Provost guard

“ We were on guard every second day—the intermediate one being filled up (twice a week) by a march of six miles and a brigade drill of three hours or more. This did not leave much time to ourselves, after cleaning boots, polishing brasses and buttons, and brushing clothes, for we had to appear neat and tidy while on duty.
A provost guard is a kind of police-soldier, and his duties are as multifarious as the character of his office and power is indefinite. ”

“ The commissary department supplied the rations, and the ordnance department the arms and ammunition, etc. Still another branch of the service was the provost-marshal's department. This was the police force of the army. It had the care and custody of all prisoners, whether those arrested for crime, or prisoners of war—those captured from the enemy. In the case of prisoners sentenced to death by court-martial, the provost guard were their executioners. ”

“ A strong provost guard, under Major Steele of the 3d Kentucky, had been organized to prevent the two practices most prejudicial to discipline and efficiency—straggling and pillage. There were very good reasons, independent of the provost guard, why the men should not straggle far from the line of march; but the well-filled stores and gaudy shop-windows of the Indiana and Ohio towns seemed to stimulate, in men accustomed to impoverished and unpretentious Dixie, the propensity to appropriate beyond limit or restraint. ”

“ Some are lighted, and occasional shadows flit across them, but none that are familiar. Suddenly he hears a sound that brings him back to himself—the tramp of marching feet, and the sudden clash of arms as they halt; a patrol from the provost-marshal's guard comes quickly around a corner from the soft dust of a side street, and the non-commissioned officers are sharply halting all neighboring men in uniform, and examining their passes. ”

“ It made officers and men more careful to procure leaves of absence and passes before leaving their camps; for, if found in Washington or Alexandria without such leave or pass, they were liable to be called upon by the provost-marshal, or arrested by the provost-guard ”

“ Many were already waiting to see that officer, and Bob had to take his place in line and await his turn. Most of those who swarmed about the marshal’s office were drafted men who were there to urge their claims for exemption from service on account of physical disability. Many were present with substitutes whom they had hired to serve for them. Some who had failed to respond to the notice of draft were being brought in by members of the provost-guard, to answer for their neglect or disobedience. ”

“ They patrol the town in large squads with pretending officers, helping themselves to anything or everything they want and march on, putting provost guard at defiance. I say "they" because I always count myself out in such games. ”

“ I am willing to instruct the provost guard to assist the police force when any combination is made too strong for them to overcome; but the city police should be strong enough for any probable contingency. The cost of maintaining this police force must necessarily fall upon all citizens equitably. ”

“ The incident which gave rise to it occurred soon after we left the Tennessee river on this ill-fated tramp. To prevent depredations upon the property of citizens along the route of our march, a provost guard had been formed, in command of which was placed an officer now living not a thousand miles from Augusta, but who shall be nameless here, partly out of respect to his feelings and partly out of regard for my own. He has warned me that a different course would be followed by an aggravated case of assault and battery and I do not care to put the courts to unnecessary expense. ”

“ The provost, who is the head magistrate of the city, getting intelligence hereof, sent his officers to break open the doors, and a little after was going in person to see it done, but in his way was met by some of the inhabitants, who told him that his officers were beaten and bruised by the mob, and driven away from the guard; that it would be dangerous for him to venture his person among them ”

“ When the gentleman came to the provost, he found him beset by a more formidable mob than was at the guard, who being exasperated at the murder of so many of their fellow citizens, threatned revenge upon the soldiers, and destruction to the provost and his company if they opposed them ”

“ But upon our arrival at Orange Court House we were turned over to a squint-eyed, knock-kneed Provost-Marshal and his home guard, and with the change of guard came a most decided change in our treatment.
Cowards are always tyrants, and this redheaded commander of the home guard was no exception to the rule. The enlisted men were separated from the officers and driven into a dirty [Pg 18] back yard, where they bivouacked quite comfortably, for they had their rubber and woolen blankets and could on ordinary occasions sleep as well without shelter. ”

“ No provost marshal or commander of a guard shall refuse to receive or keep any prisoner committed to his charge by an officer belonging to the forces of the United States, provided the officer committing shall, at the time, deliver an account in writing, signed by himself, of the crime or offense charged against the prisoner. Any officer or soldier so refusing shall be punished as a court-martial may direct. ”

“ The next point was, to invest the young recruit as hastily as possible with the dress and appropriate arms of the Guard, that he might appear in every respect the sharer of its important privileges, in virtue of which, and by the support of his countrymen, he might freely brave the power and the displeasure of the Provost Marshal—although the one was known to be as formidable as the other was unrelenting. ”

“ A provost-sergeant is an officer responsible for the maintenance of order when soldiers are in the United Kingdom. A provost sergeant may be either garrison or regimental, and he has under his superintendence the garrison or regimental police. (W. A. P.)
The Provost in France.—The word prévzit (provost) in old French law had many applications. In conformity with its etymology (praepositus) it could be applied to any person placed at the head of a branch of the public service, a position which, according to the old principles, habitually carried with it a right of jurisdiction. ”

“ The United States marshals in the respective districts, the mayor and chief of police of any town or city, the sheriff of the respective counties in each State, all postmasters and justices of the peace, are authorized to act as special provost-marshals to arrest any officer or private soldier fit for duty who may be found absent from his command without just cause and convey him to the nearest military post or depot. ”

“ Do you know that I am called Florian Barbedienne, actual lieutenant to monsieur the provost, and, moreover, commissioner, inquisitor, controller, and examiner, with equal power in provostship, bailiwick, preservation, and inferior court of judicature?—”
There is no reason why a deaf man talking to a deaf man should stop. God knows where and when Master Florian would have landed, when thus launched at full speed in lofty eloquence, if the low door at the extreme end of the room had not suddenly opened, and given entrance to the provost in person. ”

“ All provosts and their assistants are empowered to inflict summary punishment on the breech to the amount of twenty-four lashes, according to the degree of the offence, on soldiers and followers of the army committing offences against discipline, plundering, drunkenness, violence, and, in short, everything tending to the subversion of good order in the army. The provost must either witness the offence himself or have it from the evidence of competent eye witnesses ”

“ The General, turning to the Lieutenant-Colonel and his party, said that he entirely agreed in sentiment with his Assistant Adjutant-General; that there was no reason, not the slightest, for the arrest of this minister; that every officer engaged in the arrest had made himself liable to be put in arrest, and tried by court-martial, for doing that which he had no right to do as a military man; and that the minister, upon complaint to the Provost-Judge, might have every one of them arrested and tried by the Provost-Court for assault and for a disturbance of public services. ”

“ By these means, the frequent and discreditable recourse to the authority of the provost, and to punishments by the sentence of courts-martial, will be prevented, and the soldiers will not dare to commit the offences and outrages of which there are too many complaints, when they well know that their officers and their non-commissioned officers have their eyes and attention turned towards them. ”

“ The High Sheriff and the Chief of Police, when they heard of the Provost's weakness, were filled with wrath and dismay, and very promptly insisted on his lordship taking back the concession, so that this historic procession was as much 'forbidden fruit' as its predecessors, and the students probably enjoyed it the more that they had as usual to dare all those in authority to carry it out. ”

“ The subcommittees urge all Federal law enforcement agencies to review their policies on military training and tactics and develop appropriate guidelines for when such tactics are acceptable. Military training, especially specialized training in combat tactics, should be highly restricted and the use of military tactics, such as a dynamic entry should be approved at the highest agency levels.
f. recommendations 1. Congress should consider applying the Posse Comitatus Act to the National Guard with respect to situations where a Federal law enforcement entity serves as the lead agency. ”

“ The office of Provost Marshal has existed in all British armies in the field * * * his authority must be limited by the necessity of the case, and whatever be the crime of which a soldier may be guilty, the Provost Marshal has not the power of inflicting summary punishment for it unless he should see him in the act of committing it. ”

“ This led, in many cases, to the institution of a new officer called the “dean,” who had charge of that portion of the provost’s duties which related to the internal discipline of the chapter and the services of the church. In some cases the office of provost was abolished, but in others it was continued, the provost, who was also occasionally archdeacon as well, remaining head of the chapter. This arrangement was most commonly followed in Germany. In England the provost was almost unknown. ”

“ Some of my colleagues, who are as well not named, by making themselves over busy, got but small thank for their pains. I was even preferred to the provost, as the medium of communicating the sentiments of the volunteering lads to the lord-lieutenant; and their cause did not suffer in my hands, for his lordship had long been in the habit of considering me as one of the discreetest men in the burgh; and although he returned very civil answers to all letters, he wrote to me in the cordial erudition of an old friend—a thing which the volunteers soon discerned, and respected me accordingly. ”

“ But this being so, he’s just.
[Knocking within. Provost goes to the door.]
Now are they come.
This is a gentle provost. Seldom when
The steeled gaoler is the friend of men.
[Knocking within.]
How now? What noise? That spirit’s possessed with haste
That wounds th’ unsisting postern with these strokes.
Provost returns.
PROVOST.
There he must stay until the officer
Arise to let him in. He is called up.
DUKE.
Have you no countermand for Claudio yet,
But he must die tomorrow?
PROVOST.
None, sir, none. ”

“ Significantly, throughout the Army's history these qualities have always been identified as prerequisites for the soldiers selected to perform military police duties. But the regulation made no provision for special training for these provost troops, nor did it order the organization of military police units, maintaining that military police forces would, in usual circumstances, be assigned temporary status within larger military organizations. ”

“ The students, too, were called upon to join it, and as this forming of such a guard was also part of our political programme, we at once willingly obeyed the summons, and we did this in such numbers that soon the civic guard consisted in great part of university men. Our prescribed task was to arrest disturbers of the public order and suspicious individuals, and to conduct them to the guardhouse; to induce gatherings of a suspicious nature to disperse; to protect property and generally to watch over the public safety. ”

“ Few men in this whole country have occupied a more marked position in the public mind, during all this struggle, than Superintendent Kennedy, in his legitimate position at the head of the Police and in what we must believe to have been his illegitimate one as Provost Marshal. ”

“ THE provost sergeant at Fort Robinson is a man who has seen and heard a great deal in the course of his army life, and who has the enviable faculty of knowing everything that is going on around him, without appearing to know anything at all. It had been his duty, a day or two previous, to expel from the limits of the reservation a rascally pack of gamblers—a species of two-legged prairie wolf [165] that in the rough old days on the frontier followed every movement of the Army paymasters, and lured and trapped the soldiers until every cent of their money was gone. ”

“ If the constable, with the fear of the magistrate before his eyes, went up to stand as a guard of honour before the Bailie's house, the school went down then to the Russian guns and held a meeting of triumph, challenging the constable to come back to the Seminary, and telling him what they would do to him. They formed a bodyguard round him some days, keeping just out of reach, and marched along with him, backward and forward; other days they chaffed and teased him till his life was a burden to him, for he had no power to arrest them, and in his heart he sympathised with them. ”