The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union And Confederate Armies. Series 3, Volume 2. Page: 259
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UNION AUTHORITIES.
and ammunition, to be sent through the byways and swamps to the
enemy."
1. There was no proof before me that this mode of returning the
draft to the claimants was selected by them, or that they had any
knowledge of it until "the army of the United States captured" it
on the 10th of May. Conceding, argumenti gratia, that the fact, if
brought home to the claimants as a part of the original plan, would
affect the question, I have decided the conclusive answer to it is that
the fact was not in any way proved. The United States and you, as
their honored representative, were the actors in the sequestration. It
was for you to establish, not by statement, but by evidence, every
fact which you deemed material. My function was purely judicial.
In discharging it it was my duty to regard alike all the parties to the
controversy. The money you had exacted was that of the claimants.
You alleged that it was forfeited to the United States by some act of
civil illegality or of moral or legal crime. It was for you to make the
charge good. Every fact tending to that end it was for you to estab-
lish. The absence of proof of it established the case of the claimants
and entitled them to the return of the money. If, therefore, the
manner of the attempted transmission of the third of exchange and
account sales in the Fox, with a contraband mail even more destruc-
tive than arms and ammunition, or, to use your own words, "contra-
band mails and scarcely less destructive arms and ammunition" (what
kind of a mail that was passes my comprehension), affected the ques-
tion of sequestration or forfeiture, it was for you to verify it, not for
the claimants to disprove it or, as the judge between you, for me to
assume it.
Third. The only fact upon which you have put me right is that the
seizure was made before and not after the blockade was raised. But
however material that may be in other cases, if it exists, the absence
of it in the present instance does not in any way affect the judgment
which I have pronounced. Having thus disposed of the facts on
which we differ I proceed to consider the other points of your review.
First. That I erred in holding that the third of exchange, when
seized, did not represent the property that run the blockade. What
I did say was, "that that bill was not the representative of the cotton,
as far as that fact was material to the case before me." My decision
was pronounced on the 22d instant. The cotton was sold in Havana
in April and the proceeds invested in sterling on the 30th of that
month. These bills were not drawn in favor of the claimants, but of
a third party, and the first and second transmitted by their order to
London to be placed to their credit.
That they had not reached their destination at the time of the
seizure is immaterial. They had reached it long before my decision
was given, and having been paid by the drawees, the possession of
the third by the claimants, or by you claiming under them, gave no
right whatever to demand of the claimants the amount of the bill;
and the mailing at Havana of the first and second, directed to the
proper parties in London, was equivalent to the receipt, unless it was
made to appear that they never reached them.
A letter deposited in a legal mail is ever held, till the contrary,
appears, to be a delivery, and no intervening act on the part of a
person mailing it can in any way affect the legal results of actual
delivery. This is a proposition too familiar to need citation, at least
"by a lawyer to a lawyer." I consequently forbear any. The real
representative of the cotton is the proceeds. These are money, and259
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Errata sheets for the Records of the War of the Rebellion include additions and corrections to the text and the index for Series 3, Volume 2.
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United States. War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union And Confederate Armies. Series 3, Volume 2., book, 1899; Washington D.C.. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth139264/m1/268/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.