An Act in Addition to certain Acts granting Bounty Land to certain Officers and Soldiers who have been engaged in the Military Service of the United States.
| March 3, 1855. 1847. ch. 8. 1848, ch. 49. 1850, ch. 85. 1852, ch. 19. 1853, ch. 8. 1854, ch. 10, 248, 267 §3. Additional grant of bounty lands to soldiers, sailors, &c. Deserters, &c. excepted. Wagon-masters and teamsters included. |
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That each of the surviving commissioned and non-commissioned officers, musicians, and privates, whether of regulars, volunteers, rangers, or militia, who were regularly mustered into the service of the United States, and every officer, commissioned and non-commissioned, seaman, ordinary seaman, flotilla-man, marine, clerk, and landsman in the navy, in any of the wars in which this country has been engaged since seventeen hundred and ninety, and each of the survivors of the militia, or volunteers, or State troops of any State or Territory, called into military service, and regularly mustered therein, and whose services have been paid by the United States, shall be entitled to receive a certificate or warrant from the Department of the Interior for one hundred and sixty acres of land; and where any of those who have so been mustered into service and paid shall have received a certificate or warrant, he shall be entitled to a certificate or warrant for such quantity of land as will make, in the whole, with what he may have heretofore received, one hundred and sixty acres to each such person having served as aforesaid: Provided, The person so having been in service shall not receive said land warrant if it shall appear by the muster-rolls of his regiment or corps that he deserted, or was dishonorably discharged from service: Provided further, That the benefits of this section shall be held to extend to wagon-masters and teamsters who may have been employed, under direction of competent authority in time of war in the transportation of military stores and supplies. |
| Provisions for widows and children. | SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That in case of the death of any person who, if living, would be entitled to a certificate or warrant as aforesaid under this act, leaving a widow, or, if no widow, a minor child or children, such widow, or, if no widow, such minor child or children, shall be entitled to receive a certificate or warrant for the same quantity of land that such deceased person would be entitled to receive under the provisions of this act, if now living: Provided, That a subsequent marriage shall not impair the right of any such widow to such warrant if she be a widow at the time of making her application: And provided, further, That those shall be considered minors who are so at the time this act shall take effect. |
| Fourteen days services required, except where claimant was in a battle. | SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That in no case shall any such certificate or warrant be issued for any service less than fourteen days, except where the person shall actually have been engaged in battle, and unless the party claiming such certificate or warrant shall establish his or her right thereto by record evidence of said service. |
| Warrants, &c. made assignable. Where warrants may be located. |
SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That said certificates or warrants may be assigned, transferred, and located by the warrantees, their assignees, or their heirs-at-law, according to the provisions of existing laws regulating the assignment, transfer, and location of bounty-land warrants. |
| SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That no warrant issued under the provisions of this act shall be located on any public lands, except such as shall at the time be subject to sale at either the minimum or lower graduated prices. | |
| Pay of registers and receivers, for locating said warrants. | SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That the registers and receivers of the several land-offices shall be severally authorized to charge, and receive for their services, in locating all warrants under the provisions of this act, the same compensation or percentage to which they are entitled by law, for sales of the public lands, for cash, at the rate of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre; the said compensation to be paid by the assignees or holders of such warrants. |
| Indians included. | SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That the provisions of this act, and all the bounty-land laws heretofore passed by Congress, shall be extended to Indians, in the same manner, and to the same extent, as if the said Indians had been white men. |
| Revolutionary soldiers included. | SEC. 8. And be it further enacted, That the officers and soldiers of the revolutionary war, or their widows or minor children, shall be entitled to the benefits of this act. |
| Also volunteers at Plattsburg, King’s Mountain, and Nickojock. | SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That the benefits of this act shall be applied to and embrace those who served as volunteers at the invasion of Plattsburg, in September, eighteen hundred and fourteen; also at the battle of King’s Mountain, in the revolutionary war, and the battle of Nickojock, against the confederated savages of the South. |
| Also to Chaplains. | SEC. 10 And be it further enacted, That the provisions of this act shall apply to the chaplains who served with the army, in the several wars of the country. |
| Also to the volunteers at Lewistown, Del. | SEC. 11. And be it further enacted, That the provisions of this act be applied to those who served as volunteers at the attack on Lewistown, in Delaware, by the British fleet, in the war of eighteen hundred and twelve-fifteen. |
| APPROVED, March 3, 1855. |