Confederate pension records

When each state began paying

Programs started at very different times. According to the National Archives, Alabama began with pensions for veterans who had lost arms or legs in 1867, added widows in 1886, and amended the law in 1891 to grant pensions to indigent veterans or their widows; a guide to Alabama's pension records from Wallace State College, however, says the state passed a general pension bill only in 1899, which is also the first year of its surviving payment records. North Carolina also began in 1867 with men who were blinded or had lost an arm or leg, and opened pensions to other disabled indigent veterans or widows in 1885. Georgia began in 1870 with soldiers who had artificial limbs and by 1894 had expanded eligible disabilities to include old age and poverty.

Other states followed: Florida in 1885 (widows from 1889), Mississippi in 1888, Virginia in 1888, Arkansas in 1891 (widows and mothers from 1915), Tennessee in 1891 (widows from 1905), Louisiana in 1898, Missouri in 1911, Kentucky in 1912, and Oklahoma in 1915. Texas set aside 1,280 acres for disabled Confederate veterans in 1881 and began pensions for indigent veterans and widows in 1889. Missouri paid indigent veterans only and granted nothing to widows. South Carolina passed a pension law on December 24, 1887, but few applications survive from 1888 to 1918; from 1919 to 1925 it paid veterans and widows regardless of financial need.

The Alabama, South Carolina, and Tennessee programs, and possibly others, also paid pensions to Black men who had served Confederate forces as servants. The Library of Virginia's collection includes applications from more than 500 enslaved and free Black men who worked as cooks, herdsmen, laborers, servants, or teamsters.

What a pension file can tell you

Files range from a single form to a thick bundle. In Alabama, a typical file gives the veteran's unit and dates of service and his or his widow's residence when applying, and may add birth, marriage, property, and health. In 1920, Alabama widow pensioners had to fill out a detailed questionnaire that asked, among other things, the name of the widow's father.

Virginia applications contain statements about the applicant's service and may include medical evaluations, information about income and property, and, for widows, the dates and places of marriages. Louisiana files may show service, occupation, residence, and number of children, and sometimes hold letters, copies of checks, newspaper clippings, court papers, and obituaries.

Other states kept less. The National Archives describes a Missouri pension file as small, perhaps four to eight pages, with a standard application form and sometimes letters of recommendation from family or others. A South Carolina application is typically one sheet of paper written on both sides. A Texas application consists of two sheets, each with a front and back.

Records that grew up around the pensions

The pension programs created other records worth checking. Alabama took censuses of its Confederate pensioners in 1907, 1921, and 1927. The 1907 census gives each veteran's county of birth, date of birth, and military service; the 1921 census also asks his wife's place of birth and where she lived at marriage, and the names, residences, and occupations of his children; the 1927 census asked widows about their marriages. Alabama's card index to its pensions documents Confederate service for hundreds of men whose service records do not survive at the National Archives.

Payment records can help date a death, because a pensioner who died stopped being paid. Alabama has payment records for scattered years from 1899 to 1930, and the Texas State Library and Archives can sometimes say when and why a Texas pension stopped. Some states also hold applications to Confederate soldiers' homes; in Missouri the pension and home applications are filed together alphabetically.

Searching the indexes

Most states have a name index, and several are free online. The Texas index lists 54,634 approved, rejected, and home pensions issued from 1899 to 1975, with the applicant's county and application number. A widow's entry gives her husband's name and, if he received a pension, his application number. Some Texas files were already missing when they reached the archives; the index marks them Missing, so you know an application once existed.

Spelling causes many misses. The Texas index copies the name as spelled on the application, so a misspelling there is a misspelling in the index, and a widow may have spelled her husband's name differently from him. In Virginia names may be abbreviated, as in Jno. for John or Wm. for William. The Virginia index does not cover applications from veterans' sisters and daughters, which have not been indexed or digitized. Louisiana's index has more than 49,000 names drawn from its applications, which are on 152 reels of microfilm.