Last Person to Receive Civil War-Era Pension Dies

[mahatmakanejeeves]

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."

David Fahrenthold Retweeted

In 1862, Mose Triplett enlisted in a North Carolina infantry regiment. He later deserted, and in 1864 joined a Union regiment. Due to his service, he got a veteran’s pension, which passed to his daughter, Irene. Irene died—this past Sunday, at 90. RIP.

Link to tweet

WORLD OBITUARIES
Last Person to Receive Civil War-Era Pension Dies
Irene Triplett collected $73.13 from Department of Veterans Affairs, benefit for her father’s military service in Civil War

By Michael M. Phillips
June 2, 2020 7:40 pm ET

Irene Triplett, the last person receiving a pension from the U.S. Civil War, has died at the age of 90.

Ms. Triplett’s father, Mose Triplett, started fighting in the war for the Confederacy, but defected to the North in 1863. That decision earned his daughter Irene, the product of a late-in-life marriage to a woman almost 50 years his junior, a pension of $73.13 a month from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Ms....

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Michael M. Phillips Retweeted

Veterans' Benefits Live On Long After Bullets Stop

Link to tweet

[lagomorph777]

1. Amazing how connected we really are to "ancient history."

[appalachiablue]

2. History is all relative, I have a photo

of a sibling as a toddler being held by our great grandmother. She was born during the Civil War.
Likewise my mother told us she saw Civil War veterans at reunion events in Phila. and Richmond when she was a girl in in the 1920s and 1930s.
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You would be surprised at some of the information contained in Civil War veterans' pension papers at the National Archives: bigamist men whose 2nd wives claimed benefits, marriages of noted persons that were unknown for sensitive reasons, and more.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. Here's a thread that links to the entire article:

Last Person to Receive Civil War-Era Pension Dies

The article, now not behind a paywall:

WORLD OBITUARIES
Last Person to Receive Civil War-Era Pension Dies
Irene Triplett collected $73.13 from Department of Veterans Affairs, benefit for her father’s military service in Civil War

By Michael M. Phillips
https://twitter.com/MPhillipsWSJ
[e-mail]
June 2, 2020 7:40 pm ET

Irene Triplett, the last person receiving a pension from the U.S. Civil War, has died at the age of 90.

Ms. Triplett’s father, Mose Triplett, started fighting in the war for the Confederacy, but defected to the North in 1863. That decision earned his daughter Irene, the product of a late-in-life marriage to a woman almost 50 years his junior, a pension of $73.13 a month from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Ms. Triplett, who suffered from mental disabilities, qualified for federal financial support as a helpless adult child of a veteran. She died Sunday from complications following surgery for injuries from a fall, according to the Wilkesboro, N.C., nursing home where she lived.

The Triplett family was the subject of a Page One article in The Wall Street Journal in 2014.

{snip}

The number of what the group calls true sons and daughters of Civil War soldiers is fast heading toward zero. Mr. St. Andrew expects that as word spreads of Ms. Triplett’s death, the Sons of Union Veterans will, as is customary, declare a 30-day mourning period. Members will wear a black band on their membership badges.

Write to Michael M. Phillips at [e-mail]

An earlier story about the family, from 2014:

Still Paying for the Civil War
Veterans' Benefits Live On Long After Bullets Stop
BY MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS

WILKESBORO, N.C.—Each month, Irene Triplett collects $73.13 from the Department of Veterans Affairs, a pension payment for her father's military service—in the Civil War.

More than 3 million men fought and 530,000 men died in the conflict between North and South. Pvt. Mose Triplett joined the rebels, deserted on the road to Gettysburg, defected to the Union and married so late in life to a woman so young that their daughter Irene is today 84 years old—and the last child of any Civil War veteran still on the VA benefits rolls.

{snip}