author
Francis Lieber
1800–1872
A German-born scholar, teacher, and public thinker, he helped shape how Americans studied politics and law. He is best remembered for the 1863 "Lieber Code," an influential set of wartime rules that later helped guide international law.
1 Audiobook
A Code for the Government of Armies in the Field, as authorized by the laws and usages of war on land.
by United States. War Department, Francis Lieber
About the author
Born in Berlin in either 1798 or 1800, Francis Lieber lived through the upheavals of the Napoleonic era before building a new life in the United States. He emigrated in the 1820s, worked as a writer and editor, and became known for bringing serious study of politics, history, and public law into American academic life.
Lieber taught for many years at South Carolina College and later at Columbia College in New York, where he held chairs in history, political science, and law. He was widely respected as a political philosopher and jurist, and many accounts describe him as one of the first major figures to treat political science as a distinct field in the United States.
During the Civil War, he advised the Union government and drafted the "Code for the Government of Armies in the Field" in 1863, now commonly called the Lieber Code. Its attempt to set clear limits on military conduct became his most lasting achievement, influencing later international agreements on the laws of war.