The following excerpt is from a fascinating article written by Michael M. Phillips, posted at the Wall Street Journal website.
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.
Ms. Triplett’s pension, small as it is, stands as a reminder that war’s bills don’t stop coming when the guns fall silent. The VA is still paying benefits to 16 widows and children of veterans from the 1898 Spanish-American War.
Thanks to Wilbur Hanson Kalb for alerting me to this article. Very interesting!
150 years was not that long ago. Things have changed so much in that time.
This is a wonderful article, to think that so long and yet not so long ago. My family like most of us was also in this war.
And here I felt strange that I had a great grandfather who was in the Civil War and I am 74. Four generations back, and 150 tears ago. Wow.