Cambridge (Mass.) -- Biography; United States -- Biography
Another case of this sort was so pathetic that it deserves to be
commemorated. Sumner Paine (named after Charles Sumner), the finest
scholar in his class at Harvard, was suspended in June, 1863, for some
trifling folly and went directly to the Governor for a commission as
Lieutenant. Having an idea that the colored regiments were a particular
hobby with the Governor, he asked for a place in one of them; but Andrew
replied that the list was full; he could, however, give him a Lieutenancy
in the Twentieth Massachusetts, which was then in pursuit of General Lee.
Sumner Paine accepted this, and ten days later he was shot dead on the
field of Gettysburg. Governor Andrew felt very badly; for Paine was not
only a fine scholar but very handsome, and, what is rare among hard
students, full of energy and good spirits.
Governor Andrew tried a number of conclusions, as Shakespeare would call
them, with the National Government during the war, but the most serious
difficulty of this kind resulted from Secretary Stanton's arbitrary
reduction of the pay of colored soldiers from thirteen to eight dollars a
month. This, of course, was a breach of contract, and Governor Andrew
felt a personal responsibility in regard to it, so far as the
Massachusetts regiments were concerned.
He first protested against it to the Secretary of War; but, strange to
say, Stanton obtained a legal opinion in justification of his order from
William Whiting, the solicitor of the War Department. Governor Andrew
then appealed to President Lincoln, who referred the case to Attorney-
General Bates, and Bates, after examining the question, reported
adversely to Solicitor Whiting and notified President Lincoln that the
Government would be liable to an action for damages. The President
accordingly referred this report to Stanton, who paid no attention
whatever to it.
Meanwhile the Massachusetts Legislature had passed an act to make good
the deficiency of five dollars a month to the Massachusetts colored
regiments, but the private soldiers, with a magnanimity that should never
be forgotten, refused to accept from the State what they considered due
them from the National Government. At last Governor Andrew applied to
Congress for redress, declaring that if he did not live to see justice
done to his soldiers in this world he would carry his appeal "before the
Tribunal of Infinite Justice."
Thaddeus Stevens introduced a bill for the purpose June 4,1864, and after
waiting a whole year the colored soldiers received their dues. Andrew
declared in his message to Congress that this affair was a disgrace to
the National Government; and I fear we shall have to agree with him.
[Footnote: At this time there were not less than five thousand officers
drawing pay in the Union armies above the requisite proportion of one
officer to twenty-two privates.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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