Pension File: 1141084, 854963
P.O.: Cincinnati, Ohio
Service: nurse at Camp Dennison Hospital
Applied: 1892
Status: Accepted
Another day, another fun story. Catherine Quinn served as a contract nurse at Camp Dennison Hospital from 1862 to 1865. She applied for, and was granted, a pension based on that service. No hitches, no jumping through hoops to prove anything. The good stuff comes later.
In August, 1898, the Pension Bureau received an anonymous letter from "an old soldier." He was writing, he said, because the government was being swindled: Catherine Quinn never served as a nurse--in fact, she'd been a washerwoman, and she'd had $2000 in her account when she'd applied for her pension. Oh, and she was a drunken, abusive person.
Within a month, the Bureau launched a special investigation. Turns out the "old soldier" wasn't really an old soldier. His name was William McLusky, and he'd fought with Quinn because she'd refused to give him money. As pay back, he'd tried to sabotage her pension claim. As the investigator dug deeper and called in other people to give affidavits, he observed that "all parties who appear in the matter are of very ordinary class hardly entitled in my opinion to be rated even "fair"...they have until recently all been cronies and the seeming cause of their troubles has been the unwillingness of Mrs. Quinn to supply liquid refreshments to the extent they demanded."
This should have been written off as a petty prank, but the purpose of a special investigation is to determine if a nurse did actually serve--essentially, a nurse has to apply again. The people who testified on Quinn's behalf though were by now dead. So, the investigator was left with a choice: based on the current evidence, did he rule in favor of Quinn, or listen to the not-so-fair McLusky?
For once, the Bureau did the decent thing, and gave Quinn the benefit of the doubt. I guess the Bureau does have a bit of a heart after all.
Showing posts with label fraud. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fraud. Show all posts
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Friday, June 22, 2012
Mary E. Hooker
Pension File: 907755
P.O.: Goshen, Indiana
Service: Private, Co. F, 26th Ohio
Applied: 1891
Status: Rejected
The first sign that this folder was going to be fun was the alias after Hooker's name: Charles E. Dewey, Co. K, 26th Ohio.
The second was the headline on the newspaper article I found tucked into this file read: "A Romance of the Late War Comes To Light Through An Application For Pension."
Did it live up to the hype?
Oh yeah.
The newspaper article explains it all. Mary E. Hooker, then Mary E. Dewey, was a young woman engaged to be married to Benjamin Brown. The date for the wedding was set, and then Lincoln issued his called for volunteers. "Benjamin's heart was filled with martial ardor," the article declared, "and insensible alike to his own safety and the protests of his sweetheart," he enlisted in the 26th Ohio. For Mary, well, "Benjamin might be happy without her, but she could not live away from her lover," so she disguised herself as a man and enlisted in the same company as Benjamin. They continued to fight side by side, even after Mary was wounded in the knee at Spottsylvania Courthouse. When the war ended, the pair returned home and were finally married. Benjamin died years later, and Mary married Mr. Hooker. Without access to a widow's pension, since she was a married woman, she applied for a pension based on her service as a soldier. Hence the newspaper article.
Sounds credible so far, right? From what I could make out of the surgeon's affidavit (the combination of technical terms and spidery hand-writing makes it almost impossible to make out), Hooker did have a scar on her left leg just below the knee, but apparently it was inflicted at Antietam.
So, was it Antietam or Spottsylvania?
Turns out, doesn't matter.
The next paper was a letter from Alexander Fraser, the lieutenant of Co. F, 26th Ohio, to the Pension Bureau stating that there was no such persons as Charles Dewey or Benjamin Brown in the 26th, nor did the regiment fight at Spottsylvania, or Antietam. In fact, the regiment was mustered out in June, 1862.
Oops.
Needless to say, Mary Hooker did not receive a pension for her service in the line of duty. That should be the end of it, but it leaves me with a question. Mary Hooker really had no chance of gaining a pension by lying about her service. The military records are complete enough to demolish her claims. For nurses, however, the records are practically non-existent. Almost every file has a letter from the Bureau to the War Department asking them to examine the records for a specific woman. The problem is, however, since these women were rarely considered actual military personnel, they're almost never in the records!
Mary Hooker couldn't put forward her fraudulent claim as a soldier, but a woman like Mary Hooker could put forward her fraudulent claim as a nurse with great ease. Here's the question now that's eating me: how do I tell the difference between a woman who really served, and a woman who's lying?
P.O.: Goshen, Indiana
Service: Private, Co. F, 26th Ohio
Applied: 1891
Status: Rejected
The first sign that this folder was going to be fun was the alias after Hooker's name: Charles E. Dewey, Co. K, 26th Ohio.
The second was the headline on the newspaper article I found tucked into this file read: "A Romance of the Late War Comes To Light Through An Application For Pension."
Did it live up to the hype?
Oh yeah.
The newspaper article explains it all. Mary E. Hooker, then Mary E. Dewey, was a young woman engaged to be married to Benjamin Brown. The date for the wedding was set, and then Lincoln issued his called for volunteers. "Benjamin's heart was filled with martial ardor," the article declared, "and insensible alike to his own safety and the protests of his sweetheart," he enlisted in the 26th Ohio. For Mary, well, "Benjamin might be happy without her, but she could not live away from her lover," so she disguised herself as a man and enlisted in the same company as Benjamin. They continued to fight side by side, even after Mary was wounded in the knee at Spottsylvania Courthouse. When the war ended, the pair returned home and were finally married. Benjamin died years later, and Mary married Mr. Hooker. Without access to a widow's pension, since she was a married woman, she applied for a pension based on her service as a soldier. Hence the newspaper article.
Sounds credible so far, right? From what I could make out of the surgeon's affidavit (the combination of technical terms and spidery hand-writing makes it almost impossible to make out), Hooker did have a scar on her left leg just below the knee, but apparently it was inflicted at Antietam.
So, was it Antietam or Spottsylvania?
Turns out, doesn't matter.
The next paper was a letter from Alexander Fraser, the lieutenant of Co. F, 26th Ohio, to the Pension Bureau stating that there was no such persons as Charles Dewey or Benjamin Brown in the 26th, nor did the regiment fight at Spottsylvania, or Antietam. In fact, the regiment was mustered out in June, 1862.
Oops.
Needless to say, Mary Hooker did not receive a pension for her service in the line of duty. That should be the end of it, but it leaves me with a question. Mary Hooker really had no chance of gaining a pension by lying about her service. The military records are complete enough to demolish her claims. For nurses, however, the records are practically non-existent. Almost every file has a letter from the Bureau to the War Department asking them to examine the records for a specific woman. The problem is, however, since these women were rarely considered actual military personnel, they're almost never in the records!
Mary Hooker couldn't put forward her fraudulent claim as a soldier, but a woman like Mary Hooker could put forward her fraudulent claim as a nurse with great ease. Here's the question now that's eating me: how do I tell the difference between a woman who really served, and a woman who's lying?
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