EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 28, 1886_.
_To the Senate_:
I hereby return without approval Senate bill No. 1850, entitled "An act
granting a pension to Mrs. Annie C. Owen."
The husband of the claimant was mustered into the service as second
lieutenant December 14, 1861, and discharged October 16, 1862. It
appears that he died in 1876 from neuralgia of the heart. In 1883 the
present claimant filed her application for pension, alleging that her
husband received two shell wounds, one in the calf of his left leg and
one in his left side, on the 1st day of July, 1862, and claiming that
they were in some way connected with the cause of his death.
On the records of his command there is no mention made of either wound,
but it does appear that on the 8th day of July, seven days after the
date of the alleged wounds, he was granted a leave of absence for thirty
days on account, as stated in a medical certificate, of "remittent fever
and diarrhea." A medical certificate dated August 5, 1862, while absent
on leave, represents him to be at that time suffering from "chronic
bronchitis and acute dysentery."
The application made for pension by the widow was rejected by the
Pension Bureau February 1, 1886.
There is nothing before me showing that the husband of the claimant ever
filed an application for pension, though he lived nearly fourteen years
after his discharge; and his widow's claim was not made until twenty-one
years after the alleged wounds and seven years after her husband's
death.
If the information furnished concerning this soldier's service is
correct, this claim for pension must be based upon a mistake. It is
hardly possible that wounds such as are alleged should be received in
battle by a second lieutenant and no record made of them; that he should
seven days thereafter receive a leave of absence for other sickness,
with no mention of these wounds, and that a medical certificate should
be made (probably with a view of prolonging his leave) stating still
other ailments, but silent as to wounds. The further facts that he made
no claim for pension and that the claim of his widow was long delayed
are worthy of consideration. And if the wounds were received as
described there is certainly no necessary connection between them and
death fourteen years afterwards from neuralgia of the heart.