African American veterans on the Union side were eligible for pensions from the very beginning. And in a change from previous conflicts, it was not only white male veterans who were covered. Union soldiers were covered under the federal system while each former Confederate state had to create and fund its own pension system. There was not just one pension system put in place after the war. But pension systems after the Civil War were more complicated, more divisive, and more expensive than they had ever been and they also provided a model for future conflicts that would remain in place until after World War 2. What many of them needed was tangible economic assistance and the nation already had a history of providing that in the form of pensions. Their hometowns threw them parades, their family was (usually) thrilled to have them back, but it was just not enough. An unknown number (but probably a pretty large percentage) were physically or emotionally damaged by what they had been through. The Civil War provided significant challenges in that more than two million veterans could legitimately claim the attention of their government. There is widespread agreement that having put their own lives on hold to serve their country, they should be rewarded for that service. Today we are comfortable with providing both tangible and intangible benefits to our veterans. Because most Civil War soldiers were either farmers or laborers, their growing inability to do physical labor meant that pensions (or other governmental economic assistance) would be their only source of support. By the 1890s (when the Civil War commemoration movement was at its height) most veterans were in their 50s and 60s, feeling the effects of both their physical war wounds and the nation’s economic collapse, and desperate for some kind of help from anyone who could supply it. The reality of the situation was, as usual, quite different than the image. It does not matter for the image if the veteran was a Confederate or Union veteran. The old man, still in the remnants of his uniform, recounts stories of wartime bravery for an adoring crowd.
For most modern Americans the image of Civil War veterans is the one they have seen in the movies or read in novels.
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