dare to make such false assertions
away from the General's head-quarters, the Colonel turned upon him
indignantly, and the General called for the Provost Guard to conduct him
to the Sibley. Now I tell you, fellows," continued the Captain, "the
General will make nothing out of this matter."

"He has his malice gratified by the present punishment he is subjecting
them to, as if fearful that they might come unharmed from a
Court-martial. But I don't believe that he will be able to get the
Regiment into dress coats," remarked the Adjutant.

The Adjutant was right. The Regiment did not get into dress coats;
although its Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel slipped into strait-jackets.

CHAPTER XVIII.

_Dress Coats versus Blouses--Military Law--Bill the
Cook--Courts-Martial--Important Decision in Military Law--'A Man with
Two Blouses on' can be compelled to put a Dress Coat on top--A Colored
French Cook and a Beefy-browed Judge-Advocate--The Mud March--No
Pigeon-holing on a Whiskey Scent--Old Joe in Command--Dissolution of
Partnership between the Dutch Doctor and Chaplain._

Necessity knows no law. Military law springs from the necessity of the
case, and may be said, therefore, to be equivalent to no law. However
plausible the principles embodied in the compact periods of Benet and De
Hart may appear, in actual practice they dwindle to little else than the
will of the officer who details the court. General Officers, tried at
easy intervals, before pains-taking courts, in large cities, may have
opportunity for equal and exact justice; but Heaven help their inferiors
who have their cases put through at lightning speed, before a court
under marching orders, and expecting momentarily to move.

The Act of Congress, with a wise prescience of the jealousies and
bickerings always arising between Regulars and Volunteers, provides that
Regulars shall be tried by Regular, and Volunteers by Volunteer
Officers. In practice, the spirit of the law is evaded by the
subterfuge, that a Regular Officer, temporarily in command of
Volunteers, is _pro tempore_ a Volunteer Officer. In the Mexican War,
where the number of Volunteer Officers was comparatively small, there
may have been a necessity for this. With our present immense Volunteer
force there can be none whatever; and the practice is the more
inexcusable, when we consider the great amount of legal as well as
military ability among the officers of this force. The gross injustice
o