Lucy Jane Fuller

Pension File: 1138227
P.O.: Los Angeles, CA
Service: regimental nurse in the 1st CA
Applied: 1892
Status: Rejected

Following the trend of going back and looking at specific groups of women, my current project is regimental nurses.  Fuller's case was unusual in that she served so far west, farther than any of my other nurses.  Her attorney also had some interesting things to say about the Pension Bureau--always my favorite kind of person.
Lucy Jane Fuller was born in 1820, maiden name unknown, and was married to Lycurgus D. Fuller sometime before 1861.  Lycurgus enlisted as a private in Co. G, 1st CA, part of the California Column under General Carlton, which was tasked with driving the Confederate Army of New Mexico out of the southwest.  Not to be left behind, Lucy also enlisted as matron of the regimental hospital, and marched with the regiment for the next four years.  Both Lycurgus and Lucy were discharged in 1864 at Fort Craig, New Mexico, and went back to California.
It looks like Lycurgus died shortly before 1892, because Lucy applied for both a nurse's pension and a widow's pension on October 11, 1892, with our good friend James Tanner filing the paperwork.  The widow's pension went through (I'm not sure when or for how much), but the nurse's pension didn't.  It should have stopped then, since Lucy couldn't legally draw two pensions, but for some reason that never came up in the ten year fight Lucy and her attorney waged with the Bureau.
Yes, ten years.  It should never have lasted that long.
The first round waged for six years.  The War Department found records of Fuller serving as matron at Camp Wright, San Diego, from September 1 to November 14, 1861, and from January 1 to February 28, 1862--four and a half months--but no other record, so they asked her to either send in original documents or obtain affidavits from people who could swear to her service.  Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Fuller had any original documents, and every medical officer she had worked with was dead.  So, in 1898, the Bureau rejected Fuller's application on the grounds that she hadn't proved six months service.  And as an aside at the end of the rejection letter, the Commissioner wrote that even if Fuller had been able to prove six months service, the Bureau couldn't have approved her claim because she was a regimental nurse.
Here is something I still don't understand.  During the war, the Surgeon General issued a General Order stating that, "women nurses will not reside in camps nor accompany regiments on the march."  According to the Pension Bureau, this meant that any nurses who claimed to have served in regiments were not there by "competent authority" as the ANPA stipulated.  However, the ANPA grants pensions to any woman employed as nurses "in any regimental, post, camp, or general hospital."  It seems very clear, to me at least, that Congress recognized the fact that many women ignored the order, or that people simply stopped enforcing it, and decided to pension regimental nurses along with their fellows.
So why, when the law clearly states these women are to be pensioned, is the Bureau throwing up this particular roadblock?  Is this even legal?  And I mean this in all seriousness.  I am not a lawyer, I honestly don't know.  Does anyone out there know if they're allowed to do this?
Moving on.  Shortly after Fuller received her rejection letter, she enlisted the help of local attorney Edwin Baxter.  Baxter managed to obtain affidavits from two men who had served in Co. G along with Lycurgus, but neither had actually seen Lucy working, and could only recall what Lycurgus had told them.  The Bureau promptly rejected her claim again.  By now, Baxter was indignant.  He wrote to the Bureau asking for specifics on "how a person regularly enrolled and always under orders can be considered unemployed one month, employed the next without being discharged," referring to the gap in Fuller's service record.  If Fuller was properly enrolled, and hadn't been discharged or relieved, then it was only logical that she had in fact served during the period between November, 1861 and January 1, 1862, and the Bureau should calculate that period into time served.  In not doing so, they were being impossibly dense.  And just to infuriate the Bureau a bit more, there was a nice little side note on the back of the rejection notice which Baxter sent back to the Bureau: "Believed to be an irrelevant letter and answered and returned by Edwin Baxter."
The Bureau never did answer Baxter's questions about Fuller's service, and promptly rejected her claim again.  Not to be outdone, Baxter filed an appeal to the Secretary of the Interior.  Unfortunately, when the case finally came up in 1902, it was again rejected, and Fuller was out of options.  There's nothing in the file after that point.  Still, the arguments are extremely interesting...or at least will be once I figure out how exactly the Bureau reached the conclusions it did.  Ideas, anyone?