Federal Revolutionary War Invalid Pension Claims, 1792-1795

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Penn collection
The Magazine of Early American Datasets (MEAD)
Discipline
Subject
Revolutionary War
pension
military
disability
American Studies
Disability Studies
History
Military History
Region
Funder
Grant number
Date issued
2021-12-14
Distributor
Scholarly Commons, University of Pennsylvania Libraries
Related resources
Daen, Laurel. “Revolutionary War Invalid Pensions and the Bureaucratic Language of Disability in the Early Republic.” Special Issue on Early American Disability Studies. Early American Literature 52, 1 (Spring 2017): 141-167.
https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?filename=0&article=1046&context=mead&type=additional
Contributor
Abstract

This dataset contains the names and accompanying information of 573 Revolutionary War veterans who applied for federal “invalid” pensions between 1792 and 1795. As early as 1776, the Continental Congress authorized the provision of pensions to veterans who were “disabled in the service of the United States of America” and thereby rendered “incapable afterwards of getting a livelihood.” Veterans typically applied to district courts where district judges evaluated their deservingness of support and their particular “degrees” of disability (one quarter, one half, and so on) which corresponded with their pension amounts. District courts then transmitted veterans’ information and district judges’ decisions to the War Department for approval. This dataset is comprised of lists compiled by the Secretary of War and communicated to the United States Congress. These lists were later included in the American State Papers (Claims, Volume 1).

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