The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1893-01-26
AN ILLUSTRATION.

The New York Sun having struck key
which has set the whole pension-hating
chorus to yelling, it pounds on it industri-
ously This is:
| The present army of pension drawers, rightful
| and fraudulent. exceeds by hundreds of thousands
the whole fighting strength of the Union armies
| actually engaged in military operations at any
given time during the four years while the fighting
was on
Now they are saying that the comparison be-
tween the fighting army and the pension army
| signifies nothing, after all; for, although there
| may have been not more than 200 600 men present
for duty at any time during the fighting, the total
| of enlstments from first to last more than
| 100000.
This would be a strong point if there had
been no fighting going on, no exhaustive
marches and campaigns made, which sent
| dead men to their graves and wounded and
disabled men to the rear faster than sound,
| healthy men could be recruited to take their
places. But since there was such success
sion of terrible battles and campaigns,
which knocked out men by the thousands
every day for months in succession, the Suns
argument only serves to show its own wiliul
perversicn of the facts Of war history.
Let us take the history of single reg
ment in illustration. To make the case
stronger we will take one of those much
abused eleventh hour" regiments, one that
came out as late as the Spring Of 1864, and
the members of which probably received
several hundred dollars bounty each, paid in
greenback dollars worth then about 80 cents
EACH
The 57th Mass. was one of the last regi
ments raised by Massachusetts, and it left
the State as late as April Is, 1864. It
mustered 1852 strong, and marched as di-
| rectly to the front as steam could take it.
1t arrived there just in time to go into the
fighting at the Wilderness, and, three weeks
after it babe farewell to Massachusetts,, 81
of its members lay stark and stiff on Vir-
ginia's blood-soaked sand, 158 had received
more or less terrible wounds, and 80 were
missing"-either killed or captured. Thus
one-fourth of its original number were al
ready gone, before the regiment had seen
month of service. Eight days later-at
Spottsylvania Courthouse-it lost 10 killed,
So wounded, and missing; and on May 18
just month from the day it left Massachu-
sets, it lost killed and Ia wounded. Thus,
in one month after leaving the State, it had
lost 70 killed, 227 wounded, and "a missing
1884 in all out of its original 1,052.
The Sun would insist, however, that only
the 71s survivors should be considered in
connection with the pension-roll; tbs moth
ers wives and orphans of 70 dead and the
in the consideration.
Despite its frightful losses, the survivors
At North Anna the regiment lost 10 killed
and MORALLY wounded; at Bethesda Church
L
where it distinguished itself, it lost 90
killed; at the next assault, 81; at the Mine
at Poplar Spring Church, 4; at Fort sted-
man, 10.
By the time of the Poplar Spring Church
fight the frightful losses of the regiment
had so reduced its strength that it could
take only 20 men into action, and of these
four were killed.
The Sun would make these 20 men the
measure Of the pensions the regiment should
receive. 1t would say that that was all the
fighting men there were in the regiment
that the remainder were coffee-coolers,
bounty jumpers, deserters, hospital pimps,
malingerers, etc. It would keep steadily
out of sight the facts that POI had been
killed, 515 wounded, and Sc had died of dis
ease or in rebel prisons. 1t would not add
up these awful figures, and find out that Of
the original ,052 enlistments s02 men had,
in less than one year after enlistng, been
killed, crippled, or had died-that four out
of every five Of those who in the Spring of
1864 were strong, active, patriotic young
men, were in the Spring of 1865 either
moldering in shallow graves in Virginia, or
struggling to recover from the wounds and
disabilities received in the conflict.
This is something that the Sun and its
echoers never mention. They can only see
that where the regiment took out ,052 men
it had only 20 men in battle at Poplar
Spring Church, and therefore there can be
no doubt that the remaining 952 must have
been Sinking in the rear or engaged in the
lucrative pastime of jumping bounties
NAME THEM.
The Philadelphia Times says:
Tens of thousands of pension thieves by perjury