Revolutionary War Pensions, Awarded by State Governments 1775-1874, the General and Federal Governments Prior to 1814, and by Private Acts of Congress

This book brings together for the first time all the data from federal and state sources used to reconstruct Revolutionary War pension records. It is an attempt to identify and recreate the Revolutionary War pension files generated prior to the disastrous fire in the War Department on 8 November 1800, which destroyed nearly a quarter-century of records. Despite the best efforts of the War and Treasury Departments to reconstruct the files, a second and even more disastrous fire occurred during the War of 1812 on 24 August 1814 with the British invasion of Washington. The second fire effectively destroyed all the pension files from 1776 to 1814. Despite the tragic loss of nearly four decades of pension records at the national level, it has been possible not only to identify many of those pensioners whose files are commonly believed to have been lost but also to reconstitute in varying degrees their contents. Thus, more than 16,500 pensioners are featured in this work.