GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 17, 1888_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return without approval House bill No. 8078, entitled "An act granting
a pension to Theresa Herbst, widow of John Herbst, late private Company
G, One hundred and fortieth Regiment of New York Volunteers."
John Herbst, the husband of the beneficiary named in this bill, enlisted
August 26, 1862. He was wounded in the head at the battle of Gettysburg,
July 2, 1863. He recovered from this wound, and on the 19th day of
August, 1864, was captured by the enemy.
After his capture he joined the Confederate forces, and in 1865 was
captured by General Stoneman while in arms against the United States
Government. He was imprisoned and voluntarily made known the fact that
he formerly belonged to the Union Army. Upon taking the oath of
allegiance and explaining that he deserted to the enemy to escape the
hardship and starvation of prison life, he was released and mustered out
of the service on the 11th day of October, 1865.
He was regularly borne on the Confederate muster rolls for probably nine
or ten months. No record is furnished of the number of battles in which
he fought against the soldiers of the Union, and we shall never know the
death and the wounds which he inflicted upon his former comrades in
arms.
He never applied for a pension, though it is claimed now that at the
time of his discharge he was suffering from rheumatism and dropsy,
and that he died in 1868 of heart disease.
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