Case ID: va_43/html/0418-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "CABELL, P.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

*Commonwealth v. Peyton’s Adm’r.
    January Term, 1846,
    Richmond.
    (Absent Baldwin, J.)
    1. Revolutionary Officers — Half Pay — Statutes—Officers of the Virginia line on continental establishment, who became supernumeraries before the passage of the act of May 1779, ch. 6, are not entitled to half pay for life under that act.
    2. Same — Same—Same.—Such supernumerary officer, having been appointed by the executive of Virginia,. superintendent of public works, and commissary of military stores, and acting as such to the end of the war, is not entitled to half pay for life under the act of May 1779, ch. 6. . .
    John Peyton was a captain in the’ army of the revolutionary war in the third Virginia regiment on continental establishment, from January 1776 to October 1778, when he became a supernumerary, and did not again enter into the service in the continental line, nor was he required so to do. He did however continue in the service of the state. In July 1782, he was appointed by the executive council, superintendent of the public works at the Point of Pork; and in December of the same year, he was appointed commissary of military stores for the State of Virginia; in which office he continued to act until 1785. He died in 1801.
    In 1834, Craven Peyton, as the administrator de bonis non with the will annexed of John Peyton, presented a claim for his five years full pay, or half pay for life, under the act of May 1779. The auditor rejected the claim, and the administrator appealed to the Circuit Superior Court for the county of Henrico and City of Richmond, where the judgment of the auditor was reversed; and the administrator electing to take the five years full pay with interest thereon from the end of the war, the Court gave him a judgment for the amount. Erom this decree, the Commonwealth obtained an appeal to this Court.
    *The Attorney General, for the Commonwealth, and Grattan, and Stanard, for the appellee, submitted the case.
    
      
      He was related to one of the parties interested in the case.
    
    
      
      Revolutionary Officers — Half Pay — Statute.—The principal case is cited in Com. v. Yates, 9 Gratt. 694. See foot-note to Slaughter v. Com., 2 Gratt. 391.
    
   CABELL, P.,

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Court is of opinion, upon the authority of Tatum’s Case, 9 Leigh 56, and the case of Slaughter v. The Commonwealth, (ante, 391,) that John Peyton, the testator of the appellee, having been a captain in the Virginia line on continental establishment, and having become supernumerary before the passage of the act of May 1779, entitled “an act concerning officers, soldiers, sailors, and marines,” was not entitled to half pay for life under that act: nor was he entitled to such half pay, in consequence of his services to the State of Virginia, as superintendent of the public works at the Point of Pork, or as commissary of military stores.

The Court' is therefore of opinion to reverse the judgment. •