Henry Billings Brown

“ An officer is to be understood as traveling abroad when he goes to a foreign port or place under orders to proceed to that place, or from one foreign port to another, or from a foreign port to a home port. But where he is ordered to proceed from one place in the United States to another, and the government, for its own purpose, requires him to proceed by sea rather than by land, he ought not thereby to be disentitled to his mileage by the nearest traveled route. ”

“ For instance, if he were ordered from Boston to New Orleans, and for his own purposes he elected to travel by way of Chicago, it might be difficult for him to determine what his expenses would have been if he had taken the direct route, whereas the computation of mileage by such route would be an easy matter. ”