January 7, 1865
Meeting of the Board of Supervisors.:A meeting of the Board of Supervisors of this county was held at the Court House Monday afternoon.
The committee appointed to negotiate a lean for the payment of $300 bounty to the seventy-three men who were murdered in, in excess of the call of last spring, reported that they had been successful in securing the loan, and the President and Clerk of the Board were instructed to execute bongs for the payment of the same.
A communication from members of Battery C, First Light Artillery, to the Secretary of War, asking that eighty-four men be permitted to change their credits from this county to any other they may choose, was laid before the Board. From what we can learn of the affair, it seems that the eighty-four men were credited to this couny [sic] about the middle of April last. The quota of the county had been filled during the previous month, and of course no bounty was being paid. The man represent that they enlisted with the idea of receiving $300 bounty, and as that was not given them, they ask permission to change their credit. This is a matter of deep concern to the tax papers of this county as more is involved in its decision than the payment of bounty to the eighty-four men. The present demand is acceded to, and the bounty allowed these eighty-four men, who were subsequently mustered into the service and credited to this county, can come forward and make the same demand. On the other hand if the eighty-four men are permitted to change their credits, the one hundred and sixty-six others may claim the same right. If such a precedent is established by the Secretary of War, what is to prevent every man in the army making change of his credit whenever he may feel so disposed. A soldier may be bolstered in and credited to one county, and subsequently learn that he can receive a heavier bounty in an adjoining State or county, and petition the Secretary of War for "a change of base," and so on, until it will be an impossibility to determine to what county or State a man belongs. If these men are permitted to change their credit, the quota of this county under the recent call for 300,000, will fall short, and we will be compelled to make up the deficiency by enlistment or draft. The Board took no action in the matter, but adjourned over until Thursday week, by which time and expression of our people is expected to be had.
Timeline of West Virginia: Civil War and Statehood: January 1865