Eleazer Arthur Paine (September 10, 1815 – December 16, 1882) was an American lawyer, author and a Union officer from Ohio.

He provoked controversy as a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, while commanding occupation troops in western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee in the 1860s.

After being educated in local schools, Paine received an appointment to the United States Military Academy and graduated in the Class of 1839 at West Point.

[1] In 1843, Paine wrote and published a training manual entitled Military Instructions; Designed for the Militia and Volunteers.

He subsequently headed the District of West Kentucky, where his men were deployed guarding railroads from Confederate raiders from November 1862 until April 1864.

[5] On April 29, 1864, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman reassigned Paine and a regiment of his infantry to a post in Tullahoma, Tennessee, to guard bridges crossing the Duck and Elk rivers.

A special military commission investigating Paine's actions in Kentucky and Tennessee found him guilty on several counts, including corruption, extortion, unjust taxation, fencing stolen goods, sending innocent civilians to Canada, and immorality.

Several modern historians have questioned the accuracy of the findings of this commission, as the investigators were aligned with the Union Democrats (pro-union, pro-slavery).

Confederate cavalry and guerillas operated with impunity in much of the Purchase, and Paine believed he needed strict military rule to keep control.

According to Kentucky historian Berry Craig, "In the last analysis evidence is strong that the local animus toward Paine, perpetuated by nineteenth and twenty century historians, was rooted in his strongly held abolitionist views, in his support for the enlistments of African Americans into the Union forces and in his belief in black equality with whites.