Definition
A military offense consisting of misbehavior through fear in the performance of a duty before an enemy. In legal usage, cowardice is not merely a character deficiency but a defined punishable offense under military law, encompassing conduct such as fleeing from battle, failing to engage the enemy, or abandoning a post out of fear when duty requires otherwise. The offense applies to both officers and enlisted personnel.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Lack of courage.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Want of courage to face danger; extreme timidity; pusillanimity; base fear of danger or hurt; lack of spirit.
The gap here is significant. In common usage, cowardice is a moral or psychological characterization — a personal failing, not a legal category. In military law, cowardice is a specific, chargeable offense with defined elements and potentially capital consequences. A researcher who approaches the term through its ordinary meaning will miss its operative legal force entirely.
Core Elements
The legal offense of cowardice under military law requires:
1. A duty to be performed — the accused must have had an assigned or implied obligation to act in a military capacity.
2. Presence before or in proximity to the enemy — the context must be one of actual or imminent hostile engagement.
3. Misbehavior — some affirmative failure or dereliction, not merely internal fear.
4. Fear as the cause — the dereliction must be attributable to fear rather than incapacity, confusion of orders, or other factors.
All four elements work together. Internal fear alone, without resulting misbehavior, does not complete the offense.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in military law, courts-martial history, or Civil War and World War-era legal records will encounter cowardice as a formal charge, not simply as descriptive language. This distinction matters when reading charge sheets, court-martial records, or military regulations: the term is technical, not rhetorical.
The statutory grounding matters for periodization. Bouvier's cites the Revised Statutes at §§ 1342 and 1624, which governed Army and Navy discipline respectively in the post-Civil War codification period. Researchers tracing the offense through later military law should look to the Articles of War (Army) and the Articles for the Government of the Navy, both of which were substantially revised across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries before being unified under the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 1950. The specific statutory language, and thus the formal elements of the offense, shifted across these regimes.
The death penalty provision is historically significant. Both Bouvier's and the statutory framework make clear that cowardice before the enemy was a capital offense — a fact that affects how courts-martial records and clemency proceedings should be read. Sentences involving cowardice in wartime contexts may reflect plea dynamics, command pressure, or political considerations that are not apparent from the charge alone.
Researchers should not assume that every historical use of the word "cowardice" in a military document signals a formal charge. The term also appeared as descriptive language in officer evaluations, dispatch reports, and regimental histories. Context governs whether the term is being used in its legal or colloquial sense.
Historical Dictionary Support
The major historical dictionaries are in close agreement on the core definition. Black's (1st and 2nd editions), Bouvier's, and Rapalje & Lawrence all converge on the "misbehavior through fear before the enemy" formulation, which tracks the statutory and court-martial manual language of the era. The shared citation to O'Brien's treatise on courts-martial indicates the dictionaries drew from the same specialized military law source rather than developing independent definitions.
Bouvier's is the most useful of the four for researchers because it identifies the specific statutory provisions and notes the applicability to both Army and Navy. Black's 2nd edition adds a case citation — Coil v. State, 62 Neb. 15 — which suggests the term was also appearing in state-level proceedings, though the military context remained primary.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the evolution of the offense into modern military law. None of the sources predate or anticipate the UCMJ consolidation, and none engage with procedural protections, evidentiary standards, or the question of how fear is distinguished from incapacity in adjudication. Researchers working on twentieth-century or contemporary military law will need to move beyond these dictionary sources.
Jurisdictional Note
Cowardice as a legal offense exists within military law, not civilian criminal law. Jurisdiction over the offense rests with courts-martial under applicable military authority. Civilian courts have no direct jurisdiction over military cowardice charges, though federal courts have reviewed courts-martial proceedings on constitutional grounds.