entering the service active drilling or marching has invariably
developed severe pleuritic pains about his chest and underneath his
sternum, rendering him totally unfit for duty.

It is entirely evident that the statements contained in this certificate
are of such a nature that they must have almost entirely been
communicated to the surgeon by the officer himself. It will be observed
that there is an absolute lack of any intimation that his disabilities
were attributable in their origin to army service, and he surely can not
ask us to believe that a man with the intelligence fitting him to be a
commissioned officer in the Army, and having this certificate in his
possession, did not know what it contained.

It furnished the reason for his honorable discharge in the dark days of
his country's need and operated as an exemption from further military
service.

And yet in September, 1883, more than twenty-one years after his dis;
charge, he applied to the Pension Bureau for a pension, alleging
lameness of breast and back, contracted in the service.

After an examination of all the facts I can not believe that this is a
case in which a pension should be granted.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _October 16, 1888_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

I return without approval House bill No. 7657, entitled "An act granting
a pension to Mary Woodworth, widow of Ebenezer F. Woodworth."

The husband of this beneficiary enlisted October 1, 1861. On the rolls
of his company for May and June, 1862, he is reported as a deserter, and
the report is the same on the muster-out roll of his regiment, dated
October 24, 1864.

An effort was made on the application by the beneficiary for pension
to the Pension Bureau to attribute the charge of desertion to the
unfriendliness and injustice of the soldier's captain, and an
unsuccessful effort was made to have the charge removed from the record
by the Adjutant-General.

The soldier, therefore, is still recorded as a deserter from camp near
Farmington, Miss., since March 12, 1862.

The application of the widow to the Pension Bureau in 1867 states that
her husband was missing at Hamburg, Tenn., May 7, 1862, and not having
since been heard from is supposed to be dead.

The captain of the company testifies that the soldier was employed with
the ambulance corps, and that for misconduct he (the captain) ordered
him to his company and censured him; that very soon after th