
Last Person to Receive Civil War-Era Pension Dies - Reedx
https://www.wsj.com/articles/last-person-to-receive-a-civil-war-era-pension-dies-11591141193
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rrrrrrrrrrrryan
Wild.

Especially now, it's important to remind ourselves that American slavery isn't
a thing of the the distant past - there are old people alive today whose
fathers literally fought in the war to keep slavery legal. And the last former
slave died in 1971 [1], which means there are probably tons of middle-aged
people going about their lives who personally knew and had conversations with
ex-slaves.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_Magee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_Magee)

~~~
lsh123
I would be curious to find out how many Americans today have ancestors who
lived in America during Civil war. Even more detailed question is with
percentages cohorts based on how many ancestors were in America vs somewhere
else during that time.

~~~
irrational
My earliest ancestors came over in 1620, the last came over in the 1850s. So
during the civil war, all my ancestors were already on this continent.
However, none of them participated in the war since they all lived out west,
beyond the boundaries of the USA, throughout the war.

~~~
goda90
The West was involved in the war in various ways. California was a state and
Nevada became one. Gold and volunteers were sent east. There were troops sent
to secure New Mexico from the confederacy.

~~~
irrational
None of those are places my ancestors lived.

~~~
goda90
The civil war took place after the Mexican-American war and the establishment
of the border with British Canada. What is the western US now was under US
control. Some parts were states, some territories. There was military and
political activity all over the region related to the civil war. My ancestors
lived in Utah. They didn't go fight, but that doesn't mean they were entirely
isolated from the events.

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teruakohatu
A friend of a friend married his carer or nurse instead of paying her wages.
He was not expecting to live long and needed 24/7 care.

It was agreed that she would be written out of the will, so his children got
all the inheritance which was not diluted due to years of a full time carer.
She got a lifetimes worth of pension payments, in exchange for a few years
work (and forgoing other romantic relationships). She lived with him so I
assume her living expenses were covered.

Risky for both sides, she could contest the will or the pension provider could
find a loophole or accuse her of fraud.

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SamReidHughes
I think this might also be a way for any two people, not too closely related
such that the marriage is illegal, to dodge estate tax.

~~~
stormdennis
Civil partnerships, brought in for the purpose of giving the same legal rights
for gay couples as married ones had, presumably also granted these rights.
Since then gay marriage has rendered these redundant for their original
purpose but they still exist. Some overtly non-romantically involved, long
term, co-habitees are now using civil partnerships to protect the surviving
person from estate duties upon the other's death. The anomaly now is that the
people have to be of the same sex and there is pressure to allow people of the
opposite sex to form them.

~~~
vorpalhex
Can't you just accomplish the same thing with a trust? Admittedly it's a few
hundred dollars instead of whatever the marriage license fee is, but, really?

~~~
stormdennis
I don't know but in the occasional debates I heard around this issue, trusts
were never mentioned. Maybe that's a more possible solution in the USA. The
attraction of civil partnership as thought of for these cases is that it's
understood to just be a legal arrangement that confers all the legal rights of
spouses to property automatically. Because it's possible for same sex people
I've heard of two widowers who share a house entering such an arrangement.

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teabee89
This reminds me that there is video footage online today of a person who
witnessed President Lincoln's murder:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RPoymt3Jx4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RPoymt3Jx4)

~~~
uniqueid
This one is lively. Civil War vets chatting in 1929
[https://youtu.be/4qGX0XM84Ck](https://youtu.be/4qGX0XM84Ck)

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Mary-Jane
One aspect of this that doesn't seem to be getting much attention is the law
of unintended consequences. It's easy to contribute other people's money to an
inarguably noble cause, but I wonder how many of the authors of the budget
that set aside these funds appreciated that their great great great great
great grandchildren, many of them _descendants of slaves_, would be paying for
this benefit?

~~~
throwawaygh
As long as pensions aren’t inflation adjusted and we have near-constant low
level inflation, it’s just not a big deal. This article is about an
approximately $1000/year benefit received by a single person. It’s an extreme
outlier and its cost is many orders of magnitude from being even a rounding
error.

To your question, though, designers of pension funds definitely do understand
that pensions which survive the original recipient can start to look like
perpetuities.

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stormdennis
This reminds me that at least until recently, two grandsons of President Tyler
(born in 1790) were still alive.

~~~
bishnu
Here's an interview with one of them:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGiL2PgC17A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGiL2PgC17A)

It seems like a lot of elderly men in the late 1800s/early 1900s married
younger women to essentially be caregivers.

~~~
stormdennis
The grandson comes across as a nice sensible countryman, no airs or graces
despite the extraordinary lineage and the wealth he seems to have, judging by
his house.

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dragonwriter
The headline is a bit weirdly qualified. “X-War-Era” usually refers to
something from the time of but _not_ directly associated with the war. This
is, in fact, a Civil War pension.

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flomo
Nopay 2016 article about the recipient and other war funds:

[https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-08-08/civil-war-
ve...](https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-08-08/civil-war-vets-pension-
still-remains-on-governments-payroll-151-years-after-last-shot-fired)

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achow
[http://archive.is/Ksohd](http://archive.is/Ksohd)

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xwdv
How is such a pension delivered? A direct deposit? Is there somewhere in an
interface or a check where the words “Civil War pension” would be displayed?

~~~
RobRivera
Its a line item via direct deposit labeled "VA Payment" or something along
those lines.

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Klonoar
Huh, they completed a loop in time.

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hn_throwaway_99
Agreed, I think this is such a good reminder that slavery wasn't that long
ago. There are many people alive today who grew up under legal segregation. In
fact, it's not hard to see how today's modern Republican Party grew out of the
"Southern Strategy" of the late 60s.

~~~
irrational
The Democratic Party used to be the party of the south/segregation. What year
(or decade) is the point where the two parties flipped places on this issue?

~~~
Spooky23
The solid south flipped in the 1960s. LBJ through force of his will basically
betrayed the senate democrats and pushed through significant social
legislation. (Voting, civil rights, great society, etc)

The solid south types saw the writing on the wall and started breaking away.
The “Southern Strategy” as implemented by Nixon and perfected by Reagan
basically started as a collaboration of conservative southerners (“rehab
Democrats”) and western resource extraction interests. Eventually they took
over the GOP and you have the circus that we see today.

~~~
_delirium
It _started_ flipping in the 1960s, but Southern Democrats hung on to most
southern state governments, and many House & Senate seats, until the 1990s.
Richard Shelby (a conservative Alabama Senator) only switched parties in 1994,
for example.

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officemonkey
It _started_ even earlier. In 1948, Strom Thurmond ran for President as a
Dixiecrat (Democrat for Racial Segregation), which is one reason why Truman v.
Dewey was so close.

In 1952, Robert Taft wanted to run for President using the "southern strategy"
to woo disaffected Democratic voters, but Eisenhower decided to run, and that
put an end to that strategy until Nixon was more successful in 1968.

Basically, the south became squishy on Democratic Party once northern
Democratic Mayors (and FDR) realized that African-Americans were a strong
labor voice and a powerful voting block. "The Party of Lincoln" (GOP) had been
ignoring African-Americans since TR was in the White House.

