Tag Archives: pensions

Daughter of the Confederacy

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s one of those children of Civil War veterans I mentioned in an article a while back.  Fascinating to get a glimpse of the pension process; making sure in 1929 that no oath of allegiance to the Union was sworn in the 1860s.

Lindsey didn’t apply for a state pension from Florida based on his Civil War experience until he was in his 70s because he felt it was his responsibility to provide for his family, Goodspeed said. The process was slow because it was difficult to find witnesses to his brief period of service so long ago.

The official paperwork approved in 1929 required Lindsey to swear he “did not desert nor take the oath of allegiance to the United States before the close of war.”

Lindsey died at the age of 87 in December 1932. The original stipend of $40 per month was important to Minnie, who never remarried and raised her family on Lindsey’s farm. As time passed and the number of survivors decreased, the monthly allocation increased.

via Daughter of the Confederacy – Your Houston News: News.

A Living Link

Posted on by
Reply

In my podcast, Paying for the War, I made mention of two living Americans who, as the children of Civil War vets, are still getting their fathers’ pensions.  I had no idea there were other living children of vets beyond the pensioners.  Incredible to think they’re bridging a 150 year gap.

Hugh Tudor, born in 1847, served in the US Army from 1864 through the end of the war. In his seventies, he married and had two daughters. The younger of them, Juanita Tudor Lowrey, was born in 1926. Shes still alive…

via This Womans Father Fought in the American Civil War – Neatorama.

Confederate Pensions

Posted on by
Reply

A mention of Confederate pensions made me curious as to how these worked; the Southern states were poor after the war, and I doubted the Federal government would provide for soldiers who’d actively fought against it. Interesting to note they didn’t come about until 30 years after the war started – one imagines the pension rolls were pretty thin by that time – but that there was no discrimination as to where troops had served.  Given how exclusionary and self-interested the Confederate states were by war’s end, that’s a surprising development.

In 1891 Tennessee established the Board of Pension Examiners to determine if Confederate veterans applying for pensions were eligible. Eligibility requirements included an inability to support oneself, honorable separation from the service, and residence in the state for one year prior to application.

Confederate veterans applied to the pension board of the state in which they resided at the time of application, even if this was not the state from which they served.

via Tennessee Department of State: Tennessee State Library and Archives.

“Civil War Widow’s Mole Skin”

Posted on by
Reply

When I saw that headline I had images of the artist-friendly notebooks. Little did I know I’d find another rodent-based article for the blog. Here’s to a less furry 2013 for the Civil War Podcast!

In order to receive a pension, Civil War widows had to prove that they had actually been married to a soldier. Marriage records were far less consistent in the past than they are today, which explains why Charity Snider ended up sending the pressed skin of a dead mole to the federal government.

Civil War widows mole skin: Sent to the government to secure her pension..