Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, February 7, 1871.
SIR: Enclosed herewith please find application for bounties, original and additional, of James Taylor, late a private in Company C, of the Second Regiment Indian Home Guards. If, as we believe, these claims have been already paid, it will be advisable to trace the money to its destination. Claimant insists that he has never received any penny of it, and the fact that he has for some time been in Arkansas furnishes some assurance of his veracity. As he speaks English fluently and is resolute in his determination to recover his dues, his case is well calculated to furnish an index of the manner in which bounty money was appropriated in this country. Otherwise it is by no means peculiar. The correspondence in our possession indicates that there was no hesitation in indorsing and receipting for claimants; and in most of the eases in which any bounty was received, the claimants were compelled to take store goods, after deducting $15 attorney’s fee and such debts as might appear on the books of any of the traders in the vicinity.
Respectfully, yours,
GEO. WEBSTER
Special Agent Pension-Office.
Hon E. B. FRENCH,
Second Auditor.