Stephen Johnson Field

“ It is an old rule of pleading, which, in the modern progress of simplifying pleadings, has not lost its virtue, that whenever one justifies in a special plea an act which in itself constitutes at common law a wrong, upon the process, order, or authority of another, he must set forth substantially and in a traversable form the process, order, or authority relied upon, and that no mere averment of its legal effect, without other statement, will answer. ”

“ There is no averment in the pleas that at the time the plaintiff was arrested any rebellion existed in the State of Vermont, against the laws or government of the United States; or that any military operations were being carried on within its limits; or that the courts of justice were not open there, and in the full and undisturbed exercise of their regular jurisdiction; or that the plaintiff was in the military service of the United States, or in any way connected with that service. ”