Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1885 — Put Yours If In His P ac . [ARTICLE]

Put Yours If In His P ac .

Gen. Black, Commissioner of Pensions, having been the object of widespread attacks on account of his drawing a pension of SIOO a month,|by special act of Congaess, he wrote the following letter to a friend in Illinois, and without his knowledge the letter was given to press. It is a complete vindication of the General from mean and malicious accusations of drawing a pension' l which his disability did not justify. He says: “I was wounded on the 7th of March, 1862, and again on the 7th of December of the sames year.— The bones of 1 oth arms were affected in the joints, that of the right arm being splintered, broken, or scraped, and that of the left broken in many pieces. I have had six operations performed in all, the first of which took place in December, 1862, when seventeen pieces alone were taken from one arm, and the last in that long winter of misery and trouble at Danville in 1876-7, at»which time an entire elbow of the right arm was removed, owing to the diseased condition of the closed wounds. Prior to the final operation, and during all this time, they opened andjclosed at regular intervals. I have been sick a hundred times from blood-poison-ing from ray "wounds. Physicians may be able to tell the reasons for these things. I only know the facts. The result of the last sickness and operation was an enforced absence of two years from all professional duties —from 1874 to the middle of 1876, —at which time, as you remember, I took the stump as a candidate for Congress, but you know the condition I was in at that time. My enforced absence from work in the attempt at saving my life had wasted fearfully the little accumulations of peacefid life which I had had, for you know I was a hard-working, self-support-ing boy and college student. I had no friend to back me financially. I entered the army from college and I studied law after my return from the army. The d ctor bills and surgical bills ate up and ran away with all I could gather, and in the winter of 1876-7 I had very littl ; more than when I had taken my sword in the service. It is painful for me to think now of that horr ble winter, with its cuttings and pinchings of a broken arm, and its unutterable ghastliness of surgical operations and executions, and I have lived through six such scenes, and now carry an arm which is anchylosed at the left elbow one-half, and which, on account of the cutting of the nerves, is paralyzed as to the exterior muscl s of the left hand, and in the other elb wless arm carry a constant, open, suppurating wound. If any man th nks that I have made money out of the government by pensions, he need only remember that for twenty years a ceaseless drain of my strength has been going on day and night to realize something of the balancing of accounts. 1 would give all I have if I could start armed and barefoot, but strong, in the "world at the age of 46. I would gladly assume all the burdens of poverty if I could only have strength—had my hands, as other men, to give to labor and t j friendship. I can only keep one position in my bed, and that is fla

• upon my back, without being aroused by the pain or the threatening nervous numbness, which arises on account of my troubles in any other position, and there is scarcely one night in ten and lately no night when my sleep is not broken by these causes. I seem pretty strong. I don’t go around grumbling. I have told but few men the long story of mv troubles as I tell you, but I feel them none the less. I applied for a pension shortly after I left the service, which was granted me. I don’t remember when, but upon ample testimony for full disability according to my rank at the time the injury was inflicted. Subsequently, under the operation of the law it was increased to the sum of SSO, and up to this time no man had been called upon to give me any favor. I have tut a very indistinct recollection of many of the things which occurred during that deadly winter at Danville, but I do recollect you and Senator Voorhees being at my rooms and taking my testimony in the case. I think Voorhees then saw my condition. I believe that he thought I would die, and soon, and I believe it was at that time, acting upon his or the suggestion of some other friends, that I made application for arrears of pensions. This application was all that I ever made. I made it out in due and formal manner. I filed proof of my disability under it. I had regularly employed pension attorneys in Washington looking to this interest. I never was near the capital city during all that time. I subsequently was made aware that a bill was pending in my behalf.— This bill was put before Congress in the shape in which it subsequently passed without my knowledge. It was advanced without my co-operation substantially, and in various respects that induced it.— I had no particular knowledge iu.til one Sunday morning I received a dispatch at home from Senators Voorhees and Davis announcing th it the bill had been passed. Subsequently the bill was certified to me. I have never had an hour’s doubt of the correctness of the action. I have not had any hesitancy in believing that if pensions were granted on the grounds of suffering that I was entitled to all that had ben given me. As pensions are given foT physical disability I need only add that according to the same standard set up for others, I am physically totally disabled for labor. lam not aware of auy manual labor which I can perform. I have not raised my hand to my face for eight years. The little woi;k which I do with the pen causes my arm to swell, and this you can understand when I tell you that half of its muscles are entirely cut and have never been reunited. Others have been granted as much pension. Hundreds are receiving under the name of “retired” very much larger support for their disabilities and their honorable wounds. First lieutenants and second lieutenants and all of them vastly exceed me in the amount which they receive. lam glad that such of them as have been wrecked or torn in battles are able to receive beneficence of the government. I casually mention t is fact byway of illustration in regard to the falsity of the charges that mine is the only instance of t e kind. More than that, I have never received the arrears of pension given to private soldiers and commissioned soldiers alike by the general acts. These sums have reached'in many instances to thousands of dollars — SIO,OOO being no unusual sum to be paid out. I rejoice in the payment of every dollar paid to any one of these recipients. Many a private soldier, many a non-commissioned officer and line officer is now in receipt of $72 per month for disabilities, and this given to him by the general law lam glad of it. Nothing can ever compensate 1 hem for the loss of the senses incurred in the service of the country. But Igo on talking and talking. You have opened the gates to my reminiscences and memory, and for half

®ljcJJemocratit Sentinel RENSSELAER, INDIANA. J. W. McEWEN, - - - Pubeisheb