FORT MEADE, Md. – Prosecutors are using a Civil War court-martial to advance their case that an Army private charged with sending hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the secret-spilling website WikiLeaks aided al-Qaida.

Lawyers for Pfc. Bradley Manning refute the government's claim that Manning's case parallels that of Pvt. Henry Vanderwater, a Union soldier convicted in 1863 of aiding the enemy by giving an Alexandria, Va., newspaper a command roster that was then published.

Vanderwater, a member of the 1st District of Columbia Volunteers, was sentenced to three months of hard labor and a dishonorable discharge.