EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 6, 1888_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return without approval House bill No. 367, entitled "An act granting
a pension to Nathaniel D. Chase."
This beneficiary enlisted September 3, 1863. The records show that
he was admitted to a hospital March 3, 1864, with a disease of a
discreditable nature and by no means connected with the military
service, and that he was discharged from the Army May 20, 1864, upon a
certificate of paralysis of left arm, which came on suddenly February
20, 1864, and that the cause was unknown, but believed not to be
incident to the service.
He filed an application for a pension in June, 1864, alleging paralysis
of the left arm from causes unknown to him.
This claim was not prosecuted at that time, and the claimant reenlisted
in January, 1865, and served until September 5, 1865, without any
evidence of disability appearing upon the records.
He renewed his claim in 1870, stating that he was first taken with a
pain in his left arm about March 1, 1864, and that it became partially
paralyzed.
It will be observed that thus far in his application he gives no
explanation of the incurrence of his disability which leads to the
belief that it was related to his service.
In a letter dated May 31, 1864, his captain states that he can but think
that the disability of the claimant was the result of his folly and
indiscretion, and that he feels it his duty to decline giving him a
certificate.
In 1880 the claimant stated the cause of his disability was an injury to
his arm while expelling a soldier from a railroad train at Augusta, Me.,
he acting as provost guard at the time. Upon this allegation the case
was reopened at the Pension Bureau.
In reply to a letter from the Bureau the captain of claimant's company
stated that he had no knowledge of such an injury. The same officer,
in a letter dated February 25, 1887, expresses the belief that the
disability of the applicant, if any existed, was caused by the
injudicious use of mercurial medicine self-administered for venereal
disease contracted at Augusta, Me., in January, 1864, and that such was
the rumor among his comrades when he was sent to the hospital.
I can not believe that an injury was sustained such as was specified
by the applicant in 1880 and that nothing was said of it either in the
claim made in 1864 or in 1870. In the absence of this or some other
definite cause consistent with an honest claim we are left in the face
of some contrary evidence to guess that his arm was injured in the
service.
The application of this beneficiary is still pending in the Pension
Bureau awaiting further information.