3 March 1865 c. 84 13 Stat. 499

CHAP. LXXXIV. – An Act supplementary to the several Acts relating to Pensions.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That no invalid pensioner now or hereafter in the service of the United States shall be entitled to draw a pension for any period of time during which he is or shall be entitled to the full pay or salary which an able-bodied person discharging like duties to the government is allowed by law.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That acting assistant or contract surgeons disabled by any wound received or disease contracted while actually performing the duties of assistant surgeons or acting assistant surgeons, with any military forces in the field or in transitu, shall be entitled to the benefits of the pension laws in the same manner as if they had actually been mustered into the service with the rank of “assistant surgeon,” and the widows, minor children, or the dependents of acting assistant surgeons dying while performing the duty aforesaid, shall in like manner be entitled to the same benefits of the pension laws as if the deceased had been actually mustered into the service as assistant surgeons.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That all persons now by law entitled to a less pension than hereafter specified who shall have lost one foot and one hand in the military service of the United States, and in the line of his [their] duty, shall be entitled to twenty dollars per month.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That if any officer or other person named in the first section of an act entitled “An act to grant pensions,” approved July fourteen, eighteen hundred and sixty-two, has died since the fourth day of March, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, or shall hereafter 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, or in case of her death or marriage, without payment to her of any part of the pension hereinafter mentioned, 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 under said act, 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: Provided, That when such pension has been, or shall hereafter be, paid to the widow, such child or children shall only be entitled to receive the pension, to commence from the death or marriage of such widow and [to] continue as aforesaid: Provided, further, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to repeal or modify the tenth section of an act entitled “An act supplementary to ‘An act to grant pensions,’ approved July fourteenth, eighteen hundred and sixty-two,” approved July fourth, eighteen hundred and sixty-four, and said section is hereby declared to be in full force and effect in all cases arising under this act to which said section is applicable, saving and excepting such cases as are embraced in the preceding proviso.

APPROVED, March 3, 1865.

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