Charles Jackson Paine (August 26, 1833 – August 12, 1916) was an American railroad executive, soldier, and yachtsman who was a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
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. He was the owner of the Puritan, the Mayflower, and the Volunteer, each of which successfully defended the America's Cup against a British challenger.[2]
Paine 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 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. He reputedly played with red golf balls, so as to be able to find them in the winter among the snowdrifts.[citation needed] Paine helped finance the founding of Middlesex School (Concord, Massachusetts), of which his son-in-law Frederick Winsor was the founder and first headmaster. Paine's interest in sports continued into the next generation: two of his sons, John B. and Sumner, won pistol-shooting events at the first modern Olympic Games (Athens 1896).[2]
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