EXECUTIVE MANSION, _October 15, 1888_.
_To the Senate_
I herewith return without approval Senate bill No. 3208, entitled "An
act granting a pension to William S. Bradshaw."
The beneficiary mentioned in this bill was mustered into the military
service as first lieutenant on the 28th day of October, 1861.
About eight months afterwards, and in June, 1862, he resigned from the
service, his resignation being based upon a surgeon's certificate which
he procured, and which is as follows:
William S. Bradshaw having applied for a certificate to accompany his
resignation, I do hereby certify that I have carefully examined this
officer and find that his disease is of a chronic pleuritic character,
contracted (previous to his entering the service) four years since from
an injury received in shoeing a fractious horse, in consequence of which
he was laid up for a number of weeks with a severe attack of pleuritis;
that he has never been able to endure severe labor since; that since
entering the service active drilling or marching has invariably
developed severe pleuritic pains about his chest and underneath his
sternum, rendering him totally unfit for duty.
It is entirely evident that the statements contained in this certificate
are of such a nature that they must have almost entirely been
communicated to the surgeon by the officer himself. It will be observed
that there is an absolute lack of any intimation that his disabilities
were attributable in their origin to army service, and he surely can not
ask us to believe that a man with the intelligence fitting him to be a
commissioned officer in the Army, and having this certificate in his
possession, did not know what it contained.
It furnished the reason for his honorable discharge in the dark days of
his country's need and operated as an exemption from further military
service.
And yet in September, 1883, more than twenty-one years after his dis;
charge, he applied to the Pension Bureau for a pension, alleging
lameness of breast and back, contracted in the service.
After an examination of all the facts I can not believe that this is a
case in which a pension should be granted.