She concedes that she is unable to furnish any evidence of the date or the cause of her husband's death.
It appears that he left home in March, 1874, for the purpose of finding work, and neither she nor her friends have ever heard from him since. His death may naturally be presumed, and the condition of his family is such that it would be a positive gratification to aid them in the manner proposed; but the entire and conceded absence of any presumption, however weak, that he died from any cause connected with his military service seems to render it improper to place the widow's name upon the pension rolls.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 23, 1886.
To the House of Representatives:
I return without approval House bill No. 7108, entitled "An act granting a pension to Andrew J. Wilson."
It appears that this man was drafted and entered the service in February, 1865, and was discharged in September of the same year on account of "chronic nephritis and deafness."
In 1882 he filed his application for a pension, alleging that in June, 1865, from exposure, he contracted rheumatism. Afterwards he described his trouble as inflammation of the muscles of the back, with pain in the kidneys. In another statement, filed in December, 1884, he alleges that while in the service he contracted diarrhea and was injured in one of his testicles, producing a rupture.
Whatever else may be said of this claimant's achievements during his short military career, it must be conceded that he accumulated a great deal of disability.
There is no doubt in my mind that whatever ailments he may honestly lay claim to, his title to the same was complete before he entered the Army.