services rendered in individual cases
during the late struggle and in other forms since."

And was it not fitting that the author of such influential pamphlets
and the designer of the remarkable plan of the Tennessee campaign
should be honorably recognized and rewarded?

Miss Carroll was in her 66th year at the time of General Bragg's
recommendation. Her father was no longer living, her family was
scattered, her health was failing, and her time, strength, and fortune
had been wholly expended in the service of her country with noble
generosity and the most brilliant results. Surely she deserved to
spend the remaining years of her life in honorable independence,
distinguished and beloved by the nation to whom she had rendered
incalculable service.

Now it seemed as if, after such an unqualified indorsement of her work
by three successive military committees appointed for the purpose, and
a suitable bill prepared, that surely her cause was won. Miss Carroll
had been informed of the report and of the bill that had been
prepared. But the Military Committee, having made this excellent
summary of evidence, indorsed Miss Carroll's claim in the strongest
manner, and prepared a noble and fitting bill, became greatly alarmed
at what they had done. Leaving their report unchanged, at the last
moment they hastily withdrew the dignified and fitting bill and
substituted in its place the following surprising performance:

"_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled_, That the Secretary of
the Interior be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to place
upon the pension-rolls of the United States the name of Anna Ella
Carroll, and to pay to her a pension of fifty dollars per month from
and after the passage of this act, during her life, for the important
military service rendered the country by her during the late civil
war."

_Such_ a report and _such_ a bill side by side stand an anomaly
unparalleled.

Truly the life of the nation was rated as a cheap thing.

Of course the bill died immediately of its own glaring and ineffable
meanness.

One can hardly say whether it would have been the more unworthy
thing to pass such a bill or to pass none at all; but the last, being
the most timorous course, had been adopted for ten successive years,
as it has also been resorted to in the ten succeeding ones.

The Military Committee of 1881, having accomplished this