Rochelle, Ill.
Please tell whether a married woman can take up government land in place of her husband, and oblige at least one of your readers,
C. A. Reynolds.
Answer.—Under the pre-emption laws, which restrict the pre-emption privilege to heads of families, widows, or single persons over the age of 21, who are citizens of the United States or who have declared their intention to become such, it has been judicially decided: 1. That if a single woman marry after filing her declaratory statement, she thereby abandons her right as a pre-emptor, although it is not so in the case of timber-culture claim or homestead entry; 2. The “head of a family” means the actual, living head of a family; hence, that “a deserted wife or one whose husband is a confirmed drunkard may be the head of a family;” also, that “a married woman who has minor children and has been abandoned by her husband without cause and left to support and maintain herself and children, is the head of a family and entitled to pre-empt in her own name.” Under like circumstances married women may make homestead and timber-culture entries. Otherwise a married woman cannot pre-empt government land or make a homestead or timber-culture entry.
CASUALTIES OF THE CIVIL WAR.
Chicago, Ill.
Will you please settle a dispute by telling how many lives were lost in our civil war; and how many were so wounded as to seriously cripple them for life?
A Reader.
Answer.—According to the Provost-Marshal General’s report, the casualties in the Union army from the commencement of the late civil war to its close, or say until Aug. 1, 1865, were as follows: