The First American Army - Bruce Chadwick [123]
Many residents of Boston celebrated the holiday, but not Fisher. The board of inquiry informed him that the government owed him nothing. He had been paid £54 as a bounty for his latest enlistment and he had been owed £54—everything was now even. Fisher argued that he had not collected a £54 bounty in January.
Fisher was bitter and wrote, “If that was the way they meant to use the soldiers . . . If I had notice of it before I had engaged I never would have gone the six months. They just use soldiers. They will promise them that they will give them so and so and after they have got them to enlist they are cheated out of one-half they ought to have by one or another of the officers.”
He was particularly mad at a government official whom he sneered sat “with his great wig” who said that soldiers sometimes were not owed what they believed. He added that those owed money would get it, but that these things took time. “You are wrong for accusing me and talking as you do,” he scolded Fisher, who was not satisfied with his answer and angrily continued to demand his money.
Such disagreements occurred often. Throughout the war, pay and bounties remained hotly contested issues among the enlisted men. They were rarely paid on time; some had no salary for five or six months. An enlisted man’s pay was just $6.70 a month at the start of the war, $7.30 for musicians, and it only increased for both to about $13 per month by its conclusion. Soldiers could buy little on pay that could not keep up with runaway inflation. Americans grumbled, too, that the British enlisted men were paid twice their salaries and could buy what they needed at moderate prices, in English pound sterling, through the British army commissaries, sutlers, and supply depots.
American enlisted men collected bounties from the federal government, states, counties, and even towns to join the Continental Army and the state militia. The state bounty was often higher than money offered by the Continental Congress. Those who had accepted the lower federal amount protested that they should have been awarded the state figure. Some were angry because they may have collected a $20 bounty when they enlisted for three years but later, as the state became desperate for recruits, other soldiers from that same state collected bounties that were four times as high (in 1777 the Continental Army offered a $20 bounty and the Massachusetts militia paid $86).
Bounties later soared to $250 and more (with inflation). These later recruits were also often given a clothing bounty (uniform and blanket) and, later, some land. The American paper money they received usually proved worthless as inflation ravaged the United States. States also awarded bounties based on inflation, so $86 bounties worked out to $25, but could be worth less if U.S. money depreciated even further that year. The soldiers often believed they were fighting for no compensation and felt shortchanged whenever they were involved in financial dealings with the government—just like Fisher.
The four-time enlistee from Attleboro received help from an unexpected quarter that day. A black-haired man named Coffern, either a government worker or bystander, overheard the argument at the government office. He stepped forward and told the government official, “The soldiers have been used very ill as this man said, and they are cheated out of a good deal that they ought to have.”
Coffern turned to Fisher and acted as an intermediary, holding neither side responsible but offering a solution. “Your selectmen [may have] used you ill in respect of sending in the account of the bounty you have received. It may be that there is a mistake and if you get them to certify what bounty you have received you shall have your [money] made up accordingly.”
The representative of the Board of Inquiry said