During four months of the twelve while he remained in the service he is reported as “absent sick.”  His hospital record shows that he was treated for intermittent fever and rheumatism.  In 1879, fourteen years after his discharge, he filed his claim for a pension, alleging that in May, 1864, he received a gunshot wound in the right leg while in a skirmish.  The month of May, 1864, is included in the time during which, by the record, he appears to have been absent sick and undergoing treatment for fever and rheumatism.  His claim was rejected in December, 1884, on the ground that there was no record of the alleged wound and the claimant was unable, though aided by the Bureau, to prove that the injury claimed was due to the service.

The evidence recited in the report of the Congressional committee to whom this bill was referred, though it tends to show, if reliable, that when the soldier returned from his service his leg was affected, fails to show a continuous disability from that cause.  It is stated that about five years ago, while the claimant was gathering dandelions, in stepping across a ditch his leg broke.  The doctor who attended him states that the leg was about four weeks longer in uniting than is usual, but he is not represented as giving an opinion that the fracture had anything to do with his patient’s military service.

I find no reference to his condition since his recovery from the fracture of his leg, and there seems to be no allegation of present disability either from army service or the injury sustained while gathering dandelions.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 19, 1886.

To the House of Representatives: 

I return without my approval House bill No. 4002, entitled “An act granting a pension to Carter W. Tiller.”

The records of the War Department show that George W. Tiller, the son of the claimant, enlisted in a Kentucky regiment on the 8th day of October, 1861, and that he deserted on the 20th day of September, 1863; that he was captured by the Confederates afterwards, but the time and circumstances are not given.  On the 21st day of July, 1864, he was admitted to the Andersonville hospital, and died the same day of scorbutus.

The father filed his claim for a pension in 1877, alleging his dependence upon the deceased soldier.  It is probably true that the son while in the Army sent money to the claimant, though he appears to have been employed as a policeman in the city of Louisville ever since his son’s death, at a fair salary.

The claim thus made was rejected by the Pension Bureau on the ground that the claimant was not dependent upon his son.

I am entirely satisfied of the correctness of this determination, and if the records presented to me are reliable I think the fact which appears therefrom, that the death of the soldier occurred ten months after desertion and had no apparent relation to any service in the Union Army, is conclusive against the claim now made.