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were received, and the whole number of men thus claimed was 16,181.
In arranging the names in order that the credits might be given, twenty-five clerks were employed in the daytime by the Adjutant-General, and an equal number during the night, for several weeks, as the work had to be completed on or before the fifth day of September, the day fixed for the draft.
The Secretary of War decided that only three years men should be counted as a unit: some men had enlisted for one year, some for two years; but the great majority were three years men. It took three one year's men to count one, and three two years men to count two.
The total number of enlistments, when reduced to a three years term of service, was 16,625 men. The number of enlistments claimed by the several cities and towns was allowed them, and there was a surplus left of 7,605 men, which were distributed, pro rata, to the several cities and towns in the Commonwealth.
None of the men were entitled to the State bounty, although their families were to receive the State aid.
On the 11th of April, 1864, the Legislature passed a law allowing a bounty of $100 to men who should enlist for three years in the navy after that date, and be credited to this State; to men who enlisted for two years, $66.66; and to one year's men, $33.33: and imposed upon the Adjutant-General the duty of making out the bounty-rolls.
From Feb. 24 to Dec. 1, 1864, 3,808 men enlisted in the navy, and were placed to the credit of the Commonwealth; making the total number of men who had enlisted in the navy from Massachusetts, up to that date (Dec. 1, 1864), 26,168, which completed a contingent of every town in the State upon all the calls made by the President, and left a surplus of 13,083 men.
The law passed Nov. 18, 1863, by the Massachusetts Legislature, provided that ‘residents of any town, or ward of a city, in this Commonwealth, enlisting in any other town or ward, shall, nevertheless, be counted on the quota of the town or ward of which the person is a resident, until the quota of that town or ward is filled.’
Upwards of a thousand contested
1868. E. P. DUtton and Co. Boston,.
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