May 11, 1861: The New Jersey legislature authorized a “state pay” bounty to volunteers serving in the state’s Civil War regiments. The bill instituted a $4 monthly payment above and beyond the $11 federal pay rate for privates for single men and an additional $6 to those with wives or widowed mothers. As the pay of private soldiers was raised during the war, the state pay to individuals was ended, but the dependent pay remained in effect to the end of the war. New Jersey’s regular army and Navy personnel and African-American soldiers serving in the United States Colored Troops were not included in either state bounty until they were granted the dependent allowance in March, 1865.
May 11, 1934: The Midwestern “Dust Bowl” came to New Jersey, as the Trenton Evening Times reported a “yellowish, mud-like hue” drifting in from the west in the skies over the state capital.
Find out what's happening in Wallwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Photo: This image, long thought to have been taken at Petersburg in 1864, is actually of the 1st Division of the Sixth Army Corps at Fredericksburg on May 3, 1863. The 1st NJ Brigade was in that division so these may well be NJ soldiers in the field.
