Medical opinions are produced tending to show that drowning was not the cause of death.
No post mortem examination was had, and it seems to me it must be conceded that a conclusion that death was in any degree the result of wounds received in military service rests upon the most unsatisfactory conjecture.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 12, 1889.
To the House of Representatives:
I return without approval House bill No. 5752, entitled "An act for the relief of Julia Triggs."
This beneficiary filed an application for pension in 1882, claiming that her son, William Triggs, died in 1875 from the effects of poison taken during his military service in water which had been poisoned by the rebels and in food eaten in rebel houses, which had also been poisoned.
He was discharged from the Army with his company July 24, 1865, after a service of more than four years.
The cause of his death is reported to have been an abscess of the lung.
The case was specially examined, and the evidence elicited to support the claim of poisoning appears to have been anything but satisfactory.