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John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life, chapter 7 (search)
very large majority of them wished to send the most of their pay home to their families or their friends for safe keeping. Of course there was some risk attending the sending of it in the mails. To obviate this risk an allotment plan was adopted by means of which when the troops were visited by the paymaster, on signing a roll prepared for that purpose, so much of their pay as they wished was allotted or assigned by the soldiers to whomsoever they designated at the North. To illustrate: John Smith had four months pay due him at the rate of $13 a month. He decided to allot $10 per month of this to his wife at Plymouth, Mass.; so the paymaster pays him $12, and the remaining $40 is paid to his wife by check in Plymouth, without any further action on the part of John. This plan was a great convenience to both the soldiers and their families. In this division of his income the calculation of the soldier was to save out enough for himself to pay all incidental expenses of camp lif