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CONGRESS,

APPROPRIATIONS FOR MILITARY ACADEMY.
[To accompany bill H. R. No. 561.]

JANUARY 11, 1855.

Mr. HOUSTON, from the Committee of Ways and Means, made the fol

lowing REPORT.

The Committee of Ways and Means recommend that the House of Representatives do agree to the first, third, fifth, and sixth amendments of the Senate to the bill making appropriations for the support of the Military Academy for the year ending the 30th of June, 1856; and that they non-concur in the second, fourth, seventh, and eighth of the Senate's amendments to said bill.

2d Session.

No. 27.

KENNEDY O'BRIEN.

[To accompany bill H. R. No. 715.]

FEBRUARY 2, 1855.

Mr. HENDRICKS, from the Committee on Invalid Pensions, made the

following

REPORT.

The Committee on Invalid Pensions, to whom was referred the petition of Kennedy O'Brien, asking for pension, find that he served in the late war with Mexico, having volunteered two different times; that while in the line of his duty he contracted a chronic diarrhoea, from the effects of which he became blind. The accompanying note of the surgeon fully sustains the case.

Your committee, therefore, respectfully report a bill granting him a pension of eight dollars per month, and recommend its passage.

SURGEON GENERAL'S OFFICE,
February 9, 1854.

At the request of Kennedy O'Brien, late a private of the 5th regiment of Indiana volunteers, and now an inmate of the military asylum, I certify that he is perfectly unable to gain his livelihood by manual labor-his sight being entirely destroyed.

A. S. WOTHERSPOON,
Assistant Surgeon U. S. A.

Assistant Surgeon U. S. A.

RICHARD H. COOLIDGE,

CINCINNATI, OHIO, August 7, 1850.

The bearer, Kennedy O'Brien, having served as a soldier in the Mexican war, and having lost his eye-sight by a disease incurred during that service, is hereby recommended for a pension.

R. D. MUSSEY, M. D.,

Senior Surgeon of the Commercial Hospital.

2d Session.

No. 28.

PAUL S. RIDGWAY.

[To accompany bill H. R. No. 668.]

JANUARY 23, 1855.

Mr. ANDREW STUART, from the Committee on Invalid Pensions, made

the following

REPORT.

The Committee on Invalid Pensions, to whom were referred the papers in the case of Paul S. Ridgway, ask leave to report:

That the said Paul S. Ridgway was a volunteer in Captain John Sharp's company of volunteers at the battle of the Thames in the last war with Great Britain, in which action he received a wound from a musket-shot-the ball passing through the leg a short space above the ankle; that said Ridgway again entered the service of the United States as a private in Captain Gill's company, Colonel Miller's regiment of infantry, August 16, 1814, and was honorably discharged at Chillicothe, Ohio, in 1815, after peace was established, for which service a warrant for 160 acres of bounty land was issued to him; that at one time during this service, when carrying a message across the river Thames on the ice, he broke through, and was wet from head to foot; but that he proceeded and delivered his message, and in consequence had one of his feet frozen. At another time, while firing at a target with a six-pounder, in consequence of a premature discharge, the cannon struck him in its recoil, producing a slight rupture. He is now eighty years of age, and the effect of these injuries has totally disabled him. He forbore to ask pension until the year 1850, when poverty and inability to earn a livelihood compelled him to make application to the Commissioner of Pensions for relief. He was then unable, by reason of the death and removal of his officers and fellow-soldiers, to produce the testimony required in the Pension Office to establish his claim. After travelling several hundred miles on foot, searching unsuccessfully for some of his fellow-soldiers, he came on to Washington, and was before your committee, who examined his wounds personally; and being also personally known to one of the members of the committee as a man of good standing and character, your committee are as well satisfied of the justice of his claim for pension as if he had furnished the specified proof required at the Pension Office. They therefore think that he should be placed on a similar footing with other disabled soldiers, and ask leave to report a bill.

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