****************** A PAYCHECK TO DIE FOR **********************
A widely circulated report has it that South Carolina was the only state that did not raise a single regiment for Federal service. Despite its persistence, the account is not correct. From January to July 1863, four regiments of South Carolina infantry were raised to fight against Confederates. Both the First and the Second South Carolina Infantry (African Descent) saw limited combat service.
Organized at Hilton Head in June, the Third South Carolina Infantry (African Descent) spent more than seven months there on post duty. Moving to Jacksonville, Florida, in February 1864, during March it became the Twenty-first U.S. Colored Troops.
Sgt. William Walker of Company "A" was disgruntled when he learned that regulations called for men in blue to be paid only at ninety-day intervals. To make matters worse, no paymaster appeared after members of the Third South Carolina had drilled and drilled and drilled for that long period. Members of the regiment devised a song whose melodious refrain was simply, "P-a-a-y-day, some d-a-a-y!"
Col. Thomas W. Higginson, destined to gain fame and die with the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry, sympathized but could do nothing. In his diary he noted that the pay issue "impaired discipline, relaxed loyalty, and has begun to implant a feeling of sullen distrust" among black soldiers.
Walker, who was exempt from conscription, had volunteered and enrolled on April 24. By August he was so angry that he was charged with using threatening language when addressing an officer. Soon a court-martial was convened and the man who wanted only to be paid was put on trial. Convicted, he was reduced to the rank of private and sentenced "to be shot to death with musketry."
On February 29, 1864, Walker paid with his life for having waged a one-man fight to get the U. S. government to pay a just debt.
********************** PRINCELY SALARY ************************
One man whose pay came from the U. S. government never complained that his money would arrive some day. It invariably came to Abraham Lincoln on schedule, at the rate of about $70 a day or $2,083 per month.
Lincoln's $25,000 per year was princely in comparison with all military and most civilian salaries. His wife, however, seems to have been a compulsive buyer, whose spending sprees packed the White House closets with shoes and garments that were never worn. Despite the idiosyncrasies of Mary Todd Lincoln, the frugal president had accumulated about $90,000 by the time he was felled by a bullet from John Wilkes Booth's derringer. After the president's death, unredeemed salary warrants worth $4,044.67 were found in his desk.
******************** WHAT'S IN A NAME? ************************ Born in the Ohio River town of Wheeling, then still part of Virginia, Jesse Lee Renault desperately wanted to attend West Point. Fearful that a foreign-sounding surname associated with a sly fox would be an impediment, he began calling himself Jesse Reno.
Jesse graduated eighth in his class from the Point, a class that included Thomas J. Jackson, George Pickett, and George B. McClellan. These three fellow cadets compiled military records more impressive than that of the boy from Wheeling. After fifteen years in the U.S. Army, he became a brigadier general of U.S. Volunteers.
Yet the man who was mortally wounded at Fox's Gap, Virginia (some irony there), on September 14, 1862, has a special monument of sorts. Alone among members of the West Point class of 1846, his name appears on the map of the United States. Had he not deliberately changed his name, today's Reno, Nevada, might have been...Renault.
**************** NON-EXCEPTIONAL COMMANDERS *******************
"In March of 1864 Banks moved his massive command north from Baton Rouge and Opelousas, heading for Alexandria. By April of 1864, Banks, - and Porter and his gunboats were well into northwestern Louisiana. Alexandria, Natchitoches, and Grand Ecore had fallen. Shortly after capturing Grand Ecore, Banks made what was to be his fatal mistake. Shreveport was now only 50 miles away. A two days' march for the soldiers; less that a sailing day for the fleet. Inexplicably, and for no articulated reason, Banks left the river road, and the protection of his 50 gunboats, and turned inland, taking the hill road to Shreveport. Once Banks did this he experienced the usual result met by non-exceptional commanders who elect to divide their forces in the face of the enemy.
On April 7th, Banks army of 25,000 bluecoats was approaching Mansfield. Confronting him were 13,000 Confederates, under General Richard Taylor, who made the decision to turn and fight on a line just south of Mansfield. In the Union army were units from practically all of the northern states: New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, as well as western troops from Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa. Taylor's forces were from Missouri, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana. Although outnumbered nearly two to one, the rebels routed the federals on April 8th. Into the evening, the Yankees retreated and regrouped. The next day, the Confederates scored a strategic victory at Pleasant Hill. A more courageous general might have tested Taylor's army one more time, but Banks. the former governor of Massachusetts and Speaker of the House, had had enough and retreated to the safety of New Orleans. Governor Allen summarized the events of April 8 and 9, saying the "insolent foe" and "his mercenary hirelings" were "hurled back in dismay on the path made desolate by their villainy."
Shreveport was saved. This area of the state was free of bluecoats. And while it could not have known it at the time, there would be no further major military actions in Louisiana. General Canby, Banks' successor, was willing to let the Civil War be decided east of the Mississippi River."
*** The above is an excerpt from the essay: "Appomattox to Red River," by Arthur R. Carmody, Jr., which is only one of the interesting essays featured at eHistory.com. Visit our "Essays & Papers" section at: http://www.ehistory.com/uscw/library/essays/list.cfm
