The Portland daily press., 1897-12-28
THE PENSION ROLL FRAUDS,
A Sample of :, the Way in Which the
Nation Is Being Robbed.

Case of III Ohio Men GWho Are Drau,n
Pensions Now on Doctored 'Afedav;.s
The Frand Exposed by Examiners INIT
Kept Up for Political sReasons-The
Graed for Pensions.
Washington, Dec 25-That the mansion
roll should be roll of honor all will adj
nit, and much has been said and Writ
ten with this end in view. Can it be
made such?
The average politician. no matter to
what party he processes allegiance, has
been and still is willing to pay his politi-
cal debts to his 'oldFsoldier" constituency
by securing the enrolment of their names
on the list OF the nations pensioners. To
the brave andspatriotic men who left their
families and homes in the earlier months
OF the war, before any pension bill had
been passed and before any bounties were
PAID, the greatest praise and the highest
honors are due. Unfortunately theirs are
not tho names that swell the pension list.
lnere came day when the price of the
substitute was quoted in the market, and
bounty jumping was added to the list of
crimes. In those days the substitute
broker fourlshed, and in Importance
stood at least next to the shoddy contrac-
tor. In several of the states the profits to
those who dealt in substitutes became SO
inviting that jails and county intirmaries
were invaded to supply material for the
market. Then, by tickling the itching
palm of the accommodating examining
surgeon, many an unsound recruit was
made to pass muster, fnot to fill the ssya-
can't ranks of brothers gone BEFORE but
to take up additional space in the already
oyerorowded hospitals.
From the fall of 1864 until the close of
the war the amounts offered by towns and
counties as bounties ran from $500 to
81 1000, and substitutes for those who had
been drafted brought anywhere from 5000
up. Thousands of rascals, under aliases,
made frequent enlistments, and bounty
jumping became d profession. Many
thousand recruits, each one having re-
ceived good bounty, were assigned to
old regiments that had become depleted
during the campaigns and battles of 1864
The writer recalls the case of thousa nds
of these who had been assigned to reoi-
ments under Gen. Sherman's comma nd
When hey reached Nashville 1t was dis
covered that they could not join their
commands by that route, as Sherman
had cut loose from Atlanta and was
marching through Georgia.
1t was determined to send them via
Louisville and Cincinnati to Washing
South, where their particular regiments
might be located. Thousands Of those
men lay in camp near Washington until
Sherman's victorious army reached the
capital and joined in the grand review.
Then they joined the companies and regi-
ments to which they had been assigned
That is, some of them did. but many of
them were not permitted to march In the
review. The real veterans were then
proud of the history of their regiments,
and in hundreds of instances they refused
to permit the fresh fish, to march with
them. They said to them:
Damn you and your new uniforms
and bright buttons. We have made this
regiment what it is, and you can't have
There are many other facts that it is we'll
to mention. From first to last, from 1861
to 1865, 2,100, 900 men were enlisted for
the Union Army. Many men were in
more than one service. Many had two
and some three enlistments, and served
In as many different organizations. The
records of the War Depar tment show that
L.
2I0, 900 having deserted during the wal.
Sixty thousand Union soldiers were
either killed upon the field of battle or
died from wounds, and 340 900 died of dis
ease during the four years struggle. The
eleventh census showed that In 1890 there
were /, 1914 73 survivors. Four out of
every ten men who enlisted in the Union
army either did not leave the states in
which they were enrolled or did not get
south ofssMason and Dixon's line. They
never saw Confederate flag or an armed
rebel. Many men getting large bounties
did not enlist until in February and even
as late as March, 1865. The surrender of
Lee came in April, while these thousands
were yet in their camps Of rendezvous.
Yet for these men politicians and pension
agents get pensions.
Another class of soldiers consisted of
the emergency or one-hundred-day men,
There were more than 1000 of these
Their service was from May otto August,
1854. They,werei for hthe most part en-
ployedsin fortssand barracks around Wash
ington, and the following is a sample ex-
perience that the Pension Bureau has had
with this class of claimants:
BY a review of many cases under the
administration of Gen. John G. Black,
it was discovered that 1913 men, all former
members of two-companies of the 164th
Ohio, weresdrawing pensions. This regi-
ment was from Seneca county, Ohio. 1t
left Tifflin on May 4, 1864, went to Wash
ington, and there went into barracks,
where it remained until mustered out on
Aug. q following.