In my last post in this series on my 2xgreat grandfather Asa Freeman
Ellingwood's Civil War Pension file, I talked about the revelation in the
testimony of his cousin James Barrows that he(Barrows) had testified
before in the case and in fact there were two previous afidavits! When
I checked the testimony of several other witnesses on Asa's behalf, I found
they had also testified on earlier occasions.
So how did I miss that?
Simple. I didn't look to see if the documents from NARA were in chronological
order. Each page was numbered so I went with the order in which they were
numbered assuming they were chronological.
Yeah, I know. I can dream, can't I?
Then I made a second assumption, that the transcripts of the hearings in April of
1884 must have been for the original pension claim. Once I read in James Barrows'
testimony that he had made previous statements, I looked at some of the other
documents. There were at least three other earlier occasions when some witness
or another had testified, in the years 1877, 1879, and 1881,
Now I know Asa got his pension, his file has a certificate number. So what is
going on here?
Apparently, Asa's pension was granted originally because of his kidney disease,
but afterwards he filed for additional benefits based on the fact of his rupture.
This is why Special Examiner F E Lawton has so many questions about Asa's
physical condition before and after the war,
You'll have to keep reading to find out if Asa was successful!
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