In view of the long and faithful service and high character of the
claimant and the well-established facts that claimant was a stout and
able-bodied man, free from any and all disease when he enlisted, and
that by reason of his faithful service to his country and the great
suffering and hardship through which he passed while in said service
his health was permanently destroyed, the committee earnestly recommend
the passage of the bill.
The records of the War Department show that the claimant enlisted
October 25, 1861, and that on the muster-in roll of his company dated
December 10, 1861, he is reported as present; that on the roll dated
December 31, 1861, he is reported as absent without leave; that on the
roll for January and February, 1862, he is reported as deserted; that he
is not borne on subsequent rolls until that for November, 1864, when he
is reported as gained from desertion; he was mustered out with his
company January 31, 1865, and the records offered no evidence of
disability; that in his claim for pension, filed in 1881, he alleges
that he contracted piles in the winter of 1863.
In a subsequent statement he alleges that this date is erroneous,
and that his disability was contracted in October, 1864, and that he
believes it was the result of his having diarrhea for about twelve
months prior to that date, contracted while he was being carried from
place to place as a prisoner, he having been tried by a court-martial
in May, 1862, for desertion and sentenced to imprisonment until the
expiration of his term of enlistment.
Thus it quite plainly appears that this claimant spent the most of his
term of enlistment in desertion or in imprisonment as a punishment of
that offense; and thus is exhibited the "long and faithful service and
the high character of the claimant" mentioned as entitling him to
consideration by the committee who reported favorably upon this bill.
I withhold my assent from this bill because, if the facts before me,
derived from the army records and the statements of the claimant are
true, the allowance of this claim would, in my opinion, be a travesty
upon our whole scheme of pensions and an insult to every decent veteran
soldier.