- Charles Jackson Paine
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Charles Jackson Paine 
General Charles J. PaineBorn August 26, 1833
Boston, MassachusettsDied August 12, 1916 (aged 82)
Weston, MassachusettsAllegiance United States of America
UnionService/branch United States Army
Union ArmyYears of service 1861–1866 Rank Brigadier General Battles/wars American Civil War:
*Siege of Port Hudson
*Siege of PetersburgOther work Railroad executive, Yachtsman Charles Jackson Paine (August 26, 1833 – August 12, 1916) was an American railroad executive, soldier, and yachtsman who was a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
Contents
Biography
Paine was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated at Harvard in 1853 and made a considerable fortune in railroad enterprises. In 1861 he entered the Federal service as a captain in the 22nd Massachusetts Infantry. The next year he was sent to Ship Island, Mississippi. In October, he was commissioned as the colonel of the 2nd Louisiana Volunteers, a black regiment. During the siege of Port Hudson (May 24–July 8, 1863) he commanded a brigade. On March 4, 1864, Paine resigned his commission and returned to Massachusetts.
The following July, he again entered the service as a brigadier general. On September 29, Paine led a division of black troops at New Market Heights, located south of Richmond, Virginia. Paine participated in both expeditions against Fort Fisher (December 1864/January 1865), although his troops played only a minor role. His division was however more actively engaged during the following battle of Wilmington. After the war, he served briefly as the district commander at New Berne, and managed to arrange the retrieval of Robert Gould Shaw's captured sword, so that it could be returned to the bereaved family. On January 15, 1866, he was brevetted as a major general of volunteers.
During his later years, Paine took a great interest in yachting. He was the owner of the Puritan, the Mayflower, and the Volunteer, each of which successfully defended the America's cup against a British challenger.
Paine, along with Charles Eliot, future president of Harvard, was one of the oarsmen in the first boat race between Harvard and Yale (August, 1852), which was the first inter-collegiate sporting event in North America. He would be one of the charter members of The Country Club (Brookline, Massachusetts), the prototype of country clubs everywhere, and built one of the first golf courses in North America in Weston, Massachusetts. He reputedly played with red golfballs, so as to be able to find them in the winter among the snowdrifts. Paine helped finance the founding of Middlesex School (Concord, Massachusetts), of which his son-in-law Frederick Winsor was the founder and first headmaster. Paine's interest in sports continued into the next generation: two of his sons, John B. and Sumner, won pistol-shooting events at the first modern Olympic Games (Athens, 1896).
See also
- List of American Civil War generals
- List of Massachusetts generals in the American Civil War
- Massachusetts in the American Civil War
References
- Sarah Cushing Paine, Charles Henry Pope (1912). Paine Ancestry. The Family of Robert Treat Paine, Signer of the Declaration .... Printed for the family [Press of D. Clapp & Son]. http://books.google.com/books?id=YEhBAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA239&lpg=PA239&dq=%22Charles+Jackson+Paine%22&source=web&ots=H6xiYzYLLa&sig=q0cFSvCDWRGjvCRNR6FqpiWhEYs&hl=en#PPA239,M1. by Sarah Cushing Paine, Charles Henry Pope, published 1912, pages 239-269.
- This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.
External links
- General Charles J. Paine portrait by John Singer Sargent
Categories:- People from Boston, Massachusetts
- Harvard University alumni
- Union Army generals
- People of Massachusetts in the American Civil War
- 19th-century American railroad executives
- Yachting
- America's Cup sailors
- 1833 births
- 1916 deaths
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