Case: Charles Gearing v. The United States; Charles Gearing, et al. v. The Same
Abbreviation: Gearing v. United States
Decision Date: 1867-12
Docket Number: 
Citation: 3 Ct. Cl. 165
Volume: 3
Reporter: United States Court of Claims Reports
Court: United States Court of Claims
Jurisdiction: United States
Parties: Charles Gearing v. The United States. Charles Gearing, et al. v. The Same.
Judges: 
Pages: 165–177

Head Matter:
Charles Gearing v. The United States. Charles Gearing, et al. v. The Same.
On the Proofs.
A citizen of Pennsylvania carries Ms two steamers from Pittsburg to Texas for sale and delivery. This is just before secession, and he remains there afterward. He twice leaves the Confederate States during the war, and tunee returns there. He speculates in cotton and jits out a blockade runner which runs the blockade. He works on rebel “ cotton-clads,” and carries rebel troops as passengers on his two boats. He claims to be loyal to the United States, and to have gone within the Confederate lines to save his property, and to have worked on the “ cotton-clads” under the compulsion of a military order. . The two boats are seized and used by the rebel military authorities as transports, for “headquarters boats,” Sfc. At the end of the war they are captured by the United States and sold by the treasury agents; the proceeds go into the abandoned and captured property fund.
I. “ Commercial transactions ” earned on “ within the confederate lines” by a citizen of Pennsylvania contrary to the act of 13tb July, 1861, (12 Stat. L., p. 255.) prohibiting “all commercial intercourse” with citizens of insurrec-tionary States, is aid or comfort to the rebellion. The violation of a statute intended for- the suppression of the rebellion is in itself an act of “ aid or comfort” within the meaning of the “abandoned or captured property act,” (12 Stat. L., p. 820.)
II. Pitting out a vessel within a Confederate port and running the blockade maintained by the United States, is “ aid or comfort ” to the rebellion -within the meaning of the “ abandoned or captured property act,” (12 Stat. L., p. 820.)
III. When a claimant voluntarily enters the enemy’s lines he cannot claim that services rendered the enemy were involuntary. By placing himself within the control of a Confederate general, so as to be liable to his orders, he becomes ' responsible for all the acts which he may be compelled to do, and thereby gives ‘ ‘ aid or comfort” to the rebellion within the meaning of the ‘ abandoned or captured property act," (12 Stat. L., p. 820.)
IV. A citizen of a loyal State who voluntarily joins in the rebellion and bears arms against his country, is guilty of treason morally as well as legally. Such a witness coming into court and swearing to his own infamy is wholly unworthy of credence, and is to be regarded as no better than one convicted of perjury.
V. The proviso in the first section of the “abandoned or captured property act,” (12 Stat. L., p. 820,) which enacts that such property shall not include any used or intended to be used for waging war against the United States, limits and restrains the entire act so far as the “ kind or description ” of the “ abandoned or captured " property is concerned.
The Court of Claims has jurisdiction only of the proceeds of property allowed by tlie first section, and not of the proceeds of property excepted by the proviso.
. The court has no jurisdiction of the proceeds of a steamer used by the Confederate government as a military transport and headquarters boat, though the Owner did not consent to such use, and the proceeds have come into the abandoned or captured property fund.
Messrs. Owen and Wilson for tbe claimants:
These are actions brought under the act of March 12, 1863, for the recovery of proceeds of certain captured property belonging to the plaintiffs. This property consists of two steamboats, the Colonel Stelle and John F. Carr.
The John F. Carr was owned by Charles Gearing, and the suit is brought in his name alone. The Colonel Stelle was owned three-fourths by Gearing and one-fourth by James R. Richardson, and the suit is brought by them jointly.
These boats were built at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1860, and taken by Gearing to Galveston for gentlemen of the same names as the boats, living in Texas. These parties, on the arrival of the boats, refused to take them, and they were thrown back on the hands of the owners. They tried to sell them, but failed by reason of the breaking out of the rebellion.
Gearing took them down to Galveston, while Richardson remained in Pittsburg. They were both old residents of Pittsburg.
Gearing then proposed to run the boats himself, which he did. They were seized by the Texan authorities upon the outbreak of hostilities, as the property of northern men. They were, however, released after three weeks’ detention.
The confederate government seized them in 1862 and kept posses-, sion of them until the close of the war, when they were surrendered to the United States forces, in common with other confederate property.
The owners made application for their restoration, and obtained from the local authorities the possession of them by executing a bond for their return when called for, subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury. The Secretary disapproved this action, the boats were returned, the bonds cancelled, and the boats sold by the treasury agent — the Carr for $900 and the Stelle for $2,200 — the money paid into the treasury; and now Gearing asks judgment for $900, and Gearing and Richardson for $2,200, of which Gearing is entitled to three-fourths, $1,650, and, Richardson to one-fo„urtk, $550.
Gearing was an oIcL citizen and resident of Pittsburg. He had for many years been a steamboat builder there. He became involved prior to the year 1860, and to retrieve himself from bis financial difficulties built these two boats, Captain Richardson furnishing some of the necessary capital, and taking one-quarter interest in one of them, agreeing to deliver them at Galveston, Texas, to the purchasers, whose names were Colonel Stelle and John F. Carr. The boats cost about $38,000.
Upon his arrival there, by reason of the anticipation of breaking out of hostilities, these parties refused to take the boats off his hands or pay him therefor. With the boats on his hands, and a war on the country’s hands, with no chance for their sale, he was compelled to either stay and try to protect his property, or leave the country, abandon his property to its fate, and return to his home to face a horde of stern and unrelenting creditors, without a hope or prospect of their .payment — without even a tub to throw to the whale.
Under these circumstances he determined to stay by his property and do the best he could to secure it for his creditors.
During his stay in Texas he did nothing in aid of the rebellion, but many things in aid of the federal government. He hoped the Union side would be successful. He aided Union men, employed Union men on his boats to enable them to escape conscription. When his boats were seized by the confederates, he refused pay for them for their services. When he was compelled by General Magruder to work for the Confederate States of America as a mechanic, he refused compensation — refused to sign pay-rolls or receipts, because he was opposed in principle to the cause, and was unwilling to receive their money for work he was forced to perform.
He made a journey of 350 miles, from Houston, Texas, to Natchez, Mississippi, in the fall of 1863, to convey information to General Gresham of an attempt to ambush Generals Banks and Franklin in the Bayou Teche expedition. This journey was made overland, through a section of country infested with robbers and guerillas, and manifestly the most dangerous of any within the theatre of the war. He was environed by every peril and surrounded by every danger.
Upon his return to Pittsburg, in 1864, charges were made against Mr. Gearing of disloyalty, and these charges are the only suspicion or shadow cast upon him in the trial of this cause. Without these charges Gearing’s character would stand as fair as Captain Richardson’s.
He was arrested by order of General Rowley, commanding at Pitts-burg, and after five weeks’ detention in the common j ail, on examina tion and trial before General Rowley, be was declared innocent and discharged, it being officially declared that the charges were the offspring of hatred, envy, and spite on the part of Millingar against Gearing.
The Deputy Solicitor for defendants:
These claims are sought to be recovered in this court by an entirely forced construction of the act approved March 12, 1863, to provide for the collection of abandoned property and for the prevention of frauds in insurrectionary districts within the United States. These steamboats came into the possession of the United States, upon the surrender of the confederate forces'west of the Mississippi, having been taken as confederate property, and so regarded for some months in the service of the quartermasters’ department. The “ John F. Carr,” had been duly enrolled and licensed on the 19th day of October, in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty, at the fort of Pittsburg, and the “ Colonel Stelle ” on the 12th day of December, in the same year. From these papers, needful preliminaries to any actual employment in the coasting trade, the time of leaving for Galveston might be very nearly approximated, had they not left together, about the middle or end of December.
These steamboats had been taken to Galveston for sale; and in the interval between December, 1860, and the 22d of February, 1861, had the claimant been so disposed, after the failure of the parties there to accept them, he might readily have gone elsewhere for a market. Till General Magruder seized them, the two vessels were clearly in the regular business of carrying troops or passengers, the father and the son being in control, and the former justifying this continued residence in Texas as essential to his private interests.
It was only in this way, by remaining and watching over the property, that he could expect to redeem his obligations to his creditors. The same sort of plea, too, is raised for his direct violation of law, in getting through the blockade with a cargo of cotton, under the usual custom-house papers, issued by the confederate authorities at Houston. For $10,000 in gold,, this claimant became sole owner of the Reindeer in 1862; and with papers taken out for Havana or a market, this ship of his was captured by the United States naval forces in the Gulf, on her way to Havana, with his son aboard as supercargo, overflowing with zeal and earnestness, as he avows in the evidence he has given, for the final success of the rebellion. Licenses to trade with an enemy being high acts of sovereignty, are necessarily stricti juris; but the claimant, with some mental reservation of sub-serving in the end his self-interest, would now insist there must be a dispensation in his favor. He undertakes to trade without license, and coolly sends out the Reindeer with her complement of men and a full cargo, from a belligerent port and under belligerent custom-house papers, superseding the sovereign right of judgment in the United States as to the fitness of the persons to.be employed and the restrictions of time and place under which such a trade could be carried on, for the avowed purpose of placing it directly within his own control.
Nor is Mr. Richardson’s right to recover, conceding Ms loyalty, any better than Mr. Gearing’s. Without recurring to the guards and protections given fart owners, under maritime law, from the ordinance of Oleson and Wisbury down to the present day, it is enough to cite the usual form for the return of a ship to part owners, on a stipulation for a sum equal to the shares of those who disapprove the adventure. This co-claimant, had he dissented in any measure from the proposed arrangements in Texas, should have manifested his dissent. This dissent was not proved, or any attempt to interfere, on his part, with the use of these steamboats in Texas waters. He gave eomfort, at least by indirection. The Colonel Stelle became the property of the rebel government, taken and used as a headquarters’ boat. As such property, his rights all divested under arrangement with de facto government there the steamboat was turned over, like all other confederate property, to the United States in full and absolute possession against the world, to be disposed of at pleasure.

Opinion:
Nott, J.,
delivered the opinion of the court:
These are actions brought under the " abandoned and captured property act" to recover the net proceeds of two steamboats, the "John F. Carr " and the " Colonel Stelle," which it is alleged amount, of the one to $900, and of the other to $2,200. Of the former the claimant, Gearing, was the sole owner, and of the latter the claimant, Richardson, also owned a fourth part. The two cases are submitted upon the same evidence, and will be considered together.
As to the claimant Gearing, he has testified as a witness on his own behalf, and his rights may be determined entirely by his own testimony. He says, among other things :
"In 1860 1 built two steamboats in Pittsburg, viz., the " JohnF. Carr" and the "Colonel Stelle;" I built them for gentlemen of these names living on Trinity river, Texas. These two boats cost me in the aggregate about $38,000; I was to deliver them at Galveston, Texas. I sent or took them both there. The parties who engaged them I found there, but they refused to take the boats, and they were thrown back on my hands. I was the sole owner of the " John F. Carr " and of three-fourths of the "Stelle." The other fourth of the "Stelle" was owned by James It. Richardson. After these boats were thrown back on my hands 1 ran them on Trinity river. I tried to sell them, but Jailed to do so on account of the excitement produced by the rebellion or the anticipation of it. I could not get the boats back, and they were taken from me by the State of Texas, in consequence of reports there that I was an abolitionist. The State of Texas returned the steamers to me after about three weeks' detention, when these reports were denied by letters from Pittsburg, and the boats were returned to me by the intervention of masonic friends in Pittsburg. This was a short time before Fort Sumter was fired upon. After this I was taken sick and went home to Pittsburg,- this being in the fall of 1861. My creditors thought these steamers, if left in Texas, would be confiscated if it was known I was in the north, and they insisted upon my returning south. After my return there, these steamers were taken from me by an order from General Magruder, a Confederate general. I did not consent to their being taken, but protested against it. The vessels were appraised after they were taken. I in no way attempted or tried to obtain payment for the steamers from the Confederate government. I understood that other owners were paid for steamers taken in the same way by the Confederate government. They were taken by the Confederate government in 1862. The United ¡States. forces got possession of them at the time of the surrender of the rebel forces. I was involved at the time I built these boats about $18,000 outside of the insurance, and hence under obligations to listen to the suggestions and requirements of creditors. During all this time I was loyal to the United States government. I could not 'talk much in Texas in favor of the United States, as it would have caused my imprisonment. I never did aid, comfort, or encourage the rebellion against the United States. I never did any act voluntarily in favor of the Confederate States. Being well known there as a mechanic, General Magruder called on me to superintend some of the cotton-clad boats, and I tried to get out of it by recommending some. one else, whom I represented as more competent than myself, and I did all in my power to escape this service, but I was compelled by an order from General Magruder to do this work, for which I received no compensation whatever, nor did I receive any vouchers or siga any pay-rolls, though other men, who worked in the same way, did receive pay for their services.
" I returned to Pittsburg in May, 1864, and immediately thereupon an excitement was raised about my disloyalty, and I was arrested by order of General Rowley, who, after an examination of three days, discharged me, after an imprisonment of five weeks in the common jail.
• These reports were started and circulated by a Mr. Millingar and his friends. Mr. Millingar had a large amount of my money in his hands for which I had sued him, and this was the cause of his persecution against me, and they hoped thereby to compel me to run off."
And upon his cross-examination he adds :
"Mr. Millingar was my brother-in-law, having married my sister, and the money in Ms hands was the proceeds of cotton sent by me from Texas, and which I succeeded in getting through the blockade, shipped on board the Reindeer, owned by myself, and with the usual customhouse papers issued by the Oorfederate authorities at Houston, Texas. I purchased the Reindeer in 1862, and for this voyage the papers were taken out for Havana or a market. She was commanded by a man named Stevens, who was unknown to me, except that he was recommended as a good navigator. I had owned no other vessel prior to this, and she cost me $10,000 in gold. This was the only trip made by the Reindeer, and she was captured by the United States naval forces in the Gulf, on her way to Havana. Whether she was condemned in a prize court or not I cannot say, but I presume she was. I had 288 hales of cotton on the Reindeer at the time of her capture, and the said cotton found its way to New York, but in what way I don't know. I had a confidential friend, Mr. B. 0. Hamilton, of Galveston, who was first mate on the vessel, who was to act with the supercargo, my son Franklin, in getting the proceeds on to Pittsburg for distribution among my creditors. From January, 1861, to the fall of 1862,1 was in Texas, except an absence therefrom of fivé or six months, when I was at home in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. And 1 was speculating, after the seizure of my vessel, mainly in cotton, buying and selling in Texas. I was in Matamoras in July, 1863, (but not at any other time,') trying to get some cotton there for sale, in order to raise funds by bills of exchange to remit to my family at Pittsburg. The draft purchased there was sent to New York. The Confederate government, by order of Kirby Smith, took my cotton, (to the extent of 264 bales,) along with all other cotton within their reach, and that much, in that way, I lost. Beyond the voyage of the Reindeer I had never attempted to run the blockade, and I confined my cotton operations to the States of Texas and Louisiana. In the spring of 1864 I had 800 hales of cotton, all of which was lost to me, being some of it jay hawked, and the rest burnt within the Confederate lines, and by their authority, near Alexandria, Louisiana. AU these commercial transactions of mine in Louisiana and Texas were carried out within Gorfederate lines''
From this evidence it appears :
1. That this claimant; by his " commercial transactions," carried on, as he says, " within the •Confederate lines," was guilty of violating the fifth section of the act of 13th July, 1861,(12 Stat.L., p.257,) prohibiting and declaring unlawful " all commercial intercourse " between the citizens of the insurrectionary " and the citizens of the rest of the United Stateswhich violation of a statute intended for the suppression of the rebellion was in itself an act of aid and comfort given to the rebellion.
2. That the claimant, by passing within the military lines of the enemy and by fitting out and running a vessel through the blockade maintained by the United States, made himself voluntarily one of the common enemies of the country, and having failed in the true allegiance which he owed to his government can maintain no action of any description in this court.
3. That the claimant, by giving his mechanical skill " to superintend some of the cotton-clad boats " built by the enemy to war upon the United States, gave to the rebellion aid and comfort in violation of the statute under which he seeks to recover, and that no pretexts of unwillingness can make the act an involuntary one, when he voluntarily twice went within the enemy's lines, and placed himself again and again within the command of a Confederate general.
It is proper to add that the claimant's testimony is not without many protestations of profound loyalty to the country whose laws he was defying, and with whose enemies he was holding treasonable intercourse. Such averments only add to the moral guilt of the offender, and are as ineffective to purge his offences as the protestations of any criminal who, when brought before a magistrate appears full of godly sentiments and morality and religion. The counsel for the claimant has, with great earnestness, urged that " he made a journey of 350 miles, from Houston, Texas, to Natchez, Mississippi, in the fall of 1863, to convey information to General Gresham of an attempt to ambush Generals Banks and Franklin in the Bayou Teche expedition. This journey was made overland through a section of country infested with robbers and guerillas, and manifestly tbe most dangerous of any within the theatre of war." But unfortunately for this panegyric the claimant's testimony shows that he travelled with perfect ease and freedom through the scenes of his "commercial transactions," appearing one day at Alexandria, in Louisiana, and another at Brownsville, in the furthest bounds of Texas, and that as late as July, 1863, he was in the Mexican town of Matamoras, from which he voluntarily a second time returned to place himself under the control of the rebel General Magruder. There have been one or two cases where citizens of the insurrectionary States have come into this court and had the hardihood to attempt to cover their disloyal acts by loud assurances of secret loyalty, but there has been no case where a northern man, owing allegiance to both State and country, has left his home to enter the rebel lines and work in rebel navy yards and transport rebel troops, and then had the brazen effrontery to come into this court and prefer a claim whose very foundation is the loyalty of the claimant.
As to the valuable information which the claimant pretends he gave to General Gresham, the story is unsupported by proof or probability, and the tale, if it was told, was probably coined as an excuse to enter our lines after his blockade runner had been captured by our cruisers and the Confederate troops had burnt his cotton; for he says, "I made no effort to return to Pittsburg till 1864, when everything I had had been lost to me." The excuse for all this dishonor and iniquity was the poverty of the claimant and his laudable desire to save the remnant of his property for his creditors; .but here again his self-convicting testimony shows that he had mbney enough to buy 264 bales of cotton seized near Matamoras and the 800 bales burnt near Alexandria, and to invest $10,000 in gold, in a vessel designed to break our blockade. Money appears to have been the only being to whom the claimant rendered " true allegiance," and it seems a most just retribution that he was so entirely forsaken by his deity.
In addition to the testimony of the claimant Gearing, we have been furnished with the testimony of his son. This witness states that he was born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and that he remained there almost entirely till the year 1858 or 1859. He also uses the word "home" three times in connection with Pittsburg. "I did not write home to Pittsburg," he says; "I never knew of it being written homey After this we read in his testimony the infamous sentences: " My sympathies were with the south and their cause." " I offered, my services to the Confederate government." • And he then boastfully volunteers this shameful record: "I was an outspoken Confederate. I Vas well understood in Texas to be favorable to tbe Confederate cause. I was so considered throughout the whole contest, and I was so until the final surrender. 1 believe I signed the last payer in the department, and it was the last department which surrendered."
It is undeniable that there were many well-disposed persons who believed sincerely that they owed a superior allegiance to their own State, and who, at least, may say in a moral mitigation of their offence that they did not go out from the Union until their State had gone, and then that they acted for what seemed the immediate protection of their birth-place, and families, and homes. This witness has no such mitigating circumstances to plead. His " sympathies were with the South and their cause he " offered" his " services to the Confederate governmenthe was favorable to the rebel cause " throughout the whole contest," and " until the final surrender," and he joined with those who were bringing fire and ruin and the sword upon his birthplace and his " home." He is therefore in every moral, as in every legal sense of the word, a traitor, guilty of that offence which has been spoken of as " the highest civil crime which ' (considered as a member of the community) any man can possibly commit." (4 Blks., p. 75.) The laws of most communities require the oath of more than a single witness to convict of this crime, regarding it as more heinous than that of peijury, and deeming it more probable that the one will bear false witness than that the other will violate his allegiance. A witness coming into any court and confessing himself convicted of an infamous crime, and particularly of the crime of perjury, would receive but little attention from" the court, and profit the party in whose interest he is nothing. To this witness we give no credence whatever as against his government, nor would such testimony procure a recovery in this court though it were corroborated by the oaths of a thousand witnesses who confess in the same breath their own infamy.
The claimant, Richardson, comes into court apparently a loyal man, and the court has no reason to doubt that he is so. He, however, appears by the same counsel and relies upon the same evidence. He cannot, therefore, complain if the court judge him by this testimony which he himself adduces.
The witness Gearing gives this history of the two steamers which form the basis of the claimants' demand :
" During the winter of 1860 and 1861, the boats were running in their legitimate Trinity river trade. In March, of 1861, we were preparing to run the boats to New Orleans, and the rebel State authorities took possession of them; they held them for two or three weeks with out employing them in any service,. Then they were released an'd sent up Buffalo bayou, and laid up by my father. Then, in the fall of that year, father took them out and run them in the Galveston and Houston trade. They were run there until February or March, 1862. Then they were laid up again until the Confederate government seized them. After that, they were run as Confederate government transports, and in other capacities. The " Stelle " was used as a- headquarters boat. The '.'Carr" was sent down west among the western-bays. After the " Stelle " was seized by the Confederate government, they retained the same pilots and a portion of the engineers. Father remained on the boats until about March, 1862. The Confederate government seized them in the fall of 1862. General Magruder seized them. I did not remain on them after their seizure, in 1862, until May, 1863. Until laid up, in March, 1862, the boats were engaged in the regular business of carrying freight and passengers. During that time we carried Confederate troops or passengers. I do not remember to have carried any ammunition or military stores, except what the troops had with them. I don't know that we ever carried artillery; we once earned a couple of guns from Galveston up to Houston."
The " abandoned or captured property act" (12 Stat. L., p. 820) is the statute under which the-claimants come into court, and from which their rights, as well as their remedy, depend. The object of the act is " to provide for the collection of abandoned property, and for the prevention of frauds in insurrectionary districts." The first section declares " that it shall be lawful" for the Secretary of the Treasury to appoint special agents " to receive and collect all abandoned or captured property" in any State or Territory designated as in insurrection by the President's proclamation of 1st July, 1862. The second section provides for the appropriation or sale of " such property." The third section provides for the ascertainment and safekeeping of the net proceeds of " such property ;" and it gives a remedy in this court against the proceeds " of any such abandoned or captured property." It is, therefore, evident that the statute does not give a remedy against the proceeds of abandoned or captured property generally, but only against " such property" as is mentioned in the first section; and therefore it becomes necessary to have recourse to the first in order to ascertain with precision over what proceeds this court may entertain jurisdiction, and what property it was that became entitled to thp benefits of the statute.
The first section does, indeed, use the words " all abandoned or captured property," and if it stopped, there we might hold that there was no description of property for the proceeds of which an action would not lie if the defendants treated it as captured and the proceeds found their way into this fund. But the section does not stop with this general description, hut, on the contrary, contains a proviso, which is in these words : " Provided, That such property shall not include any kind or description which has been used, or which was intended to be used, for waging or carrying on war against the United States, such as arms, ordnance, ships, steamboats, or other water craft, and the furniture, forage, military supplies, or munitions of war."
This proviso limits and restrains the operation of the first section, and so far as the "hind or description" of the "abandoned or cap-* tured " property is concerned it limits and restrains the entire act. It is only the proceeds of property allowed by the first section over which the Court of Claims may exercise jurisdiction, not the proceeds of property excepted by that section. The third section does not give the court jurisdiction of the proceeds of all abandoned or'captured property, but only of "suck abandoned or captured property" as is specified by the first section. It cannot help a case that the officers of the government erred, and that property was turned over to the treasury agents which never should have come to their possession, and that the proceeds of this property have been carried into a fund of which they form no proper or legal part, for then the right of action would be the error of the government officers, and the claimant would obtain the benefits of the statute simply because the public agents violated it.
Now the statute says that " suck, property shall not include any kind or description" "which was used" for "carrying on war against the United States," such as "steamboats;" and in this case it appears that the "steamboats" of the claimants were "run as Confederate transports," that "the 'Stelle' was used as a headquarters boat," and the " Carr " " was sent dotm among the western bays," and that both of them "carried Coffederate troops and passengers." The counsel for the claimants also says of them in his printed argument: " The Confederate government seized them in 1862, and kept possession of them until the close of the war, when they were surrendered to the United States forces, in common with other Confederate, property!' So that it really seems difficult to frame a stronger case in favor of the government than the claimants here confess.
The judgment of the court is that the petition be dismissed.