James Garrison, brother
Dec. 14, 1839
Garrison writes to the Secretary of the Navy, asking for his brother’s discharge, because of illness. James is living with the Garrisons. “His disease is a difficult one to eradicate from the system, if it be not immedicable; and must, for an indefinite period, render him of little or no value to the navy. It is a fistulous abscess, of a cancerous nature, situated at the base of the back bone, and badly affecting the spine, and shattering the constitution.” 1