| United States v. Steever | |
|---|---|
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| Submitted January 9, 1885 Decided March 16, 1885 | |
| Full case name | Hardin v. Boyd |
| Citations | 113 U.S. 747 ( more ) 5 S. Ct. 765; 28 L. Ed. 1133 |
| Court membership | |
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| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Gray, joined by unanimous |
United States v. Steever, 113 U.S. 747 (1885), was an appeal from the court of claims to recover the amount necessary to make up his lawful share of the prize money awarded for the capture of the Confederate naval ram Albemarle. [1]
The Court of Claims was a federal court that heard claims against the United States government. It was established in 1855, renamed in 1948 to the United States Court of Claims, and abolished in 1982. Then, its jurisdiction was assumed by the newly created United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and United States Claims Court, which was later renamed the Court of Federal Claims.
Prize money has a distinct meaning in warfare, especially naval warfare, where it was a monetary reward paid out under prize law to the crew of a ship for capturing or sinking an enemy vessel. The claims for the bounty are usually heard in a Prize Court.
The Confederate States of America, commonly referred to as the Confederacy and the South, was an unrecognized country in North America that existed from 1861 to 1865. The Confederacy was originally formed by seven secessionist slave-holding states—South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas—in the Lower South region of the United States, whose economy was heavily dependent upon agriculture, particularly cotton, and a plantation system that relied upon the labor of African-American slaves.
Contents
The rebel iron-clad ram Albemarle was captured and sunk at Plymouth, in the Roanoke River, in the State of North Carolina, on the night of October 27, 1864, by the United States Picket Launch No. 1, an armed torpedo launch propelled by steam, attached to a division of the North Atlantic blockading squadron, and commanded by Lieut. William B. Cushing, of the United States navy, and having on board six inferior officers (of whom the petitioner, a third assistant engineer, was one) and eight men. Lieut. Cushing had been, by order of the Secretary of the Navy, detached from the command of the United States ship Monticello and directed to report for duty to Rear Admiral Porter, commanding that squadron, and had been assigned by the admiral to the command of this launch. It does not appear that the launch had any books. The Albemarle was afterwards raised by the United States forces, and appropriated to the use of the United States, and was twice appraised by duly appointed boards of naval officers, the first time, before she was so appropriated at the sum of, 944, which was forthwith deposited by the Secretary of the Navy with the assistant Treasurer of the United States at Washington, and the second time, under the Act of April 1, 1872, c. 76, 17 Stat. 649, at the sum of 2,856.90, which, less the sum already deposited, was likewise so deposited, pursuant to the Act of January 8, 1873, c. 18, 17 Stat. 405.
An ironclad is a steam-propelled warship protected by iron or steel armor plates used in the early part of the second half of the 19th century. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. The first ironclad battleship, Gloire, was launched by the French Navy in November 1859. The British Admiralty had been considering armored warships since 1856 and prepared a draft design for an armored corvette in 1857; in early 1859 the Royal Navy started building two iron-hulled armored frigates, and by 1861 had made the decision to move to an all-armored battle fleet. After the first clashes of ironclads took place in 1862 during the American Civil War, it became clear that the ironclad had replaced the unarmored ship of the line as the most powerful warship afloat. This type of ship would come to be very successful in the American Civil War.
The Roanoke River is a river in southern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina in the United States, 410 miles (660 km) long. A major river of the southeastern United States, it drains a largely rural area of the coastal plain from the eastern edge of the Appalachian Mountains southeast across the Piedmont to Albemarle Sound. An important river throughout the history of the United States, it was the site of early settlement in the Virginia Colony and the Carolina Colony. An 81-mile (130 km) section of its lower course in Virginia between the Leesville Lake and Kerr Lake is known as the Staunton River, pronounced, as is the Shenandoah Valley city of that name. It is impounded along much of its middle course to form a chain of reservoirs.
A torpedo steam launch, attached to a division of a naval squadron, though not proved to have had any books, is a ship, within the meaning of the prize Act of June 30, 1864, ch. 174, § 10, Rules 4 and 5, and her commander is entitled to one-tenth of prize money awarded to her, and cannot elect to take instead a share proportioned to his rate of pay; but her other officers and men are entitled to share in proportion to their rates of pay.
The distribution of prize money among the subordinate officers and crew of a ship "in proportion to their respective rates of pay in the service" under the Prize Act of June 30, 1864, ch. 174, § 10, Rule 5, is to be made according to their pay at the time of the capture, and not according to the pay of grades to which they have since been promoted as of that time.
Under the Act of August 8, 1882, c. 480, referring the claims of the captors of the ram Albemarle to the Court of Claims, each captor is entitled to recover such a sum as, together with the sum formerly paid him by the Secretary of the Navy under the prize decrees in the case of the Albemarle, will equal his lawful share of the prize money in that case.
The judgment was affirmed.
