Definition
A general traverse is a pleading device in common law practice by which a party denies, in broad and sweeping terms, all of the opposing party's preceding allegations at once, rather than going through each specific allegation and denying it point by point. It is preceded by a general inducement — a prefatory clause that sets up the scope of the denial — and then closes with a blanket denial covering everything last alleged on the opposite side.
The general traverse stands in contrast to the special traverse, which isolates a particular allegation, admits it or qualifies it through a preliminary statement (the inducement), and then denies only that specific point. The general traverse, by design, is broad; the special traverse, by design, is targeted.
In the formal system of common law pleading, traverses were the mechanism by which a defendant (or, in some postures, a plaintiff) joined issue with the opposing party. A traverse denies; a confession and avoidance admits but offers new matter. Getting the choice wrong — traversing when you should have confessed and avoided, or choosing a general traverse when a special traverse was required — could be fatal to the pleading.
Common Confusion
GENERAL TRAVERSE vs. SPECIAL TRAVERSE: The distinction matters more than it may appear. A general traverse denies everything broadly; a special traverse isolates one allegation and denies it with precision after a qualifying inducement. In practice, the general traverse was often the riskier choice because an overly broad denial could be held to put in issue matters that a party did not intend to contest, or could be struck as bad pleading if the rules required specificity. Researchers encountering a "traverse" in an older record without further qualification should not assume it is a general traverse — context and the form of the inducement clause are the determining factors.
GENERAL TRAVERSE vs. DENIAL (modern): Modern civil procedure has largely replaced the traverse with the simple denial in an answer. A general denial under, for example, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(b) functions analogously to a general traverse but operates in a procedural environment with far fewer formal pleading constraints. The ancestral complexity of the traverse — inducements, specific vs. general forms, the consequences of misuse — does not carry over.
Core Elements
A well-formed general traverse at common law required:
1. GENERAL INDUCEMENT: A prefatory clause framing the denial — typically "without this, that…" (the classic absque hoc formulation was associated more with special traverses, but the general traverse still required a setup clause signaling the scope of the denial).
2. GENERAL DENIAL CLAUSE: Language denying, in undifferentiated terms, all that the opposing party has last alleged, without following the specific words of each allegation.
3. CONCLUSION TO THE COUNTRY: The traverse concluded with a demand that the issue be tried by jury — "and of this he puts himself upon the country" — joining issue for trial.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a term of art in historical common law pleading and will appear almost exclusively in sources predating the procedural reforms of the nineteenth century. In England, the Hilary Rules of 1834 and the subsequent shift toward code pleading dramatically curtailed formal traverse practice. In the United States, the Field Code of 1848 and its successors displaced the traverse system in most jurisdictions. Researchers working with pre-reform court records, plea rolls, or pleading manuals will encounter general traverses regularly; researchers working in modern procedural law will encounter the term only in historical or comparative contexts.
A key navigational trap: pleading treatises from the seventeenth through early nineteenth centuries — Gould, Chitty, Stephen on Pleading — treat the distinction between general and special traverses with great technical precision. Each treatise has its own organizational logic, and the rules they describe were not always uniformly applied across jurisdictions or even across courts within a jurisdiction. Common law and equity courts handled pleading differently, and local practice could vary. Do not assume that a rule stated in one treatise applied universally.
Another trap: "traverse" in older records sometimes appears as a verb ("the defendant traversed the plaintiff's declaration") rather than as a noun labeling a specific pleading form. Whether the traverse so described was general or special requires reading the actual pleading, not the description.
The Bouvier's entry cross-references the parent entry TRAVERSE, which is the appropriate starting point for any systematic research into traverse doctrine. The Black's entry, while brief, cites Gould's treatise on pleading — a reliable primary source for the technical rules governing general traverses.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary defines general traverse as one "preceded by a general inducement, and denying in general terms all that is last before alleged on the opposite side, instead of pursuing the words of the allegations which it denies," citing Gould on Pleading. This is a precise and accurate summary of the doctrine as understood in classical common law pleading. The citation to Gould is genuine and useful — Gould's treatise was a standard American reference on pleading in the nineteenth century.
Bouvier's Law Dictionary, as it appears in the source material here, truncates at "See TRA-" — almost certainly a cross-reference to TRAVERSE that was cut off. This tells researchers nothing about the term on its own but confirms that Bouvier treated general traverse as a subentry under the broader TRAVERSE heading rather than as a freestanding entry. Researchers consulting Bouvier should go directly to TRAVERSE.
Neither dictionary addresses the procedural consequences of misusing a general traverse — a significant gap. The pleading treatises (Gould, Chitty, Stephen) are the better sources for understanding what happened when a general traverse was used incorrectly or when courts held that a special traverse was required.
Jurisdictional Note
General traverse doctrine was a feature of common law pleading as received in American courts from English practice. By the mid-nineteenth century, code pleading reforms had abolished or marginalized formal traverse practice in most U.S. states. Some jurisdictions retained common law pleading longer than others; a handful of states maintained elements of it well into the twentieth century. Research in any specific jurisdiction requires checking when that jurisdiction adopted code pleading or equivalent reform.