Justice for Matthew!
by Brian Rhinehart
I was going through military bounty land files at the National Archives when this story caught my attention. The soldier it belonged to, Matthew M. Stuart, had enlisted in June 1812 at the age of ten.
Yes, you read that right. Ten years old.
Matthew served nearly three years as a musician during the War of 1812. When the war ended, he received an honorable discharge and tried to claim the bounty land he thought he had earned. The government denied his application, though, claiming he had asked to be discharged early and hadn't completed his term of service. According to them, asking to be discharged made him ineligible for bounty land. *
Matthew denied their version of the story, and he wasn't alone. Two witnesses came forward on his behalf, including Major Mills, a military officer who was present at the base at the time of Matthew's discharge. Both testified that Matthew never asked to leave and that no such order ever existed. He was a fourteen year old with credible witnesses on his side, arguing with a federal bureaucracy. It wasn't a fair fight, and in the end, the government (literally) held their ground. He was still denied the bounty land.
He had submitted his discharge paper, the only thing that really proved his story, but they didn't accept it and refused to give it back. In the end, Matthew was left with nothing to show for his service, and no way to prove his case.
I wanted to know if the bounty land claim was ever granted, so I kept digging. I got my answer, but not in the way I expected at all. I discovered that the ripple effects of that denial would turn out to be far worse than anyone could have imagined.
Nearly forty years after Matthew was first denied, his 76 year old father Charles filed for the bounty land his son should have earned. His father explained that Matthew had disappeared sometime around 1820. He left Baltimore with a stranger, boarded a civilian ship, and was never heard from again.
He never wrote home and never told anyone to deliver a message on his behalf. There was silence from Matthew. His father waited years, contacted friends across Pennsylvania and Ohio, but heard nothing. He eventually came to the sad conclusion that Matthew had to have died at sea. The requirements for bounty land had relaxed since Matthew had applied, so they approved the father's claim. **
The injustice toward Matthew himself is hard to miss. The government had denied young Matthew while he was showing proof of his honorable discharge. They later approved the father's claim based on a presumption that he was dead.
Throughout all of his files, references to that discharge paper kept coming up. It was asked for, held by the government and never returned. Matthew never got it back. His father never got it back. It had the proof they needed, but it had "disappeared" over 200 years ago.
What happened to that discharge paper? What did it actually say? I wanted to know, so I kept searching.
And sure enough, I found it.
That discharge paper was tucked away in his records at the National Archives. The very same document Matthew submitted in good faith that he would get his land. The one the government held over him and refused to return. The one that confirmed he enlisted at age ten and was discharged at twelve years old. The one that could have, and should have, changed the course of his life. After more than 200 years, it was finally brought back into the light.
The paper shows honorable discharge, period. No conditions. No asterisks. There is a note added later, dated 31 December 1816, claiming the discharge was retained because Matthew had asked to leave early. That notation was not part of the original discharge, though. It was added afterward, after Matthew sent it back as part of his bounty land application. What's the real story? We'll never know for sure, but the original document that was issued to Matthew tells a different story than the one the government told.
How would Matthew's life have been different had he been granted the bounty land? Would he have started a new life on his land instead of looking for a new adventure and boarding that ship? That decision to board that boat seems to have cost him his life.
After more than 200 years, I was able to hold the original papers in my hands and read them for myself. Matthew's story matched what the discharge paper said. Of course, I don't know what really happened, but based solely on that discharge paper, Matthew was telling the truth and should have gotten that land.
I couldn't give Matthew the justice he deserved, but finding that discharge paper and proving his story was true was the only form of justice that I could give him.
* Under the Bounty Land Acts of 1811 and 1812, a soldier had to enlist for five years to qualify for bounty land. If the army discharged him early for reasons outside his control, such as the war ending, disability, etc., that still counted. But if a soldier personally requested his own discharge before his term was up, the government treated that as voluntarily walking away from the deal, which disqualified him from receiving the land. The government claimed Matthew had asked to leave, which in their eyes meant he wasn't willing to serve five years, and therefore, was ineligible for bounty land.
** By the time his father Charles filed the bounty land claim in 1854, Congress had relaxed the requirements. The original law required a soldier to serve a full five years to qualify. The newer laws, passed in the 1850s, dropped that requirement. A soldier now just needed an honorable discharge and enough time served. Matthew's service of nearly three years was more than enough. The new laws also allowed a father, widow, or other heir to file a claim if the veteran had passed away, which is what opened the door for Charles to apply on his son's behalf.