The Supreme Court of Wisconsin. and chief ornament" of the bench. Certain it is, that in his massive strength, simplicity and sweetness of character, his chivalric de votion to his convictions, he was a most interesting and lovable character. Strong in body, robust, frank, sympathetic, keenly enjoying life in temperate ways, a model for imitation in all the duties of social life, he was a " marked man." Says Ryan, his op posite in political opinion and in general views of life and its duties, " His character was uncommon. There was no possibility of confounding him with the crowd of re spectable mediocrity. He was a high type of manhood, physical, mental, and moral. He was strong in all the nobler attributes of humanity; singularly free from all its meaner weaknesses. . . . But, above all his intellectual capacities., towered in him a singular purity of life and character. Able as he was, and equal to every position of life in which he was placed, the man's character was as transparent and simple as a little child's. In him, everything was open, direct and unaffected. The taint of impos ture never sullied his mind; the shadow of guile never fell upon it. His passionate love of truth was a mere instinct of his native disposition." In 1864, he resigned from the bench to take part in the great struggle in which the country was then engaged. He was com missioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fortythird Wisconsin Infantry, and served in the field until the close of the war. He then resigned, returned to Milwaukee, and en tered upon the practice of the law. Judge Paine was not a man to seek the bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth. His nature was too humane, too philan thropic for him to regard killing people a desirable vocation. But he was of the stuff, morally and intellectually, that makes men walk the path of duty though swept with mitrail. He served in Tennessee in com mand of the Forty-third Wisconsin Infantry. It was stationed at Johnsonville, on the
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Tennessee River, guarding a western out post to keep Forrest and other Confederate raiders from tapping the long line of railroad that carried supplies to Sherman's army, while it was fighting, inch by inch, its way to Atlanta in the bloody summer and autumn of 1864. "That infernal cracker line," as General Sherman called it, kept thousands of troops on the alert, and stretched along from Louisville to the front. Colonel Paine's command may be said to have stood listen ing, month after month, for the approach of Confederate cavalry. It came at last while Hood was marching on Nashville, in Novem ber, 1864; and for three days the command was under the fire of the enemy's artillery, planted across the river. Later it marched to Decherd, Tennessee, on the Nashville and Chattanooga railroad, and there finished its year of service. On the loth of September, 1867, he was recalled to the bench. Judge Downer hav ing resigned, Governor Fairchild but antici pated the general wish in appointing him to fill the vacancy. The following election he was elected by the people for the residue of the term. But his career, so full of success and bright with promise of future usefulness, was soon to close. He appeared in the con sultation rooms for the last time, November 23, 1870. An attack of pneumonia was followed by a virulent form of erysipelas.. On the 1 3th of January, 1871, he died, honored and esteemed by the bar as few are, beloved by his brethren of the bench, and most affectionately regarded by thou sands for his goodness. An instance of his courage and loyalty to conviction was shown amid the fiercest ex citements of the war. He, with his brethren of the bench, discharged on the writ of habeas corpus, prisoners held in military camps on military warrants, denying the doctrine that martial law could prevail, or the writ of habeas corpus be suspended any where in the country where the laws were
