v. Covert, supra, and, though not a Court opinion, I consider th^t decision to be binding upon me.3 In that case four members of the Court held that Article 2 (11) of the Code cannot constitutionally be applied to civilian dependents “accompanying” members of the armed forces outside the United States in time of peace, because, in their view, to do so would violate Art. Ill, § 2, and the Fifth and Sixth *263Amendments of the Constitution; and two members of the Court, in separate concurring opinions, agreed with that result, but only with respect to capital offenses.
Like my Brother Clark who writes for the Court today, 1 am unable to find any basis in the Constitution to support the view that Congress may not constitutionally provide for the court-martial trial and punishment of civilian dependents for capital offenses but may do so for non- . capital ones. Certainly there is nothing in Clause 14 that creates any such distinction or limitation. Legalistically and logically, it would seem that the question is one of status of the accused person, and that courts-martial either do or do not have jurisdiction and, hence, power to try the accused for all offenses against the military law or for none at all. Sympathetic as one may be to curtailment of the awesome power of courts-martial to impose maximum sentences in capital cases, the question, for me at least, is the perhaps cold but purely legal one of constitutional power. There would seem to be no doubt that Congress may constitutionally prescribe gradations of offenses and punishments in military cases. The question is solely whether Clause 14 has granted to Congress any power to provide for the court-martial trial and punishment of civilian dependents “accompanying,” and civilians “employed by,” the armed forces at military posts in foreign lands in time of peace. If it has, then Congress has acted within its powers in enacting Article 2 (11) of the Code — otherwise not. Inasmuch as six members of the Court have held in Covert that Congress may not constitutionally proyide for the court-martial trial and punishment of civilian dependents “accompanying the armed forces” overseas in peacetime in capital cases, and because I can see no constitutional distinction-between Congress' power to provide for the court-martial punishment of capital offenses, on the one hand, and non-' capital offenses, on the other hand, I conclude that the *264holding in Covert means that civilian dependents accompanying the armed forces in peacetime are hot subject to military power, and that it requires affirmance of No. 22, the Singleton case.
But each of the three opinions supporting the conclusion reached in Covert was at pains to limit the decision to civilian dependents. “[T]he wives, children and other dependents of servicemen cannot be placed in that category [of being ‘in’ the armed services for purposes of Clause 14], even though they may be accompanying a serviceman abroad at Government expense and receiving other benefits from the Government.” 354 U. S., at 23. “The mere fact that these women had gone overseas, with their husbands should not reduce the protection the Constitution giyes them.” 354 U. S., at 33. See also 354 U. S., at 45 (concurring opinion of Frankfurter, J.), and 354 U. S., at 75-76 (concurring opinion of Harlan, J.). The main opinion carefully pointed out that “Mrs. Covert and Mrs. Smith : . . had never been employed by the army, had never served in the army in any capacity.” 354 U. S., at 32. (Emphasis added.)
There is a marked and clear difference between civilian dependents “accompanying the armed forces” and civilian persons “serving with [or] employed by” the armed forces at military posts in foreign lands. The latter, numbering more than 25,000 employed at United States military bases located in 63 countries throughout the world— mainly highly trained specialists and technicians possessing skills not readily, available to the armed forces — are engaged in purely military work — as in ■ the case of Guagliardo, employed as an electrical lineman by the Air Force to construct and maintain lines of communication and airfield lighting apparatus and equipment, as also in the case of Wilson, an auditor employed to audit the accounts of the United States Army in Berlin, and as in *265The case of Grisham, employed as a cost accountant by the United States Army Corps of Engineers to assist in setting up a cost accounting system for the building of a line'of communications, from Pardeau, France, to Kos-salater in the American-occupied section of Germany. These civilian employees thus perform essential services for the military and, in doing so,-are subject to the orders, direction and control of the same military command as the “members” of those forces; and, not infrequently, members of those forces who are assigned to work with and assist those employees are subject to their direction and control. ■ They have the same contact with, and information concerning, the military operations as members of those forces and present the same security risks and disciplinary problems. They are paid from the same payroll, and- have the same commissary; housing, medical, dental, mailing, transportation, banking, tax-exemption, customs, border-crossing and other privileges as members of the armed forces. They are so intertwined with those forces and military communities as to be in every practical sense an integral part of them. On the other hand, civilian dependents “accompanying the armed forces” perform no services for those forces, present dissimilar security and disciplinary problems, have only a few of the military privileges, and generally stand in a very different relationship to those forces than the civilian employees. ■ Nor should there be any confusion about the fact that the materials found in Covert to be “too episodic, too meager, to form a solid basis in history, preceding and contemporaneous with the framing of the Constitution, for constitutional adjudication” (354 U. S., at 64, concurring opinion), related, as did the whole case, to “civilian dependents in particular,” ibid., not to persons employed at foreign military bases to do essential military work. And I readily agree with the Court today that under the *266severability clause in the Code,. 70A Stat. 640, ". . . legal effect can be given to each category standing alone.” McElroy v. Guagliardo, post, p. 281.
Determination of the scope of the powers intended by the Framers of the Constitution to be given to Congress by Clause 14 requires an examination into the customs, practices and general political climate known to the Framers and existing at that time. The first Articles of War in this country were those adopted by the Provisional Congress of Massachusetts Bay on April 5, 1775.4 Those Articles, initially governing the “civilian” army of farmers and tradesmen — the minutemén — who were first involved in the War of the Revolution, were made applicable to “all Officers, Soldiers, and others concerned.” Winthrop (Reprint 1920) 947. Article 31 provided:
“All sellers and retailers to a camp, and all persons whatsoever serving with the Massachusetts Army in the field, though not enlisted Soldiers, are to be subject to the Articles, Rules and Regulations of the Massachusetts Army.” Id., at 950.
The American Revolutionary. Army initially was governed by “Articles of War” adopted by the Continental Congress on June 30, 1775.5 Nine of the original 69 Articles provided for the trial by court-martial of persons serving with .the army but who were not soldiers. Those Articles were revised by the Continental Congress on September 20, 1776,6 and, save for minor revisions not here pertinent, governed the- Revolutionary Army during the remainder of the war.7 Thirteen of those Articles *267provided for the trial by court-martial of civilians serving with the army, such as “commissaries,”8 “suttlers,”9 “store-keepers,” 10 persons “belonging to the forces employed in the service of the United States,” 11 and persons “belonging to the forces of the United-States, employed in foreign parts.” 12 • In 1778, a relevant addition was made. It provided, in pertinent part: “That every person employed either as Commissary, Quarter Master, forage Master, or in any other Civil Department of the Army shall be subject to trial by Court Martial for neglect of duty, or other offence committed in the execution of their office . . . .” Journals of the Continental Congress, Vol. X, p. 72. (Emphasis added.) Wagon drivers “receiving pay or hire” in the service of the artillery were made subject to court-martial jurisdiction under the American Articles of 1775 13 and 1776.14 Throughout the Revolutionary period, “drivers” and “artillery gunners” were civilian experts. “Horse.s or oxen, with hired civilian drivers, formed the transport” for the cannon. Manucy, Artillery Through The Ages (G. P. 0. 1949), p. 10. Their civilian status in Washington’s army is concretely shown by his writings.15
*268There was a protracted controversy in the Constitutional Convention over whether there should be a standing army or whether the militia of the various States should be the source pf military power.16 There was, on the one hand, fear that a standing army might be detrimental to liberty; on the other was the necessity of an army for the preservation of peace and defense of the country.17 The problem of providing for essential forces and also of assuring enforcement of the unanimous determination to keep them in subjection to the civil power was resolved by inserting the provision that no appropriation for the support of the army could be made for a longer period than two years (Art. I, § 8, cl. 12), and by the continuancé of the militia “according to the discipline prescribed .by Congress.” (Art. I, § 8, els. 15 and 16, and Amend. II.) 18
*269It was in the light of this background and upon these considerations that the Framers gave to the representatives of the people — the Congress — the power “To make Rules for the Government, and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.” Clause 14. That language was taken straight from the Articles of Confederation.19 In respect thereto, Hamilton said in Beloff, The Federalist, No. XXIII, p. Ill:
“These powers ought to exist without limitation; because it is impossible to foresee or to define the extent and variety of national exigencies, and the correspondent extent and variety of the means which may be necessary to satisfy them. . . .” 20
Soon aften the formation of the Government under the Constitution, Congress, by the Act of September 29, 1789, c. 25, § 4, 1 Stat. 96; adopted the Articles of War which were essentially the Articles of 1776. By that Act, Congress — it is almost necessary to assume — approved the consistent practice of exercising military jurisdiction over civilians serving with the armed forces, although not actually soldiers. The first complete enactment of the Articles of War subsequent to the adoption of the Constitution was the Act of April 10,1806. Article 60 of that Act (2 Stat. 366) re-enacted the provisions for jurisdic*270tion over sutlers, retainers, and “all persons whomsoever, serving with the armies of the United States in the field, though not enlisted soldiers.” Provisions similar to Article ■ 60 have been made in all subsequent re-en'act-ments of the Military Code: In the revision of 1874, Rev. Stat. (2d ed. 1878), p. 236 (Article 63); in 1916, 39 Stat. 651; in 1920, 41 Stat. 787; and in the adoption of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, 64 Stat. 109, codified in 70A Stat. 37, 10 U. S. C. § 802 (11).
In the 1916 general revision of the Articles of War, Congress used language which is substantially equivalent to that of Article 2 (11),21 and it appears it did not consider that any new concept was being adopted.22 After full consideration by an eminent committee of experts, Congress, in 1956 — recognizing that, although we are not at war, turbulent world conditions require large military commitments throughout the world — re-enacted, in Article 2 (11), the provision that civilians “serving with” the armies of the United States “outside the United *271States” , are subject to military jurisdiction, and ’it redefined that concept by adding the “employed by” classification.
Clause 14 does not limit Congress to the making of rules for the government and regulation of “members” of the armed forces. Rather, it empowers Congress to make rules for the government and regulation of “the land and naval Forces.” The term “land and naval Forces” does not appear to be, nor ever to have been treated as, synonymous with “members” of the armed services.23
Viewed in the light of its birth and.history, is it not reasonably clear that the grant of Clause . 1.4, to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces, empowers Congress to govern and regulate all persons so closely related to and intertwined with those forces as to make their government essential to the government of;those forces? Do not civilians employed by the armed forces at bases in foreign lands to do essential work for the military establishment, such as was being' done by respondent Guaghardo and petitioners Wilson and Grisham, occupy that status and stand- in that relationship to the armed forces for which they worked?
This Court has consistently held, in various contexts, that Clause 14 does not limit the power of Congress to the government and regulation of only those persons who are “members” of the armed services. In Ex parte Milligan, 4 Wall. 2, 123, it was said, relative to the discipline necessary to the efficient operation of the army and navy, that “Every one connected with these branches of the public service is amenable to the jurisdiction which Congress has created for their government, and, while thus serving, surrenders his right to be tried by the civil courts.” In Duncan v. Kahanamoku, 327 U. S. 304, 313, this Court recognized the “well-established power of the military to *272exercise jurisdiction over members of the armed forces [and] those directly connected with such forces . . . (Emphasis added.) In Toth v. Quarles, 350 U. S. 11, 15, this Court said that Clause 14 “would seem to restrict court-martial jurisdiction to persons who are actually members or part of the armed forces.” (Emphasis added.) Of even greater relevance, the main opinion in Covert, although expressing the view that. Clause 14 authorized military trials only of persons “in” the armed forces, recognized “that there might be circumstances where a person could be ‘in’ the armed services for purposes of Clause 14 even though he had not formally been inducted into the military or did not wear a uniform.” 354 U. S., at 23. To repeat the query of this Court, made under very similar circumstances, in Ex parte Reed, 100 U. S. 13, 22, “If these [civilian employees] are not in the [armed] service, it may well be asked who are.” (Emphasis added.) That case held that a civilian, employed to serve aboard ship as the clerk of a paymaster of the" United States Navy and who was dismissable at - the will of the commander of the ship, occupied such “an important [place] in the machinery of the navy.. . . [that] [t]he good order and efficiency of the service depend[ed] largely upon the faithful performance of [his] duties” and brought him “in the naval service,” so ' that he was subject to trial and punishment by court-mar- ■ tial for an offense committed in a Brazilian port. 100 U. S., at 21-22. Johnson v. Sayre, 158 U. S. 109, reaffirmed the principle on practically identical facts.
The provisions of Art. Ill, § 2, and the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the Constitution requiring the trial of capital or otherwise infamous crimes in an Article III court, upon an indictment of a grand jury, by an impartial petit jury, are not applicable to “cases arising in the land or naval forces.” The Fifth Amendment expressly excepts those cases. It cannot be said that the “words. *273in the Fifth Amendment, relating to the mode of accusation, restrict the jurisdiction of courts martial in the regular land and naval forc.es.” Johnson v. Sayre, supra, 158 U. S., at 115. The exception in the Fifth Amendment “was undoubtedly designed to correlate with the power granted Congress to provide for the 'Government and Regulation' of the armed services’. . . .” (Reid v. Covert, supra, at 22), and so was the jury-trial provision of the Sixth Amendment, for “the framers of the Constitution, doubtless, meant to limit the right of trial by jury, in the sixth amendment, to those persons who were subject •to indictment or presentment in the fifth.” Ex parte Milligan, supra, 4 Wall., at 123. See also Ex parte Quirin, 317 U. S. 1, 40. The power conferred upon Congress by Clause 14 bo provide for court-martial trials of offenses arising in the land and naval forces is independent of .and-not restricted by Article III or the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution.
Counsel for the. convicted employees argue, with the citation and force of much history, that even if civilians “serving with [or] employed by” the armed forces are .subject to the military power of courts-martial, such •.could be so only in respect of offenses committed while those forces are “in the field.” Some of the early Articles of War limited military jurisdiction •over certain civilian employees to the period when the army was “in the field.” 24 What is really meant by the term “in the *274field”?, Seemingly, it does not méan “in actual war” or even “in time of war.” “The essential element was thought to be,‘ not so much that there be war, in the technical sense, but rather that- the forces and their retainers be ‘in the field.’ ” Reid v. Covert, supra, 354 U. S., at 71, n. 8 (concurring opinion). Historically, the term-has been thought to include armed forces located at points where' the civil power of the Government did not extend or where its civil courts did not exist. Prior to the Civil War, a number of civilians employed by the armed forces, were tried and punished by courts-martial in time of peace.25 In 1814, the Attorney General expressed the opinion that civilian employees of the navy were subject to punishment by court-martial for offenses committed on board vessels beyond the territorial jurisdiction of our civil courts. 1 Op. Atty. Gen. 177. The term '“in the field” was thought to apply to organized camps stationed in remote places where civil courts did not exist or were not functioning. In 1866, the Judge Advocate General of the Army so declared.26 But thereafter, Winthrop ex*275pressed the view that the term “in the field” is to be “confined both to the period and pendency of war and to acts committed on the theatre of the war-.” 27 This would seem to ignore the fact that the constitutional authority involved is Clause 14, not the war power, and that the Clause 14 powers apply to times of both peace and war. Moreover, even at the time when Winthrop wrote, there was no consensus of interpretation supporting his view. In 1872, the Attorney General issued an opinion which concluded that civilians serving with troops in Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, and the Indian Territory (where civil courts did not exist or were not functioning) in the building of .defensive earthworks to protect against threatening Indians were “in the field.” 14 Op. Atty. Gen. 22.28 As earlier observed, this Court held, in 1879, in Ex parte Reed, supra, and again in 1895, in Johnson v. Sayre, supra, that the civilian clerk of a paymaster of the navy might be tried and punished by a court-martial for a military offense committed in peacetime aboardship in a foreign port.
Doubtless, with the passing of the frontier and, the extension of civil courts throughout the territorial bound*276aries of the United States, detachments of troops-stationed within our borders may not in time of peace be regarded as “in the field.” But, it seems to me that armed forces of the - United States stationed at bases in foreign • lands — where jurisdiction of our civil courts does not extend — must, under turbulent world conditions, be otherwise regarded. Because of long-existing world tensions and with the fervent hope of preventing worse, the United States Government has- stationed armed forces at military bases in 63.foreign lands throughout the world. We are told that they must be kept constantly alert and ready to prevent or, if and when they arise, to put down “brush'firps.” which if allowed to spread might ignite a world-wide holocaust of atomic war. Because of physical necessities, such a war, like the frequently recurring “brush fires,” could be suppressed, if at all, mainly from those bases. The forces at those.bases are as much “in the field” in the one case as in the other. Though there be no war in the technical sense,- those forces, while so engaged in foreign lands — where our civil courts do not exist — are in every practical sense “in the field.” They are. as clearly “in the field”' as were American soldiers while building fortifications to protect against threatening Indians in New Mexico and the Indian Territory, where our civil courts did not exist, in the days of the frontier.' Op. J. A. G. of the Army, Nov. 15, 1866, 23 Letters sent, 331 (National Archives) and see note 26; 14 Op. Atty. Gen. 22, and see note 28.
Clause ■ 14 empowers Congress to “make Rules” — all necessary and proper rules — “for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces” — not just for “members” of those forces, but the- “Forces,” and not only in time of war but in times of both peace and war. In the exercise of that granted power, Congress has promulgated rules, the Uniform Code of Military Justice; for the government of the .“armed forces” and, to that end, has *277deemed it necessary, as- witness Article 2 (11), to include ■ persons “employed by” those forces when “outside the United States” — where our civil courts have no jurisdiction and do not exist — in times of both peace and war. In the light of all the facts, it would seem clear enough that Congress could rationally find that those persons are “in” those forces and, though there be no shooting war, ‘ that those forces, in turn, are “in the field”; and hence Congress .could and did constitutionally make those employees subject to the military power. Both the practical necessities and the lack of alternatives, so clearly. demonstrated by Mr. Justice Clark in the Covert case, 354 U. S., at 78 (dissenting opinion), strongly buttress this conclusion, if, indeed, it could otherwise be doubted. •
For these reasons, I would affirm No. 22, the Singleton case; reverse No. 21, the Guagliardo case; arid affirm Nos. 37 and 58, the Wilson and Grisham cases.

 The Uniform Code of Military Justice, 70A Stat. 36 et seq., will hereafter, for brevity, be called the “Code.”

 This does not overlook the “Necessary and Proper” Clause,' Art. I, §8, cl. 18, of the Constitution, but, in my view, that Clause, though applicable, adds nothing to Clause 14, because the latter Clause, empowering Congress “To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces,” plainly means all necessary and proper rules for those purposes.
Mr. Justice Stewart is of the view that Clause 14 must be read in connection with the “Necessary and Proper” Clause, and agrees with the views expressed in Mr. Justice Harlan’s separate opinion as to'the applicability and effect of that clause.

 Although a member of the Court when the opinions in the Covert case were handed down, I was ineligible to and did not participate in the decision of that case because it had been argüed, submitted and decided prior to my coming to the Court.

 Winthrop, Military Law and Precedents (Reprint 1920), 947.

 Journals of the Continental Congress, Vol. II, p. 111. Those Articles, with additional Articles enacted November 7, 1775, are reprinted in Winthrop 953 et seq.

 Those Articles are reprinted in Winthrop 961-971.

 The Articles were prepared principally by John Adams. See John Adams, Works, Vol. 3, pp. 83-84; Winthrop 22.

 Articles of War, Sept. 20, 1776, § IV, Art. 6.

 Id., § VIII, Art. 1.

 Id., §XII, Aft. 1.

 Id., §XIII, Art. 9.

 Id., § XIII, Art. 17.

 Articles of War, June 30, 1775, Art. XLVIII; Winthrop 957.

 Articles of War, Sept. 20, 1776, § XVI, Art. I; Winthrop 970.

 See the report which Washington made to the Committee of Congress With The Army, on January 29, 1778: “As it does not. require military men, to discharge the duties of Commissaries, Forage Masters and Waggon Masters,'who' are also looked upon as the money making part of the army, no rank should be allowed to any of them, nor indeed to any in the departments merely of a civil nature. Neither is it, in my opinion proper, though it may seem a trivial and incon*268sequential circumstance, that they should wear the established uniforms of the army, which ought to be considered as a badge of military distinction.” Writings of Washington, Vol. 10, at 379. (Emphasis added.)
Numerous instances of the exercise of military jurisdiction over civilians serving with the army are detailed in Washington’s Writings. A “Wagon Master” was so tried and acquitted on January 22, 1778. (Vol. 10, p. 359.) A “waggoner” was so tried and sentenced on May 25, 1778 (Vol. 11, p. 487), and another on September 2, 1780. At ■the same time, an “express rider” was so tried and convicted. (Vol. 20, pp. 24-25.) On September 21, 1779, a “Commissary of Issues” and a “Commissary of Hides” were tried by court-martial. (Vol. 16, pp. 385-386.) On September 2.3, 1780, another “waggoner” was so tried and acquitted. (Vol. 20, pp. 96-97.) On December 6 and 16, 1780, another “commissary” and also a “barrack master” were so tried. (Vol. 21, p. 10, and pp. 22-23.) Numerous other court-martial trials of civilians serving with the army are recited in Vol. .10, p.'5.07Vol. 12, p. 242; Vol. 13, pp. 54, 314; Vof. 21, p. 190.

 Prescott, Drafting the Federal Constitution (1941), pp. 515-525; 5 Elliot's Debates 443-445.

 Glenn and Schiller, The Army and the Law, pp. 14, 18-20.

 The basis of this conclusion wa,s. summarized by 'James Madison in Beloff, The Federalist, No. XLI, p. 207:
“Next to the effectual establishment of the union, the best possible *269precaution against danger from standing armies, is a limitation of the term for which revenue may be appropriated to their support. • This precaution the constitution has prudently added. . .

 Prescott, Drafting the Federal Constitution (1941), p. 526; 5 Elliot’s Debates 443.

 Hamilton, aide-de-camp to Washington and a distinguished army officer, undoubtedly knew that civilians serving with the army were commonly subjected to court-martial jurisdiction. The same must be presumed to have been known by most, if not all, of the members of the Constitutional Convention, for so many of them had been a part of the Revolutionary Army wherein that practice was commonplace.

 Article 2(d) of the 1916 Articles provided that the following persons should be subject to the Articles of War:
“(d) All retainers to the camp and all persons accompanying or serving with the armies of the United States without the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, and in time of war all such retainers and persons accompanying or serving with the armies of the United States in the field, both within and without the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, though not otherwise subject to these articles.” This section was re-enacted in 1920, 41 Stat. 787.

 General Enoch H. Crowder, ■ then Judge Advocate General of the Army, stated before the House Committee on Military Affairs: “There is nothing new in the article in subjecting these several classes to the provisions of article 65. It is a jurisdiction which has always been exercised. When anj’ person joins an army in the field and subjects himself by that act to the discipline of the camp he acquires the capacity to imperil the safety of the. command to the same degree as a man under the obligation of an enlistment contract or of a commission.” Hearings on H. R. 23628, 62d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 61.

 See Cong. Globe, 37th Cong., 3d Seas., 995 et seq.

 Article XXXII of American Articles of War of 1775, 2 J. Cont. Cong. 111, provided that “All suttlers and retailers to a camp, and all persons whatsoever, serving with the continental army in the field . . .” were subject to court-martial jurisdiction.
Article 60 of the American Articles of War of 1806, 2 Stat. 359, 366, provided that “All'suttlers and retainers to the camp, and all persons whatsoever, serving with the armies of the ■ United States in the field . . .” were subject to court-martial jurisdiction.
Article 63 of American Articles of War of 1874, R. S. § 1342, *274provided that “All retainers to the camp, and all persons serving with the armies of the United States in the field . . .” were within the jurisdiction of courts-martial.

 At Ft. Monroe'; Va., in 1825; Ft. Washington, Md., in 1825; Ft. Gibson, in what is now Oklahoma, in 1833; Ft. Brooke, Fla., in 1838; Camp Scott, Utah Territory, in 1858; Ft. Bridger, Utah Territory, in 1858.

 On November 15, 1866, the Judge. Advocate General of the Army formulated the following opinion and direction:
“It is held by this Bureau and has been the general usage of the service in times of peace, that a detachment of troops is an army ‘in the field’ when on the march, or at a post remote from civil jurisdiction.
“It has been the custom and is held to be advisable, that civil employees, sutlers and camp followers when guilty of crimes known to the civil law, to turn the parties over to the courts of the vicinity in which the crimes were committed. For minor offences against good orders and discipline, it has been customary to expel the parties from *275the Army: If, however, it is sought to punish civil employees in New Mexico, for crimes committed at a post where there are no civil courts before which they can be tried, it is held that they can be brought to trial before a General Court Martial, as they must be considered as serving with ‘an army in the field’ and, therefore, within the provision of the 60th Article of War.” Op. J. A. G. of the Army, Nov. 15, 1866, 23 Letters sent, 331 (National Archives).

 Winthrop, Military Law and Precedents, 101.

 The opinion rested primarily on the ground that the term “in the field” implies military operations with a view to an enemy, and that an army was “in the field” when “engaged in offensive or defensive-operations.” It also noted, p. 24, that:
“Possibly the fact that troops are found in a region of country chiefly inhabited by Indians, and remote from the exercise of civil authority, may enter into the description of ‘an army in the field.’ ”