Mr. VANWIN KLE. I will explain the case in a moment. It comes to Congress on account of what is undoubtedly a false or mistaken report made by a medical officer of the Army. y own impression, after a very attentive examination of all the evidence in the case, is that it was a mistake on the part of that surgeon, who is since dead, calling this mans disease consumption, or phthists monaris, as he expressed it, and he said e man was so disabled when he came into the Army. There is a mass of evidence to the contrary. His commanding officer certifies that he was a well man; his neighbors certify that he was a well man. There is a letter written by him while on the march to Vicksburg, which succeeded in the taking of that place, enumerating the hard ships which the Army encountered in etting there; and there were some most crue hard ships to which they were subjected. In that letter he says that when he oined the Army his weight was 168 pounds, which is a heavy weight, I should suppose, for a man afflicted wrth consumption, and that it had by that time been reduced to 147 pounds. He acquitted himself most nobly at the siege of Vicksburg, as the testimony of his commanding officer shows; but at that time he was attacked with a disease that ismentioned in the papers. He continued there for some time, still suffering from that disease, and was then removed to the Mercy hoapital, at Chicago, where he remained until he died. There are among the papers letters from himself, written from that point, in which, although he does not speak directly of his disease, he describes it, so that evidently it was not consumption, but the disease mentioned in the report. The surgeon attending the patients in the hospital of the Sisters of Mercy makes a very distinct affidavit that the man suffered while there, and died, finally, of that disease chronic diarrhma. It seems, from all this testimony, that the Army surgeon, as I have already stated, must have been mistaken. Perhaps it resulted from some confusion about the man. it is that point alone which prevented the ComrPension from granting the pension in this case; and I believe there is in the papers a letter from the ComrPension recommending the case to the consideration of congress. They are very strict and ver technical at the Pension Office, and we have adbefore our committee numerous cases where pensions have been refused merely upon a technicality. This is one such, or you may call it a case of conflict of evidence, rfyou please; but I think that in the absence of a certificate from the surgeon of the corps to which he belonged the testimony of his commanding officer ought to be taken. He has not only that, but he has the confirmation of the other surgeon of whom I have spoken, and the testimony of his neigh here an friends; and lastly, there is a letter from a gentleman who conversed with the Sisters of ercy, in charge of the hospital, who told him that that was the disease with which he was nfilicted and of which he died.