The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1903-04-23
ELEVENTH HOUR MEN. i

in regard to the shorter service men which
seem to be generally overlooked. TIL
Grand Army of the Republic has properl.
adopted the rule that where a man regu
larry enlisted and placed himself at the
| disposal of the Government. he is entitled
to full consideration as soldier, no mat
ter what his subsequent service may have
been. If he got off lightly, saw few, il
any, battles, and endured little hardship
that was his good luck. He had placed
himself at the disposal of the Government
and it sent him where it needed him. and
where it found he would be of most
service to it.
The case of the 51th Mass. will serve
no. only to illustrate this, but also the in
justice of much that has been said about
the '11th hour big bounty men," The 9th
Mass. was in the last run of shad' from
that State. 1t was next to the last one
year regiment which Massachusetts
raised. 1t was organized in the Winter
of 1864, and left the State April IS,
| ~. IL
will be noticed that April IS, 1864, was
quite late in the game which had then
been going on for exactly three years.
The first regiments which the State had
sent out had nearly completed their serv-
ice, and were soon after discharged. 1t
Immediately joined the First Brigade of
the First Division of the Ninth Corps.
which was preparing for the terrible Rich
mond Campaign, and in less than three
weeks after the regiment left Boston Com
| mon it was in the vortex of battle in the
| Wilderness. where it lost 81 killed and
wounded, or nearly one man in every TO-
| This loss, which would have been frightful
i'll any regiment, was particularly so to
one under fire for the first time. Yet, it
| gathered its ranks together and marched
on to lose 32 more killed and mortally
wounded al Spottsylyania, and in nearly
| every battle of that terrible campaign it
suffered heavily, until by the time of the
battle of Poplar Springs Church, Sept
30, it could only muster 40 men present
for action, and of these four were killed.
In spite of this frightful loss it main
tanned its spirit at the highest. and in the
June IL assault on Petersburg carried the
works in front of it at the point of the
bayonet, with loss of II killed. 80
wounded and three missing. In less than
one years service it lost ont of its 1852
original enlistment, POI killed. or almost
exactly one in every five, while its wound
ed Were 51J, or nearly one-half of the
total number in the regiment. 1t lost 40
| who died of diseases. and 81 who died in
rebel prisons, making a total death loss of
2S1. and a total of S02 died and wounded.
That is four out of every five of the men
who left Boston Common April 1S, 1864.
were dead OR wounded before their year
Of service terminated.
1t is likely that the volunteers for the
51th Mass. received high bounties. 1t was
the season OF high bounties. Wages were
high at home, the awful risks of war were
by this time well known, and it required
| unusual courage and patriotism to face
the contingencies involved in enlistment.
The bounties, after all, have been grossly
exaggerated in the public mind, because
of the depreciation in the greenback at
that time. In the Spring of 1864 the
greenback was only worth about 81 cents,
aid therefore every 500 bounty that
man received only represented to him as
much as $57 does. to-day Let anyone
who speaks of big bounties ask himself
how much money it would take to induce
him to follow the flag of the 9th Mass.
through those terrible II months. with
every step of those marches marked by
dead men, and with the certainty that he
had so chances of being killed or wounded
to 20 of getting through unhurt. He viii
at once say that all the overgrown surplus
IL the United States Treasury would not
tempt him TO take such fearful risks.
While the case of the 51th Mass. is an
extreme one, there were others almost as
striking. The 18Th Mass. lost 1879 killed.
332 wounded, and 15G died from diseases
and in rebel prisons, or total of CAT ont
of total enlistment of 1892 If other
regiments did not suffer so severely, it
was simply the fate of war. They took
the same chances that the 5Sth Mass. did.
and if they did not get into any of the
same yortices Of destruction, that was
simply their fortune, and not due to any
unwillingness to render the same service
that the other regiments did. As a mat
ter of fact, out of every seven men in the
whole army who put on the blue at
least one was dead before the struggle
ended. These facts should be carefully
considered in discussing the pension ques-
ton. The one-year regiments cited lost
far more in battle in a year of service
than the majority of three-year regiments
in their three years Of service. 1t is true
that they came out late, and for three
years had contributed nothing to the fight
ing Of the great war, but some of them
caught it terribly when at last they did
come in, and they deserve full considera-
ton for the fact. Many thousands of
these later regiments were boys who were
too young TO enlist when the war began.
which must be carefully taken into ac-
count.
Under the per diem system urged by
some, the survivors of the 5Ith and 18Th
Mass regiments wnuil only o.t ca c5