EXECUTIVE MANSION, _August 22, 1888_.
_To the Senate_:
I return without approval Senate bill No. 2370, entitled "An act
granting a pension to Sarah C. Anderson and children under 16 years
of age."
William H. Anderson, the husband and the father of the beneficiaries
named in this bill, enlisted on the 27th day of August, 1862, and is
reported as sick or absent a large part of his short term of service. He
was discharged April 23, 1863, to date November 5, 1862, on a surgeon's
certificate of disability for "tertiary syphilis, with ulcerated throat
and extensive nodes on the tibia of both legs."
He never filed an application for pension. He was admitted to an insane
asylum in September, 1883, suffering with epilepsy, chronic diarrhea,
and dementia, and died of pneumonia on the 26th day of February, 1884.
His symptoms and troubles after his discharge, so far as they are
stated, are entirely consistent with the surgeon's certificate of
disability given at the time of his discharge, and there seems to be an
entire lack of testimony connecting in any reasonable way his death with
any incident of his military service.