Background
Paine was born August 26, 1833, in Boston, Massachusetts, son of Charles Cushing Paine and Fannie Cabot Jackson, and great-grandson of Robert Treat Paine, one of the signers of the United States Declaration of Independence.
Paine was born August 26, 1833, in Boston, Massachusetts, son of Charles Cushing Paine and Fannie Cabot Jackson, and great-grandson of Robert Treat Paine, one of the signers of the United States Declaration of Independence.
Brother of Robert Treat P. G.g.s. Robert Treat P. (signer Declaration of Independence). Bachelor of Arts, Harvard, 1853, Master of Arts, 1858.
Admitted to Massachusetts bar, 1856.
Shalbourne Village website
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 first colonel of the 2nd Louisiana Infantry.
During the siege of Portuguese 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.
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 reputedly played with red golfballs, so as to be able to find them in the winter among the snowdrifts.
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.
Married Julia, daughter