EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 26, 1888_.
_To the Senate_:
I return without approval Senate bill No. 1447, entitled "An act
granting a pension to Bridget Foley."
Joseph F. Foley, the husband of the beneficiary named in this bill,
enlisted on the 22d day of August, 1862, and was discharged February 13,
1863, for disability which was certified to arise from chronic
rheumatism contracted prior to enlistment.
He appears to have been sick with rheumatism a large part of the time
he was in the service, and because of that fact never reached a point
nearer the front than the city of Washington.
He died May 13, 1873, of consumption.
His widow filed in 1884 a declaration executed by the deceased shortly
before his death, in which he alleged that he was first attacked with
rheumatism at Capitol Hill, in the District of Columbia, in October,
1862. The soldier never applied for a pension.
It is strenuously disputed that he had this complaint before enlistment.
However this may be, it is certain that he died of consumption, and I
can find no proof that this disease was contracted in the service or had
any relation thereto.