Mary Ann Bickerdyke

Pension File: 574178 (Special Act)
PO: San Francisco
Service: Nurse, Med. Dept, US. Vols.
Applied: 1886
Final Status: Accepted
This was a file I really wanted to get my hands on.  Bickerdyke was a force to be reckoned with during the war: she worked alongside the Sanitary Commission to supply men on the front lines, helped establish hospitals on and off the front lines, and kept them running, well-staffed, and well-supplied.  If you got in her way, or displeased her, you were out.  A popular Bickerdyke story goes that she found out an assisstant surgeon at one of her wards had gotten drunk one night and, in sleeping off the hangover the next morning, neglected the men in his ward.  Furious, she pulled enough strings to get him discharged from the army.  When the surgeon complained to Sherman, who was in command at the time, the general asked who had procured his discharge.  "I was discharged in consequence of misrepresentation," the surgeon insisted.  "But who caused your discharge?"  "Why...I suppose it was that woman, Mrs. Bickerdyke."  And at this, Sherman replied, "Oh, well, if it was her, I can do nothing for you.  She ranks me."  She was universally loved and admired.  The soldiers adored her.  They called her "Mother Bickerdyke."  After the war, Bickerdyke continued to support her boys by helping many to secure pensions.
As far as I can tell, however, Bickerdyke never applied for a pension herself.  That was done by the Woman's Relief Corps--the female auxilary to the G.A.R. which was instrumental in getting the '92 Pension Act passed.  A Special Act was passed in 1886 granted Bickerdyke a $25 pension (higher than the $16 suggested by the WRC, but lower than the $50 in the original petition).
So, we have a powerful, influential woman receiving a pension she probably never applied for in the first place...this has to be a major file, right?
There were seven papers in that file.  Seven.
All the Special Act pensions I've pulled thus far are like this: depressingly thin.  There has to be another file out there, one for Special Acts, that has more documents.  Tomorrow morning, I'm going to the Resource Room to find them.
One interesting thing I did find: one of the documents in the file contained a note by the Department of State which said,
"The foregoing act having been presented to the President of the United States for his approval, and not having been returned by him to the house of Congress in which it originated within the time prescribed by the Constitution of the United States, has become a law without his approval."
Why would Cleveland do this?  I somehow doubt it's just because he never got around to looking at the bill.  Hopefully the missing files will shed some additional light. Fingers crossed.