WAR DEPARTMENT, 
ADJUTANT GENERAL’S OFFICE, 
Washington, July 15, 1864. 
The Paymaster General, U. S. Army-:— 
Sir:—1 enclose herewith a copy of an opinion of the Attorney 
General, dated July 14, 1864, as to the rates of pay to be allowed 
Colored Troops. 
The Secretary of War directs that the Colored Troops in the service 
of the United States be paid in accordance with the determination 
of the Attorney General. 
L am, sir, very respectfully, 
Your obedient servant, 
E. D. TOWNSEND, 
Assistant Adjutant General. Attorney General’s Office, 
July 14. 18f,4. 
To the President: — 
Sir :—By your communication of the 24th ultimo, you require my 
opinion in writing as to what amounts of pay, bounty and clothing 
are allowed by law to persons of color who were free on the 19th 
day of April, 1861, and who have been enlisted and mustered into 
the military service of the United Stases between the month of 
December, 1862, and the 16th of June, 1864. 
I suppose that whatever doubt or difficulty may exist with regard 
to the amount of pay and allowances to which the soldiers to whom 
you refer are entitled, has mainly its origin in the several provisions 
of the Act of July 17th, 1862, chap. 201, (12 st. 599,) relative to the 
employment and enrolment of persons of African descent in the 
service of the United States. The 12th section of that statute pro- 
vides, “ that the President be and he is hereby authorized to receive 
into the service of the United States, for the purpose of constructing 
entrenchments or performing camp service, or any other labor, or 
any military or naval service for which they may be found competent, 
persons of African descent ; and such persons shall be enrolled and 
organized under such regulations, not inconsistent with the Consti- 
tution and laws, as the President may prescribe." The 15th section 
of the same statute enacts, that ‘'persons of African descent who 
under this law shall be employed, shall receive ten dollars per month 
and one ration, three dollars of which monthly pay may bn in 
clothing.” 
The first and main question, therefore, is, whether the persons of 
color referred to in your letter, who were mustered into the military 
service of the United States during the period of time which you 
indicate, are “persons of African descent” employed under the 
statute of July 17th, 1862, chap. 201. If they are not thus employed, 
their compensation should not be governed and is not regulated by 
the words of the 15th section of that statute, which I have just quoted. 
Now, I think that it is clear—too clear indeed to admit of doubt 
or discussion—that those persons of color who have voluntarily 
enlisted, and have been mustered into our military service, who have 
been organized with appropriate officers into companies, regiments 
and brigades of soldiers, and who have done, and are doing, in the field and in garrison, the duty and service of soldiers of the United 
States, are not persons of African descent employed under the statute 
to which I have referred. 
I do not find indeed, in the Act any authority to enlist persons of 
African descent into the service, as soldiers. It will be observed 
that the said 12th section enumerates two kinds of employment for 
which those persons are authorized to be enrolled, namely:—con- 
structing intrenchments and performing camp service. The section 
then contains a more general authority—authority to receive such 
persons into the service for the purpose of performing “any other 
labor, or any military or naval service for which they may be found 
competent/’ I am bound, however, by every rule of law respecting 
the construction of statutes, to construe these words of more general 
authority with reference to the character, nature and quality of the 
particular kinds of labor and service which are, in the first instance, 
specifically enumerated in the statute, as those for the performance 
of which persons of African descent are authorized to be received 
into the service ; and therefore, I must suppose that Congress, when 
it conferred authority upon the President to receive into the service 
of the United States persons of African descent, for the purpose of 
performing any other labor or any military service for which they 
may be found competent, meant and intended that other labor and 
military service should be of the same general character, nature and 
quality as that which it had previously in the statute specially 
named and designated. “Always in statutes,” says Coke, “rela- 
tion shall be made according to the matter precedent.” Dwarris 
says: “ Sometimes words and sections are governed and explained 
by conjoined words and clauses: noscitur a socio.” (Dwarris on 
statute 604.) 
Applying these rules of construction then to the Act befoi'e me, I 
am constrained to hold, that if the authority to enlist and muster 
into the military service soldiers of African descent depended upon 
that statute, (as it does not,,) it would furnish no foundation for such 
authority. It is manifest that the labor and service that United 
States soldiers are enlisted to perform, are of an essentially different 
character from, and are essentially of a higher nature, order and 
quality than those kinds of labor and service specifically named in 
the statute, and for the performance of which the President is spe- 
cially authorized to employ “persons of African descent.” In my late opinion in the case of the claim of Rev. Samuel Harrison, for 
full pay as Chaplain of the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts Volun- 
teers, I expressed the same view when I said, that the Act of July 
17, 1862. chapter 201, “was not intended either to authorize the 
employment or to fix the pay of any persons of African descent, 
except those who might be needed to perform the humble offices of 
labor and service for which they might be found competent." 
This view finds confirmation in a statute that received the appro- 
val of the President on the same day as the Act before me—the 
statute of July 17, 1862, Chapter 195, (12 statute 592,)—which con- 
ferred on the President authority to employ as many persons of 
African descent as he might deem necessary and proper for the 
suppression of the rebellion, and gave him power to organize and 
use them in such manner as he might judge best, for the public 
welfare. In these words we may find clear and ample authority for 
the enlistment of persons of African descent as United States 
soldiers. It is under this Act, if under either of the Acts of July 
17, 1862, that colored volunteer soldiers may be said to have been 
employed. There is no need to resort therefore to the statute of 
July 17, 1862, chapter 201, for any authority with respect to their 
employment, or for any rule in regard to their compensation. 
Persons of African descent employed as soldiers are not embraced 
at all as I have shown by the Act of July 17, 1862, chapter 201, as 
objects or subjects of legislation ; and we must therefore look to 
some other law for the measure of their compensation. 
I find the law for the compensation of the persons of color referred 
to in your letter to me, in the Acts of Congress, in force at the dates 
of the enlistments of those persons, respecting the amount of pay 
and bounty to be given, and the amount and kind of clothing to be 
allowed to soldiers in the volunteer forces of the United States. 
For after a careful and critical examination, I believe, of every 
statute enacted since the foundation of the present Government 
relative to the enlistment of soldiers in the regular and volunteer 
forces of the United States, I have found no law which at any time 
prohibited the enlistment of free colored men into either branch of 
the national military service. The words of Congress, descriptive of 
the recruits competent to enter the service were, in the Act of April 
30, 1790, “ able bodied men not under five feet six inches in height 
without shoes ; not under the age of eighteen nor above the age of forty-five;” in the Act of March 3, 1795, ‘‘able-bodied of at leapt 
five feet six inches in height, and not under the age of eighteen nor 
above the age of forty-six yearsin the Act of March 3, 1799, 
“able-bodied and of a size and age suitable for the public service, 
according to the directions which the President of the United States 
shall and may establish in the Act of March 16, 1802, “ effective 
able-bodied citizens of the United States of at least five feet six 
inches high and between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years 
in the Acts of December 24, 1811, January 11, 1812, January 20, 
1813, and January 27, 1814, “effective able-bodied men;" in the 
Act of December 10, 1814, ‘'free effective able-bodied men between 
the ages of eighteen and forty-five years;” and in the Act of Jan- 
uary 12, 1847, “able-bodied men.” Some of the foregoing statutes 
are obsolete ; others of them are still in force, and furnished, before 
the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, the rule by which the 
validity of the enlistments of persons alleged to have been minors, 
was every day tried in the State and Federal courts. They organ 
ized the military establishments of the United States in time of 
peace and in time of war. They embrace the periods of all the 
wars, pi'eviously to the present, in which the United States has been 
engaged. By no one of them was or is the enlistment of free colored 
men into the military service of the United States, whether as vol- 
unteers or as regulars, prohibited. 
After the war of 1812, claims for bounty land preferred by persons 
of color who had enlisted and served in the army under the statutes 
of 24th December, 1811, January 11, 18l2, and December 10, 1814, 
were sustained as valid by the then Attorney General, William 
Wirt, (1 Opin., 603.) And when I turn to more recent statutes— 
those which authorized the raising, and regulate the organization 
of the whole body of the volunteer forces now in the field, and pro- 
vided for the maintenance and increase of the regular forces 
in the service—I discover throughout them no other statutory quali- 
fications for recruits than those established by the earliest legisla- 
tion to which I have referred. 
It is not needed that I should specially recite the words of those 
acts of Congress that provide for the pay, bounty and clothing to be 
allowed to soldiers in the volunteer military service of the United 
States. It is enough to say that under the statutes relative to 
those subjects and in force during the period of time mentioned in 6 
your communication, all volunteers competent and qualified to be 
members of the national forces, are entitled respectively to receive 
like amounts of pay, bounty and clothing from the Government. 
In view, therefore, of the foregoing considerations, I give it to 
you unhesitatingly as my opinion that the same pay, bounty, and 
clothing are allowed by law to the persons of color referred to in 
your communication, and who were enlisted and mustered into the 
military service of the United States between the months of Decem- 
ber, 1862, and the 16th of June, 1864, as are by the laws existing at 
the times of the enlistments of said persons, authorized and pro- 
vided for, and allowed to other soldiers in the volunteer forces of the 
United States of like arms of the service. 
1 have the honor to be, 
Very respectfully, 
Your obedient servant, 
EDW. BATES, 
Attorney General. 
Rates of Pay allowed Colored Troops. 
Extract from u An Act making appropriations for the support of 
the army for the year ending the thirtieth June, eighteen hundred 
and sixty-five, and for other purposes:” 
Sue. 2. And be it further enacted, That all persons of color who 
have been or may be mastered into the military service of the United 
States shall receive the same uniform, clothing, arms, equipments, 
camp equipage, rations, medical and hospital attendance, pay and 
emoluments, other than bounty, as other soldiers of the regular or 
volunteer forces of the United States of like arm of the service, 
from and after the first day of January, eighteen hundred and sixty- 
four ; and that every person of color who shall hereafter be mus- 
tered into the service shall receive such sums in bounty as the Presi- 
dent shall order in the different States and parts of the United 
States, not exceeding one hundred dollars. Sec. 8. And be it further enacted, That all persons enlisted and 
mustered into service as volunteers under the call, dated October 
seventeen, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, for three hundred 
thousand volunteers, who were at the time of enlistment actually 
enrolled and subject to draft in the State in which they volunteered, 
shall receive from the United States the same amount of bounty 
without regard to color. 
Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That all persons of color who 
were free on the nineteenth day of April, eighteen hundred and 
sixty-one, and who have been enlisted and mustered into the mili- 
tary service of the United States, shall, from the time of their enlist- 
ment, be entitled to receive the pay, bounty, and clothing allowed 
to such persons by the laws existing at the time of their enlistment. 
And the Attorney General of the United States is hereby author- 
ized to determine any question of law arising under this provision. 
And if the Attorney General aforesaid shall determine that any of 
such enlisted persons are entitled to receive any pay, bounty, or 
clothing, in addition to what they have already received, the Secre- 
tary of War shall make all necessary regulations to enable the pay 
department to make payment in accordance with such determination. 
Approved June 15, 1864. 
Circular, 
No. 60. 
WAR DEPARTMENT, 
ADJUTANT GENERAL’S OFFICE, 
Washington, August 1, 1864. 
In pursuance of Section 4, of the Act of Congress making appro- 
priations for the support of the Army for the year ending thirtieth 
of June, eighteen hundred and sixty-five, and for other purposes, 
approved July 4, 1864, all officers commanding'regiments, batteries, 
and independent companies of colored troops, will immediately 
make a thorough investigation and individual examination of the 
men belonging to their commands, who were enlisted prior to Janu- 
ary 1, 1864, with a view to ascertain'ng who of them were free men 
on or before April 19, 1861. The fact of freedom to be determined 8 
in each case on the statement of the soldier, under oath, taken in 
connection with the most reliable information that can be obtained 
from other sources. And when, in view of all the facts in each 
case, commanding officers are of the opinion that any enlisted men 
of their commands were free on the date aforesaid, they will, upon 
the next muster rolls, enter the following remark opposite the 
names of such soldiers, viz: “ Free, on or before April 19, 1801 
and such soldiers shall be mustered for pay accordingly. Such 
muster shall be authority for the Pay Department to pay said sol- 
diers from the time of their entry into service to the 1st day of 
January, 1864, the difference between the pay received by them as 
soldiers under their present enlistments, and the full pay allowed 
by law at the same period to white soldiers. 
Bv ORDER OK THE SECRETARY OF WaR : 
E. 1). TOWNSEND, 
Assistant Adjutant General.