Stephen Johnson Field

“ Rosecrans it was stated that the immediate rebuilding of the bridges was a military necessity; that he should expect and require the company to do all in their power to put the roads in working order at the earliest possible moment; and that he intended to have what work they did not do, done by the government, and withhold from the freight earnings of the road a sum sufficient to repay the government for such outlays as in law and fact it should be found entitled to have repaid. ”

“ The temporary occupation of, injuries to, and destruction of property, caused by actual and necessary military operations, is generally considered to fall within the last-mentioned principle. If a government makes compensation under such circumstances, it is a matter of bounty rather than of strict legal right.' Cong. ”

“ The same may be said of damages caused by the enemy. All the subjects are exposed to such damages; and woe to him on whom they fall! The members of a society may well encounter such risk of property, since they encounter a similar risk of life itself. ”

“ The inhabitants of the Confederate States on the one hand, and of the states which adhered to the Union on the other, became enemies, and subject to be treated as such, without regard to their individual opinions or dispositions ”

“ From the fourteenth of August, 1867, to the twenty-second of July, 1872, it rendered services by the transportation of passengers and freight, for which the United States are indebted to it in the sum of $136,196.98, unless they are entitled to offset the cost of labor and materials alleged to have been furnished by them, at its request, for the construction of certain bridges on the line of its road. The extent and value of the services rendered are not disputed. ”

“ These are merely accidents; they are misfortunes which chance deals out to the proprietors on whom they happen to fall. The sovereign, indeed, ought to show an equitable regard for the sufferers, if the situation of his affairs will admit of it ”