From the Richmond Dispatch, 8/18/1864, p.1, c. 5

The Confederate States District Court. – The whole of the time of this court, on yesterday, was engaged with the argument of counsel in the case of Frederick Boyd, a detective on provost-marshal’s guard, connected with the office of the provost marshal of Richmond. Boyd was some time since arrested and lodged in Castle Thunder upon the charge of having offered a bribe to a detective connected with the War Office. Charges having been preferred against him, he was about to be tried by one of the military courts, when he objected to its jurisdiction upon the ground that he was a civilian and was entitled to be tried by the civil courts.

The military court having decided adversely to his plea, he applied to the Confederate States District Court for a writ of habeas corpus to enable him to have the question of his military status determined. It was elaborately argued by General Marshall that Boyd was a civilian and not subject to the articles of war, whilst it was as strenuously and as elaborately insisted by Mr. Aylett, the district attorney, that although not an enlisted soldier, he was in the performance of military duties, which made him liable to be tried by a military court.

The argument of counsel not having been concluded, the case was continued until to-day.

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