William Schouler, A history of Massachusetts in the Civil War: Volume 1

[540] expended, as the couriers took care of our disabled and suffering men when on board rail-cars, and saw that they were properly provided for at their places of destination.

On the 18th of February, the Governor received a letter from Major-General Wool, containing forty-seven dollars in Southern bills, ‘worth perhaps fifty cents on the dollar. This money was sent to the commandant of the Fifteenth Regiment. It was sent to Private Gilchrist at Richmond, and was returned to Fortress Monroe. Not knowing what to do with it, I have taken the liberty,’ says General Wool, ‘to send it to you, to make such disposition of it as you may judge proper.’

The first colonel of the Fifteenth Regiment was Charles Devens, who had been appointed by the President brigadier-general of volunteers, and was, at the time this letter was written, in command of the camp for drafted men at Long Island, Boston Harbor. The Governor transmitted General Wool's letter to General Devens, who wrote an answer to it Feb. 22, in which he gives an interesting account of this money. He said that the money properly belonged to the Fifteenth Regiment; that, in the winter of 1861-62, he sent to Captain Studley, in Richmond, two hundred dollars for the benefit of the prisoners there, belonging to the Fifteenth Regiment. Captain Studley was himself a prisoner in Richmond. He was to expend the money for the men according to his own discretion. The money had been sent to him by some friends in Boston, after the disaster at Ball's Bluff, and was part of a larger sum ($1,000), to be expended in any way he thought proper. When the two hundred dollars arrived in Richmond, a portion of the men of the Fifteenth had been sent to Salisbury, N. C. Captain Studley sent this sum of forty-seven dollars for them to Sergeant Taft, who had died in prison before the money arrived. Although the men were told of the money, the jailer would not give it to them, and the money was sent back to the regiment. A second attempt was made to get the money to the men in Salisbury, by sending it to Private Gilchrist; but he had been released before it reached that place. General Devens was not aware what had become of the money, although he knew that it had not been received,