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his message recommended the provisions of an Act which passed the Massachusetts Legislature November 16 in words as follows: ‘An Act to make up the Deficiencies in the
Monthly Pay of the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Regiments,’ etc., and Section I. of this Act read as follows:—
‘There shall be paid out of the Treasury of the Commonwealth to the non-commissioned officers, musicians, and privates of the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth regiments of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, to those who have been honorably discharged from the service, and to the legal representatives of those who have died in the service, such sums of money as, added to the amounts paid them by the United States, shall render their monthly pay and allowances from the time of their being mustered into the service of the United States equal to that of the other non-commissioned officers, musicians, and privates in the volunteer or regular military service of the United States.’
Upon the receipt of a copy of the
Governor's address and the Act,
Colonel Hallowell, on November 23, wrote to
Governor Andrew, that notwithstanding the generous action of the
State authorities, the men of the Fifty-fourth had enlisted as other soldiers from
Massachusetts, and that they would serve without pay until mustered out, rather than accept from the
United States less than the amount paid other soldiers.
Enlisted men were not less prompt to write to their friends expressing their disapprobation.
Theodore Tilton, in a communication to the Boston Journal, dated New York, Dec. 12, 1863, quotes from a letter received by him ‘from a Massachusetts soldier in the Fifty-fourth’:—
A strange misapprehension exists as to the matter of pay, and it pains us deeply.
We came forward at the call of Governor Andrew, in which call he distinctly told us that we were to be
