The last American to collect a Civil War pension died in 2020.
The U.S. Civil War ended in 1865 after four grueling years of conflict, but the Confederacy’s surrender at Appomattox Court House didn’t instantly bring closure to a tattered nation. Instead, it marked the beginning of the laborious task of rebuilding a divided country, one that had more than 2 million newly minted veterans. Many were injured from battle or suffered war-related illnesses, and those who didn’t survive the war often left behind families with few ways to support themselves. As a solution to a growing health care and social crisis, the U.S. government created a pension system to financially aid Union soldiers and their widows for the rest of their lives. (Confederate soldiers did not qualify, though some Southern states funded their pensions.) By 1956, the last surviving Civil War veteran had died, but the Department of Veterans Affairs would continue issuing pension payments for decades to come — up until 2020.
Irene Triplett, a 90-year-old North Carolina woman, was the last person to receive a Civil War pension, thanks to her father’s service in the Union Army. Mose Triplett was originally a Confederate soldier who deserted in 1863 and later joined a Union regiment, a move that kept him out of the fight at Gettysburg, where 90% of his former infantry was killed. Switching sides also guaranteed Mose a pension for the remainder of his life, which would later play a role in him remarrying after the death of his first wife. At age 78, Mose married the 27-year-old Elida Hall — a move historians say was common during the Great Depression, when aging veterans needing care could provide financial security to younger women. The couple had two children, including Irene, who was diagnosed with cognitive impairments that allowed her to qualify for her father’s pension after both parents’ deaths. By the time of Irene’s own passing in 2020, the U.S. government had held up its duty, paying out Mose Triplett’s pension for more than 100 years.
Before the Civil War, pensions weren’t given out to all veterans; in many cases, only widows or disabled soldiers received payment from the government. However, some living veterans did receive another perk for their service: certificates for free land. These vouchers, called bounty land warrants, first awarded parcels of public land to soldiers who served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, and Congress continued to use them as a recruiting tool during other conflicts, including the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, and for military actions involving Native Americans. The amount of land awarded — often in territories that would become Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, or Louisiana — varied by rank, with privates and noncommissioned officers receiving 100 acres and major generals getting as much as 1,100 acres. It’s unclear how many veterans (or their heirs) claimed their rewards, but historians know that more than 500,000 warrants were doled out, totaling more than 61 million acres of American land.
