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SECRETARIES OF WAR.

(During the period the War Department administered the pension laws: See Introduction.)

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(Whose opinions with reference to pensions are digested herein.)

Name.

RICHARD RUSH..

WILLIAM WIRT.

JOHN M. BERRIEN

ROGER B. TANEY.

BENJAMIN F. BUTLER.

FELIX GRUNDY.

HENRY D. GILPIN.

JOHN J. CRITTENDEN

HUGH S. LEGARÉ

JOHN NELSON

JOHN Y. MASON

NATHAN CLIFFORD.

ISAAC TOUCEY.....

REVERDY JOHNSON.

JOHN J. CRITTENDEN

CALEB CUSHING

JEREMIAH S. BLACK

EDWIN M. STANTON

EDWARD BATES.

JAMES SPEED.

HENRY STANBERY

WILLIAM M. EVARTS..

EBENEZER ROCKWOOD HOAR

AMOS T. ACKERMAN

GEORGE H. WILLIAMS

EDWARDS PIERREPONT.

ALPHONZO TAFT

CHARLES DEVENS

WAYNE MACVEAGH..

BENJAMIN HARRIS BREWSTER

AUGUSTUS HILL GARLAND

WILLIAM H. H. MILLER.

RICHARD OLNEY.

JUDSON HARMON

Date of commission. .February 10, 1814. .November 13, 1817. .March 9, 1829.

..July 20, 1831.

November 15, 1833.

July 5, 1838.

January 11, 1840.

.March 5, 1841.

.September 13, 1841.

.July 1, 1843.

.March 6, 1845.

.October 17, 1846.

.June 21, 1848.

.March 8, 1849.

.July 22, 1850. ..March 7, 1853. .March 6, 1857. December 20, 1860. .March 5, 1861.

. December 2, 1864.

July 23, 1866. ..July 15, 1868.

.March 5, 1869.

..June 23, 1870.

December 14, 1871.

.April 26, 1875.

.May 22, 1876.
.March 12, 1877.
.March 5, 1881.
January 2, 1882.

.March 6, 1885.

.March 5, 1889.

March 6, 1893.

..June 8, 1895.

PREFACE.

Hon. CORNELIUS N. BLISS,

Secretary of the Interior.

SIR: This digest, prepared under my direction and supervision, embraces leading decisions relative to claims for pension and bounty land. These extend from the organization of the pension system to the present time. Included herewith will be found decisions by the Secretaries of the War and of the Interior Departments as well as opinions by the Attorneys-General of the United States, and the judicial holdings of the United States Supreme Court and the Court of Claims in matters pertaining to these subjects. Its publication was authorized on the 26th day of February, 1897, by the approval and order of the Secretary of the Interior.

The work of digesting and arranging the decisions was committed to John W. Bixler and William L. Chitty. Valuable aid has been rendered by Edward P. Hall and A. E. Rowell in editorial work as the volume was going through the press.

In 1881 Calvin B. Walker, deputy commissioner, by order of the Commissioner of Pensions, compiled a treatise including a digest of the laws of the United States governing the granting of Army and Navy pensions and bounty-land warrants and decisions of the Secretary of the Interior, with the rulings and orders of the Commissioner of Pensions thereunder; which treatise was published under the authority of the Secretary of the Interior. In 1885 a more extended treatise, of like character, was prepared by Frank B. Curtis and William H. Webster, and published under similar authority. These, with the earlier publication of Mayo and Moulton, substantially represent the official publications on the subject of pensions and bounty-land laws and their interpretation by those charged with the duty of executing them.

. Commencing in 1887, the Department has issued eight printed volumes of decisions under these laws, embracing over twelve hundred cases. Previous to 1887 the decisions were written in bound ledgers.

It has been said that the pension law is a law sui generis. Its system is broad and complex, embracing the most abstruse propositions of legal science. The necessity for a comprehensive volume, at once homogeneous in arrangement and all-inclusive in its scope, will be readily

apparent. This book is designed to meet that want, and to present in the simplest and most compact form a suitable guide to the principles that have governed in the adjudication of claims arising under the pension and bounty-land laws; so that the reader, the practitioner, and the executive officers may, without needless delay or labor, lay hold of the correct rules to apply in any given case.

The volume includes a supplement containing the pension laws as arranged and consolidated by T. Fletcher Dennis, with the assistance of D. S. Porter; and a reference table prepared by W. L. Chitty, showing the laws so arranged. It includes, also, the bounty-land laws, laws enacted and repealed since March 4, 1861, and the rules of practice as to appeals and attorneys.

An historical sketch showing the origin and development of the pension system, to serve as an introduction to the volume, has been prepared by W. T. Pierson, acting chief of the division of pension affairs. Valuable data entering into the details of this sketch were contributed by the Pension Bureau.

It is believed that all these, together with the tables of cases, of cases cited and cases overruled, and of statutes cited and construed, make this compilation a complete general reference book as to the laws and opinions which have governed, and which now govern, in granting pensions and bounty-land warrants.

Very respectfully,

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

JNO. M. REYNOLDS,
Assistant Secretary.

Washington, D. C., May 1, 1897.

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