EXECUTIVE MANSION, _April 30, 1888_.
_To the Senate_:
I return without approval Senate bill No. 465, entitled "An act granting
a pension to William Sackman, sr."
The beneficiary named in this bill served from December 24, 1861, to
February 29, 1864, in the Fifth Regiment of the Missouri Militia
Cavalry.
He was discharged on the day last named for disability. His certificate
of discharge states his disability as follows:
Palpitation of the heart and defective lungs, the disability caused by
falling off his horse near Fredericktown, Mo., while intoxicated, on
detached service, in the month of September, 1862. Not having done any
duty since, a discharge would benefit the Government and himself.
It appears that a claim for pension was filed in the year 1881, in which
the claimant alleged that--
At Fredericktown, Mo., about the 10th or 12th of April, 1863, he had
three ribs broken by falling from his horse while surrounded by
guerrillas.
It will be seen that while the certificate of discharge mentions a fall
in September, 1862, no allusion is made to any fracture of ribs, while
the claimant alleges such an injury occurred in April, 1863.
In 1885 the surgeon who made the medical certificate attached to the
discharge, in answer to an inquiry made by the Commissioner of Pensions,
says:
I have to state that I remember the case very distinctly. I made the
examination in person, and was thoroughly acquainted with the case. I
read the statement on which the application for discharge was based to
the man, and he consented to have the papers forwarded as they read.
The application for pension is fraudulent and should not be allowed.
I have omitted references made to the habits of the soldier by this
medical officer.
Of course much reliance should be placed upon these statements made by
an officer whose business it was to know the exact facts, and who made
his certificate at a time when such facts were fresh in his mind. There
is no intimation that the surgeon who made the statement referred to was
inimical to the soldier or influenced by any unjust motive.
The attempt to impeach the record thus made is based upon affidavits
made by a number of the soldier's comrades, who testify to his character
and habits, and only three of whom speak of an injury to the soldier
caused by falling from his horse. Two of these affiants allege that they
were with the claimant on detached duty when his horse took fright and
ran away with him, injuring him so that he could not rise and get on his
horse without assistance. So far as these affidavits are before me, no
date of this occurrence is given, nothing is said as to the character of
the injuries, and no reference is made to the condition of the soldier
at the time. The third affiant, who speaks of an injury, says that it
occurred while on duty on the march from Pilot Knob to Cape Girardeau,
in the year 1862 or 1863, and that it was caused by the soldier's being
thrown from his horse. He says further that the soldier was not
intoxicated at that time.
No mention is made that I can discover of any fracture of the ribs
except in the claimant's application for pension made in 1881, seventeen
years after his discharge, and in a report of an examining surgeon made
in 1882.
With no denial of the soldier's condition, as stated by the surgeon,
on the part of the only parties who claim to have been present at
the time of the injury, I can not satisfy myself, in view of the other
circumstances surrounding this case, that the allegations contained in
the claimant's discharge are discredited.