ARMED ENEMIES NOT BELONGING TO THE HOSTILE ARMY. SCOUTS. ARMED PROWLERS. WAR-REBELS.
§ 48. Men, or squads of men, who commit hostilities, whether by fighting, or inroads for destruction or plunder, or by raids of any kind, without commission, without being part and portion of the organized hostile army, and without sharing continuously in the war, but who do so with intermitting returns to their homes and avocations, or with the occasional assumption of the semblance of peaceful pursuits, divesting themselves of the character or appearance of soldiers, such men, or squads of men, are not public enemies, and, therefore, if captured, not entitled to the privilege of a prisoner of war, but are treated summarily as highway robbers or pirates.
§ 49. Nor is the privilege of the prisoner of war extended to single armed prowlers, by whatever names they may be called, or to persons of the enemy’s territory, who steal within the lines of the hostile army, for the purpose of robbing, killing, destroying bridges, roads, or canals, or of robbing or destroying the mail, or of cutting the telegraph wires. If captured, they are dealt with as pirates at sea are treated.
§ 50. Scouts, that is, single soldiers, disguised in the dress of the country, or in the uniform of the army hostile to their own, detailed or organized to obtain information, if captured within the lines of the captor, are treated as spies, and suffer death.
§ 51. Persons within an occupied territory, that rise in arms against the occupying or conquering army, or against the authorities established by the same, are war-rebels, and suffer death, whether they rise singly, in small or large bands, and whether called upon to do so by their own, but expelled, government or not. If captured, they are not prisoners of war; nor are they, if discovered and secured before their conspiracy has matured to an actual rising, or to armed violence.
The Partisan proper, belonging to the army, although acting in a corps separate from the main body, if captured, is a prisoner of war.