The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1884-01-03
Then and Now.

Looking over some old papers in the
pension Office the other day, the differ
ence between the old-time and present
methods of granting aid to soldiers be-
came very noticeable. Now, almost
any old soldier easily obtains relief;
then it was a matter involving the
! clearest proofs. In some cases even alb
| ject poverty seemed necessary before
Government interposed to give relief.
One case, from the long correspond
ence and interesting character of the
claimant, is sample of many. The
papers are very voluminous. They be-
| gin in 1919, when Colonel Paul Dudley
Sargent, of Sullivan, Maine, asked for
pension. His memorial showed that
| in 1772 he lived in Gloucester, Mass,
where he organized body of minute
men. From his forwardness in the in
| dependent cause he was blacklisted and
compelled to flee to Amherst, N. 81.
Here he organized regiment of mi
| litia, and so ready was he that, before
daylight on April 10, 1775, he was on
his way to Concord with his command,
which afterwards became part of
| Washington's army, and was the first
| body of troops to enter Boston after
the evacuation the next March. Here
he fitted out the first privateer of the
Revolution. 1t carried nine guns and
took several prizes, with the proceeds
of which Sargent paid his troops out of
| his own pocket. In June he marched
to New York, was in all the
ment was reduced from 727 men
to 1917. He took part in the battle of
Trenton, and soon after resigned
his commission for ill-health, but kept
on fitting out privateers, of which he
sent forty-seven sail to sea. In later
years his property was lost by misfor-
tunes, and at the time spoken of he was
reduced to poverty, living upon the
scant proceeds of ferry at Sullivan,
the sole use of which had been granted
him by vote of the county. The pen
sion was granted at first. but soon taken
away, ON the score that he was rich.
He made an indignant protest, and filed
an inventory at the War Department,
by which it appeared that he was worth
| 1,270, every little item of household
furniture appearing scrupulously in the
schedule. The pension was refused,
although ample testimony was shown
that the old veteran, now seventy-six
| years old, owed about $4,000. In 1928
he made another effort. His ferry had
been superseded by a bridge, his occu-
patton was gone, and the schedules an
nexed to his inventory showed that the
scanty property had diminished to $255,
of which 5000 represented the tumble
1 down house in which he lived, with his
1
| granddaughter. His letter to John G..
Calhoun, then Secretary of War, was
most pathetic. and reinforced by the
testimony of judges of various courts
to his deserving condition, and of credi-
tors to debts ten times the value of
his home. Still nothing was done. The
handwriting of the correspondence
showed the growing infirmities of
Colonel Sargent, who in 1926 sent again
in trembling characters ''the third and
last schedule to be made by Paul Dud-
ley Sargent, colonel in the Revolu-
tionary War. have not any property
nor any income whatever The fact is
l have been living for four years on
charity and the sale of my furniture.
which is now entirely gone" At last,
| convinced that he was not too rich to
be pensioned at the age of eighty-o one
years, and after he had waited in bitter
distress so long, the officials granted
him 800 month, but too late to be of
much good, for he died soon after.
That is the record of the pension given
so grudgingly, and withheld illegally
from the man who led the first New
Hampshire troops to Concord; fitted
out the first privateer, and gave all his
| private means without stint to the cause
of independence. 1t is in striking con-
trast to the prodigal bounty now shown
in dealing with the yet young survivors
of the late war Washington Cor. Bos.
| ton advertiser.