EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 6, 1886_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I herewith return without approval House bill No. 4642, entitled "An act
granting a pension to James Carroll."
The claimant alleges that he was wounded while in the service as a
member of Company B, Third Regiment North Carolina Mounted Volunteers,
while securing recruits for the regiment at Watauga, N.C., January 25,
1865.
The records of the War Department develop the fact that the name of this
man is not borne upon any roll of the company to which he claims to
belong.
He stated in his application that he was sworn in by one George W.
Perkins, who, it appears, was a private in said company, and that
Perkins was with him at the time he was shot.
This is undoubtedly true, and that the claimant was injured by a gunshot
is also probably true. He was not, however, at the time regularly in the
United States service, but this objection might in some circumstances
be regarded as technical. The difficulty is that the fact that he was
creditably employed in a service of benefit to the country is not
satisfactorily shown. He gives two accounts of the business in which he
was engaged, and Mr. Perkins's explanation of the manner in which the
two were occupied is somewhat different still.
Carroll's claim, presented to the Pension Bureau, was rejected upon
the ground that there was no record of his service on file; but in his
testimony he stated that Perkins was wounded on the same occasion as
himself, and that he (Perkins) was then a pensioner on account thereof.
The records of the Pension Bureau show that Perkins was pensioned in
1873 on account of three wounds received at the time and place of
Carroll's injury.
It also appears that his name was dropped from the rolls in 1877 on the
ground that his wounds were not received in the line of duty.
After an investigation made at that time by a special examiner, he
reported that Perkins and Carroll had collected a number of men
together, who made their headquarters at the home of Carroll's mother
and were engaged in plundering the neighborhood, and that on account of
their depredations they were hunted down by home guards and shot at the
time they stated.
If this report is accepted as reliable, it should of course lead to the
rejection of the claim for pension on the part of Mr. Carroll.