[1] Benjamin Piatt Runkle, a Civil War veteran who was wounded at the Battle of Shiloh, was, from 1867 to 1870, serving as an active duty army major and disbursing officer in the Freedmen's Bureau for the State of Kentucky.

7, series of 1873, to issue from the war department, by which it was announced that Major Benjamin P. Runkle was cashiered from the military service of the United States.

7, to-wit, on the sixteenth day of January 1873, Major Runkle presented to the president a petition, setting forth that the proceedings of said court had not been approved by the president of the United States, as required by law; that said conviction was unjust; that the record of said proceedings was not in form or substance sufficient in law to warrant the issuing of said order; and asking the revocation and annulment of the same.

That, in pursuance of this petition, the record of the official action theretofore had in the premises was, by direction of the president, Ulysses S. Grant, referred to the judge advocate general of the United States army for review and report.

It also appears in said report that the conviction of said Runkle, upon charge one as aforesaid, is sustained upon the opinion that sufficient proof of the crime of embezzlement on the part of the accused was disclosed by the evidence before the court.

Whereupon, having caused the said record, together with said report, to be laid before me, and having carefully considered the same, I am of opinion that the said conviction is not sustained by the evidence in the case, and the same, together with the sentence of the court thereon, are hereby disapproved; and it is directed that said order No.

The opinion of the Court, delivered by Chief Justice Waite, concludes: Under these circumstances, we cannot say it positively and distinctly appears that the proceedings of the court-martial have ever in fact been approved or confirmed, in whole or in part, by the President of the United States, as the articles of war required, before the sentence could be carried into execution.

Neither do we decide what the precise form of an order of the President approving the proceedings and sentence of a court-martial should be, nor that his own signature must be affixed thereto.

But we are clearly of opinion that it will not be sufficient unless it is authenticated in a way to show otherwise than argumentatively that it is the result of the judgment of the President himself, and that it is not a mere departmental order which might or might not have attracted his personal attention.

It further appeared that thereafter, and on the same day, Major Runkle presented to President Grant a petition insisting that the proceedings had not been approved by him as required by law; that the conviction was unjust; that the record was insufficient to warrant the issuing of the order, and asking its revocation and annulment; whereupon, in pursuance of the petition, the record of the official action theretofore had was, by direction of the President, referred to the Judge Advocate General for review and report; that this report was subsequently made, and with the petition was found by President Hayes awaiting further and final action thereon, and, being taken up by him as unfinished business, the conviction and sentence were disapproved, and the order of January 16, 1873, revoked.

[2]However, according to Joshua Kastenberg, a professor of law at the University of New Mexico, the Supreme court, in 1958 in Harmon v. Brucker, 355 U.S. 579 (1958) reaffirmed a basic tenet of Runkle without citing to the case.