Sarah Ingalls

Pension File: 745503
P.O.: Lowell, Massachusetts
Service: Nurse at Point Lookout and Washington hospitals
Applied: 1889
Status: Abandoned

There are three things that make Sarah Ingalls' file stand out to me.  One: it's only five papers.
Two: The date Ingalls filed her application.
Three: The date Ingalls "abandoned" her claim.

Because Ingalls' file is so small, there's not a great deal of information in it, but enough to put together a brief sketch.  Ingalls was a trained nurse, and served in that capacity at Capital Hospital, Cast Paris Hospital, and at Point Lookout from summer, 1862, to winter, 1862, when she caught malaria and left the service.  The record's silent until 1888, when Ingalls filed for a pension.  She altered a widows' claim, filled in as much pertinent information as possible, and sent it in.
Ingalls is the latest in a long line of women who filed for a pension prior to the 1892 Act--and the latest in a long line of women who felt they were entitled to a pension based on their service, whether or not there was a law explicitly allowing it.  I haven't gone over my files in detail and starting putting together numbers and patterns, but it appears that there's no pattern to who applied for a pension before the Act.  They simply applied because they needed the help the pension would give them.
True to form, the Pension Bureau rejected Ingalls' initial claim on the grounds that she had no title under present law.  Ingalls re-opened her claim in October of 1892, just after the passage of the Act.  The Pension Bureau didn't reply to her letter until October of 1893--and had the gall to begin its letter with "in response to your communication of recent date."  The letter simply informed Ingalls that she could apply for a pension based on the '92 Act, and they were sending her a blank for her to fill out and return.
The last paper in the file is an envelope, which presumably contained the letter.  A stamp says, Return to Writer, and a note scribbled on it reads, "This lady died last June...please correct your rolls."
And so, Sarah Ingalls claim was "abandoned."
I will say a lot of things against the Pension Bureau over the course of this project.  I'm dealing with government here, and government policy.  Government always offends someone.  But waiting an entire year to respond to a woman, asking for a pension, only for her to die in the interm is completely unacceptable.  I think I can safely say that I have never been more furious with the bureaucrats running that Bureau than I am now.
I'll try to find a happier pension file to write about for tomorrow.  I have Dr. Mary E. Walker's papers waiting for me in the morning.  Those should work.