William Schouler, A history of Massachusetts in the Civil War: Volume 2

1862. July 26th, Voted, to pay a bounty of one hundred dollars to all volunteers who have already enlisted or may hereafter enlist and be credited to the quota of the town, and an additional fifty dollars to all who remain in the service one year, and an extra bounty of twenty-five dollars to each who shall enlist ‘between this time and Monday next at 9 o'clock P. M.’¹ The selectmen were authorized ‘to open a recruiting office forthwith,’ and the treasurer to borrow money. August 30th, The selectmen were authorized to pay a bounty of one hundred dollars to each volunteer for nine months service.

1863. April 6th, The selectmen were directed to provide for the comfort of indigent widows and families of volunteers who had died in the service. November 3d, Voted, to pay a bounty of five hundred dollars to each volunteer who enlists for three years and is credited to the town. The treasurer was authorized to borrow money to pay the same.

1864. November 8th, The selectmen were authorized ‘to furnish such aid as they may think proper to the families of indigent and deceased soldiers.’

Leicester furnished two hundred and seventy-two men for the war, which was a surplus of sixteen over and above all demands. Six were commissioned officers. The whole amount of money appropriated and expended by the town for military purposes, exclusive of State aid, was thirty thousand two hundred and seventy-five dollars and eighty-six cents ($30,275.86).

The amount of money raised and expended by the town for State aid to soldiers during the war, and repaid by the Commonwealth, was as follows: In 1861, $332.29; in 1862, $2,751.13; in 1863, $4,100; in 1864, $3,400; in 1865, $1,800. Total amount, $12,383.42.

The ladies of Leicester were unremitting in their good works all through the war. One venerable lady, upwards of eighty years of age, knit with her own hands over one hundred pairs of woollen socks for the soldiers.