Major Henry L. Abbott to Mr. & Mrs. Charles Cushing Paine, July 28, 1863 (Extract)

Near Warrenton Junction, Va., July 28, '63.

There is one thing I can bear testimony to, and that is, your son's wonderful talent in making himself one of the most accomplished officers 1 know in the army, in two months' time. Col. Hall, our brig, commander, tells me that it was not wonderful to him after knowing his brother at West Point. His memory and application were so great that in a month's time he knew the whole book of Tactics and Regulations, and commanded a division on battalion and brigade drill as well as any old officer, besides doing all his guard and police duty, with an exactness, a vigor, an enthusiasm that the comdg. of. in vain tried to stimulate in some of the older officers, sparing neither himself nor his men. When Lt. Paine was Officer of the Guard, his influence was felt by the remotest sentinel on the outskirts of the town. His intelligence and discipline and indomitable resolution, were so fully recognized by Col. Macy that he often spoke of promoting him over nearly all the other 2d Lts., in fact over all with the exception of Summerhayes.

Besides Lt. Summerhayes who saw him as I have described, he was seen by Lt. Perkins during the action; his face, according to both, actually glowing with pleasure, as it used to in Falmouth when he had the best of an argument. I saw him immediately the battle was over, and had the body taken to a small barn in the rear. He was lying flat on his back, close to the clump of trees within fifteen feet of the rail fence where the rebels were forced to halt. His face though very white, was absolutely calm and natural. He was shot through one of his arms and the breast on the same side, which, nobody can remember, whether by a case bullet or by a musket bullet, I can't say, but certainly not by a fragment. One foot was bent clear out from the leg at the ankle, and the ankle was apparently broken by a fragment of a shell.

SOURCE: Sarah Cushing Paine, Compiler and Charles Henry Pope, Editor, Paine Ancestry: The Family of Robert Treat Paine, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, p. 325-6