Are the Southern Privateersmen Pirates?

Are the Southern Privateersmen Pirates? is an 1862 pamphlet by Charles Patrick Daly (1816-1899), the Irish-American jurist who presided over New York’s Court of Common Pleas for decades. Written as the Union tried captured Confederate privateer crews for piracy, Daly’s letter argues the legal question with characteristic learning, and the issue was real: hangings would have triggered Confederate reprisals on Union prisoners. The pamphlet is a primary source on the laws of war as the Civil War forced America to define them. Free PDF download available on BDeBooks.