Pension to Seavey, Stephen A.

The following data is extracted from Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Grover Cleveland.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 9, 1888.

To the House of Representatives:

I return without approval House bill No. 7510, entitled "An act granting a pension to Stephen A. Seavey."

This beneficiary served in a Maine regiment from November 11, 1861, to August 17, 1862, when he was discharged upon a surgeon's certificate of epilepsia and melancholia. The surgeon further stated in his certificate that the soldier had been unfit for duty for sixty days in consequence of epileptic fits, occurring daily, and requiring the constant attendance of two persons during the past thirty days.

In 1879 he applied for a pension, alleging that he incurred a sunstroke on July 20, 1862. This was within the sixty days during which he was unfit for duty and also within the thirty days during which he required the constant attendance of two persons.

He succeeded in securing a pension, and drew the same until December, 1885, when information was received at the Pension Bureau which caused an examination of the merits of the case.

This examination developed such facts as led the Pension Bureau to the conclusion that the condition of the soldier was then identical with that before enlistment and that his disability existed before he entered the service. His name was accordingly dropped from the rolls.

The object of the bill herewith returned is to restore the pensioner to the rolls.

An examination of the facts satisfies me that the act of the Pension Bureau in dropping this name from the pension rolls was entirely correct and should not be reversed.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

Source: Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Grover Cleveland

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