His name is not borne upon any of the rolls of the regiment he alleges he was on his way to join.
He filed his application for pension in the Pension Bureau October 17, 1879 (seventeen years after his alleged injury), which was rejected apparently on the ground that he was not in the military service when the disability claimed was incurred.
He was drafted in 1863 and served until he was mustered out in 1865.
It is entirely clear that this claimant was not in the military service at the time he claims to have been injured; and his conduct in remaining at home until he was drafted, nearly two years afterwards, furnishes proof that he did not regard himself as in the meantime owing any military duty. These considerations, and the further facts that upon being drafted he was accepted as physically qualified for service, that he actually thereafter served a year and eight months, and that he waited seventeen years before claiming pension for his injury, in my mind present a case upon which the claimant is entitled to no relief even if charity instead of just liberality is invoked.
I herewith return without approval Senate bill No. 1290, entitled "An act granting a pension to David W. Hamilton."
A claim for pension filed by him in November, 1879, was rejected by the Pension Bureau on the ground that his alleged disability existed prior to his enlistment.
An examination of the records in the Adjutant-General's Office and a statement from the Pension Bureau derived from the claimant's application there for pension, with a reference to the report of the committee to whom this bill was referred, disclose the following facts:
The claimant was mustered in the service as first lieutenant in September, 1861, and as captain June 12, 1862. He is reported as present with his company until the 30th of that month. For the six months immediately following the latter date he is reported as "absent sick," and for the ten months next succeeding, and until October 27, 1863, as "absent on detached service." On the day last mentioned he tendered his resignation at Camp Morton, in the State of Indiana, to enable him to accept an appointment as captain in the Invalid Corps. He was thereupon so appointed upon account of "chronic enlargement of the spermatic cord of several years' standing, consequent upon hydrocele." He remained in the Invalid Corps until July 12, 1864, when, upon the tender of his resignation, he was discharged.