Margaret Ball

Pension File: 1138267
P.O.: #201 South 1st Street, Marshalltown, Iowa
Service: nurse in Co. I, 5th MVM
Applied: 1892
Status: Rejected

Here's another regimental nurse for you: Margaret Ball, nurse in Co. I, 5th Missouri State Volunteer Militia.  Served approximately nine months (according to the testimony of the men in the regiment), or eighteen months (according to her testimony).  I think she served alongside her husband, but since 'Soldiers and Sailors' is down right now I can't be certain.  Ball applied for her pension in September of 1892, right off the bat.  She even enlisted an attorney to help prosecute the claim, a Mr. Alex Sellman.  The usual roadblocks cropped up: there was no record of Ball's service on file in the War Department, so she filed affidavits.  The affidavits she produced were solid, but none of them revealed under whose authority Ball had been hired.  And, of course, there was the usual problem about women not being allowed to live in the camps or follow the regiment on the march.  Even a plea from the Hon. R.G. Cousins (Rep.-IO) failed to elicit any kind of favorable action.  Ball's application was rejected July, 1896.  Of all the things to pin the rejection on, though, the Bureau claimed that she hadn't proved six months service.  Yet in previous letters they treated the affidavits as satisfactory, but unable to show under whose authority she was employed.  If anything, it should have been that, or the usual line about women not residing with the soldiers that the Bureau used to reject her claim, not the six months service line.  This is either just sloppy work, or the Bureau is doing some serious backpedaling, though what they stand to gain in doing so I can only guess.
Thoughts?