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Washington, D.C.,1 July 1864. Printed document on vellum, 18.75” x 15”, filled out in manuscript and signed in ink by Abraham Lincoln and Edwin Staunton. Arched title above an American eagle, with a spoils of war vignette below the signatures. Blue War Department seal and docketing in ink at upper left corner. CONDITION: Very good, light foxing, minor stains along the edges, one central vertical fold and five horizontal folds, slight losses to the seal along fold.

An especially appealing military commission, signed by Abraham Lincoln, promoting Guido Norman Lieber to the rank of captain just two months after his father’s groundbreaking codification of the laws of war were issued as General Orders to the Union Army.

Guido Norman Lieber was the son of Matilda Oppenheimer and important Prussian-American political philosopher and lawyer Francis (Franz) Lieber, both of German-Jewish families. Francis Lieber’s 1863 “Code for the Government of Armies in the Field”—issued as General Orders No. 100 and often referred to as the “Lieber Code”—was “the first modern codification of the laws of war” (Gesley), and remains the basis for much of U.S. and international war law, including the Hague Regulations and the Geneva Conventions. Born in 1837 in Columbia, South Carolina, Guido Lieber graduated from South Carolina College (where his father was a professor) in 1856, and from Harvard Law School in 1859. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Lieber (like two of his three brothers) supported the Union, and Lieber enlisted as first lieutenant in the Eleventh Infantry. He fought in the Peninsular campaign and on June 27th, 1862 was brevetted for gallantry during the Battle of Gaines’ Mill. That same day, his brother Oscar—who enlisted with the Confederates—died in Richmond from his wounds. A few months later, Lieber served as an aide to General Pope during the second Battle of Bull Run, and the following year was appointed major and judge advocate in the Department of the Gulf. On July 2nd, 1863, Lieber was formally advanced to the rank of Captain, and was breveted two more times (to Major and to Lt. Colonel) in 1864 and 1865. He served as judge of the provost court in New Orleans, and was then transferred to Washington, D.C., to the office of Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt. Following the Civil War, Lieber assisted his father in the Bureau of Confederate Archives, which was charged with finding possible evidence that Southern leaders were complicit in the Lincoln assassination plot. He then served as judge advocate in the Department of Dakota, taught law at West Point from 1878 to 1882, and in 1884 was appointed Assistant Judge Advocate General, a position he held first with the rank of colonel and then, from 1895 to 1901, as brigadier general, serving as an important advisor to President McKinley during the Spanish American War. He died in 1923.

A notable Lincoln-signed commission promoting the son of the Lieber Code author, who inherited his father’s legal mind and later became an important Judge Advocate General.

REFERENCES: Gesley, Jenny. “The ‘Lieber Code’ - the First Modern Codification of the Laws of War” at In Custodia Legis : Law Librarians of Congress, a Library of Congress blog online; “BG Guido Normal Lieber” at the Library of Congress online.

Item #10044

Price: $25,000.00