Civil War Pension Records Present Wealth of Genealogy Information

Although the actual Social Security program as we know it didn't arrive in the U.S. until 1935, there was one important precursor that offered something like a social security program, to one special segment of the American population.

Following the Civil War, the government created a generous pension program for the hundreds of thousands of war widows, orphans and disabled veterans. A much higher proportion of the population was disabled or survivors of deceased breadwinners than at any other time in American history. The Civil War Pension Program bore some similarities to the later development of the Social Security Program. The first national pension program for soldiers was actually passed in 1776, prior to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and pensions of varying types were paid to veterans of America's various wars. However, the Civil War Pension Program represented the U.S.'s first full-fledged pension system.

At first, veterans had to have been disabled as a direct consequence of the war to receive benefits, but later, any disabled Civil War veteran qualified, and then, elderly veterans. By 1910, over 90% of the remaining Civil War veterans were receiving benefits under this program, although they constituted barely 0.6% of the total U.S. population of that era. Civil War pensions were also an asset that attracted young wives to elderly veterans whose pensions they could inherit as the widow of a war veteran. Indeed, there were still surviving widows of Civil War veterans receiving Civil War pensions as late as 1999!

While military pensions became an important source of economic security for many and were a significant expenditure of the federal government, many veterans didn't receive any benefits, including Confederate soldiers and their families.

Genealogy Web sites offer various tools for researching your ancestors who may have served in the Civil War, such as:

• Civil War Pension Index
• Civil War Regiments
• Confederate States Field Officers
• Civil War General Officers

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