§ 27. Crimes punishable by all penal codes, such as arson, murder, maiming, assaults, highway robbery, theft, burglary, fraud, forgery, and rape, if committed by an American soldier in a hostile country, against its inhabitants, are not only punishable as at home, but in all cases in which death is not inflicted, the severer punishment shall be preferred, because the criminal has, as far as in him lay, prostituted the power conferred on a man of arms, and prostrated the dignity of the United States. DESERTERS. PRISONERS OF WAR. BOOTY ON THE BATTLEFIELD. § 28. Deserters from the American army, having entered the service of the enemy, suffer death, if they fall again into the hands of the United States, whether by capture, or being delivered up to the American army; and if a deserter from the enemy having taken service in the army of the United States, is captured by the enemy, and punished by them with death or otherwise, the United States do not consider it a breach against the law and usages of war, requiring redress or retaliation. § 29. A prisoner of war is a public enemy, armed or attached to the hostile army for active aid, having fallen into the hands of the captor, either fighting or wounded, on the field or in the hospital, by individual surrender or by capitulation. All soldiers, of whatever species of arms; all men who belong to the rising _en masse_ of the hostile country; all those who are attached to the army for its efficiency, and promote directly the object of the war, such as officers of the commissariat or teamsters, if captured; all enemies who have thrown away their arms and ask for quarter; all disabled men or officers on the field or elsewhere: all such persons are prisoners of war, and as such exposed to the inconveniences as well as entitled to the privileges of a prisoner of war. § 30. Moreover, citizens who accompany an army for whatever purpose, such as sutlers, editors or reporters of journals, or contractors, if captured, are prisoners of war, and may be detained as such. The chief of the hostile government, the monarch and members of the hostile reigning family, male or female, the chief officers of the hostile government, its diplomatic agents, and all persons who are of particular and singular use and benefit to the hostile army or its government, are, if captured on belligerent ground, and if unprovided with a safe conduct granted by the captor’s government, prisoners of war. § 31. The enemy’s army surgeons, apothecaries, hospital nurses, hospital servants and superintendents, and chaplains, if they fall into the hands of the American army, are not prisoners of war, unless the commander has reasons to retain them. In such cases, or if, at their own desire, they are allowed to remain with their captured companions, they are treated as prisoners of war. American generals are permitted, if they see fit, to exchange captured surgeons and others belonging to the medical staff.