Scott, Henry Lee, 1814-1886.

Scott's Military Dictionary : (English Law, 1864)

Henry Lee Scott saw a gap in the literature of the military, and sought to fill it with this dictionary of truly varied information relating to all aspects of the military. Not limited to legal information, the volume is comprised of definitions relating to "law, government, regulation, and administration." Including such general information as a recipe for shoe-black and long-winded recommendations for selecting a good horse, the work is much more than strictly a law dictionary. However, Scott devoted a good portion of the work to definitions and critical examples of oaths, mutinies, courts-martial, courts of inquiry, etc. The definitions are clearly written for practical purposes, in simple language.

In his brief, otherwise quite ordinary preface, Scott added an interesting aside referring obliquely to what was going on in the world in 1861, the year of this book's publication: "It is only deemed necessary to add, that the work was not prepared in view of existing disturbances, but was begun some years ago."

Scott's dictionary (the American edition) has been placed online as a fully searchable, full-text document, made up of scanned images of each page, as part of the University of Michigan's Making of America collection. This collection is "a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction," and currently contains approximately 8,500 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints. Free to search and download, it's well worth a look.

Bibliography