WIDOWS AND ORPHANS-VOLUNTEERS AND MILITIA. or soldier, when there is no widow, shall be paid no longer than while there are children or a child under the age aforesaid: And provided further, That the half-pay of such widow and orphans shall be half the monthly pay of the officers, non-commissioned officers, musicians and privates of the infantry of the regular army of the United States, and no more, and that no greater sum shall be allowed to such widow or minor children than the half-pay of a lieutenant-colonel; And provided, also, That this act shall not be construed to apply to or embrace the case of any person or persons now receiving a pension for life; and, further, that wherever half-pay shall have been granted by any special act of Congress, and is renewed or continued under the provisions of this act, the same shall commence from the date hereof. WAR OF 1861. An act of July 14, 1862, granting pensions in general for wounds, disease or death, incurred in the war of 1861, for the suppression of rebellion, contains the following provisions : AN ACT to Grant Pensions. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That if any officer, non-commissioned officer, musician or private of the army, including regulars, volunteers and militia, or any officer, warrant or petty officer, musician, seaman, ordinary seaman, flotillaman, marine, clerk, landsman, pilot or other person in the navy or marine crops has been, since the fourth day of March, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, or shall hereafter be disabled by reason of any wound received or disease contracted while in the service of the United States and in the line of duty, he shall, upon making due proof of the fact according to such forms and regulations as are or may be provided by or in pursuance of law, be placed upon the list of invalid pensions [pensioners] of the United States, and be entitled to receive for the highest rate of disability, such pension as is hereinafter provided in such cases, and for an inferior disability an amount proportionate to the highest disability, to commence as hereinafter provided, and continue during the existence of such disability. The pension for a total disability for officers, non-commissioned officers, WIDOWS AND ORPHANS-VOLUNTEERS AND MILITIA. musicians and privates employed in the military service of the United States, whether regulars, volunteers or militia, and in the marine corps, shall be as follows, viz: Lieutenant-colonel and all officers of a higher rank, thirty dollars per month; major, twentyfive dollars per month; captain, twenty dollars per month; first lieutenant, seventeen dollars per month; second lieutenant, fifteen dollars per month; and non-commissioned officers, musicians and privates, eight dollars per month. The pension for total disability for officers, warrant or petty officers, and others employed in the naval service of the United States, shall be as follows, viz: Captain, commander, surgeon, paymaster and chief engineer, respectively, ranking with commander by law, lieutenant commanding and mastercommanding, thirty dollars per month; lieutenant, surgeon, paymaster and chief engineer, respectively, ranking with lieutenant by law, and passed assistant surgeon, twenty-five dollars per month; professor of mathematics, master, assistant surgeon, assistant paymaster and chaplain, twenty dollars per month; first assistant engineers and pilots, fifteen dollars per month; passed midshipman, midshipman, captains' and paymasters' clerk, second and third assistant engineer, masters' mate and all warrant officers, ten dollars per month; all petty officers and all other persons before named employed in the naval service, eight dollars per month; and all commissioned officers, of either service, shall receive such and only such pension as is herein provided for the rank in which they hold commissions. SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That if any officer or other person named in the first section of this act has died since the fourth day of March, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, or shall here. after die, by reason of any wound received or disease contracted while in the service of the United States, and in the line of duty, his widow, or, if there be no widow, his child or children under sixteen years of age, shall be entitled to receive the same pension as the husband or father would have been entitled to had he been totally disabled, to commence from the death of the husband or father, and to continue to the widow during her widowhood, or to the child or children until they severally attain to the age of sixteen years, and no longer. SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That... And provided, further, That no moneys shall be paid to the widow or children, or any heirs of any deceased officer, on account of bounty, back pay or pension. WIDOWS AND ORPHANS-VOLUNTEERS AND MILITIA. who have in any way been engaged in, or who have aided or abetted, the existing rebellion in the United States; but the right of such disloyal widow or children, heir or heirs of such soldier, shall be vested in the loyal heir or heirs of the deceased, if any there be. SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That the fees of agents and attorneys, for making out and causing to be executed the papers necessary to establish a claim for a pension, bounty and other allowance before the Pension Office under this act, shall not exceed the following rates: For making out and causing to be duly executed a declaration by the applicant, with the necessary affidavits, and forwarding the same to the Pension Office, with the requisite correspondence, five dollars. In cases wherein additional testimony is required by the Commissioner of Pensions, for each affidavit so required and executed and forwarded (except the affidavits of surgeons, for which such agents and attorneys shall not be entitled to any fees), one dollar and fifty cents. SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That any agent or attorney who shall, directly or indirectly, demand or receive any greater compensation for his services under this act than is prescribed in the preceding section of this act, or who shall contract or agree to prosecute any claim for a pension, bounty or other allowance under this act, on the condition that he shall receive a per centum upon or any portion of the amount of such claim, or who shall wrongfully withhold from a pensioner or other claimant the whole or any part of the pension or claim allowed and due to such pensioner or claimant, shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall, for every such offense, be fined not exceeding three hundred dollars, or imprisoned at hard labor not exceeding two years, or both, according to the circumstances and aggravations of the offense. The other sections of the act may be found on pages 28 to 33. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. The act of April 16, 1816, makes provision for the widows and orphans of officers and soldiers who served in the war of 1812. The amount of the half-pay to widows and orphans of WIDOWS AND ORPHANS-VOLUNTEERS AND MILITIA. the militia and volunteers, and certain others troops, is fixed by the act of March 3, 1817. The benefits of all laws granting half-pay to widows. and orphans of regulars, were extended to the widows. and children of militia who died in the Seminole war, by act of April 20, 1818. Half-pay was granted to the widows and orphans of volunteers and militia who served on the Wabash, under General Harrison, by act of April 10, 1812; and like provision was made by act of March 19, 1836, for the widows and orphans of volunteers and militia who served in the Florida war. The act of July 4, 1836, makes provision for the widows of volunteers, militia, and others who served after April 20, 1818. The act of July 21, 1848, extends the benefits of the first section of the act of July 4, 1836, to the widows and orphans of those who served in the Mexican war. These benefits were by act of February 22, 1849, also extended to the widows and orphans of all regulars and volunteers who died in the service, or after discharge, from wounds or disease, received or contracted in the service. The joint resolution of September 28, 1850, construed the acts of July 21, 1848, and February 22, 1849. The act of February 3, 1853, continued for five additional years the half-pay granted by acts of July 21, 1848, and February 22, 1849, and by relation (according to the decision of the Commissioner of Pensions), the half-pay provided in the first section of the act of July 4, 1836. This act also extended the benefits of the act of February 22, 1849, to the widows and orphans of officers and soldiers of the war of 1812, and Indian wars since 1790. WIDOWS AND ORPHANS-VOLUNTEERS AND MILITIA-FORMS, ETC. The act of August 5, 1854, prescribes that the marriage of a widow, after the death of her soldier-husband, shall not bar her of a pension, if she be again a widow at the time of making her application. The act of June 3, 1858, renews for life or widowhood, to widows, and until the age of sixteen years, to orphans, the half-pay granted under any act of Congress. The act of July 14, 1862, makes provisions for the widows and orphans of the war of 1861. SECTION II. REGULATIONS AND FORMS FOR OBTAINING PENSIONS FOR WIDOWS AND ORPHANS OF VOLUNTEERS AND MILITIA. The same regulations and forms (with slight variations) which appertain to the claims of widows and orphans of regulars, apply to those of the widows and orphans of volunteers and militia. To the former, therefore, claimants under this title are referred. They may also consult "Regulations and Forms for obtaining pensions for widows of persons who served in the war of the revolution," with profit. A few forms, applicable to claims under the various acts granting pensions to the widows of volunteers and militia, in general, here follow, by way of illustration: Widow's Declaration. STATE OF On this day of 18-, before above-named, personally appeared aged in and for the county and State a resident of - in the State of years, who being duly sworn according to law, declares who was a— in company -9 com that she is the widow of |