Whether this company was organized for the purpose of cooperating at any time with the Union or State forces is not alleged, and it may well have been existing merely for the purpose of neighborhood protection.

Such as it was, the company was ordered in June, 1861, to proceed to Cumberland to repel a threatened attack of Confederate forces.  Upon arriving at that place the men were ordered to uncap their muskets.  In doing this, and through the negligence of another member of the company, whose musket was discharged, the claimant was wounded.

It does not seem to me that the facts in this case, so far as they have been developed, justify the passage of this act.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 5, 1886.

To the House of Representatives: 

I herewith return without approval House bill No. 4226, entitled “An act granting a pension to Fannie E. Evans.”

The beneficiary named in this bill is the widow of George S. Evans.  He was a soldier in the Mexican War, and entered the Union Army in the War of the Rebellion, on the 16th day of October, 1861, as major of a California regiment.  He became a colonel in February, 1863, and resigned in April of that year, to take effect on the 31st of May ensuing.

His resignation seems to have been tendered on account of private matters, and no mention was then made of any disability.  It is stated in the committee’s report to the House that in 1864 he accepted the office of adjutant-general of the State of California, which he held for nearly four years.

He died in 1883 from cerebral apoplexy.

In March, 1884, his widow filed an application for pension, based upon the allegation that from active and severe service in a battle with the Indians at Spanish Fort in 1863 her husband incurred a hernia, which incapacitated him for active service.

There appears to be evidence to justify this statement, notwithstanding the fact that the deceased during the twenty years that followed before his death made no claim for such disability.

But it seems to me that the effort to attribute his death by apoplexy to the existence of hernia ought not to be successful.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 5, 1886.

To the House of Representatives: 

I herewith return without approval House bill No. 2971, entitled “An act granting a pension to Francis Deming.”

This claimant entered the service in August, 1861, and was discharged
September 15, 1865.

His hospital record shows that during his service he was treated for various temporary ailments, among which rheumatism is not included.

He filed an application for pension in September, 1884, alleging that in
August, 1864, he contracted rheumatism, which had resulted in blindness.

On an examination of his case in November, 1884, he stated that his eyesight began to fail in 1882.