Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Last US Civil War Pension

Episode Date: August 25, 2020

On May 31, 2020, Irene Triplett passed away at the age of 90. Her life was rather unremarkable save for one important fact: she was the last person who received a pension from the United States government from the US Civil War. Find out how a woman who died two decades into the 21st Century was still receiving a pension from a war which ended 155 years ago on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On May 31st, 2020, Irene Triplett passed away at the age of 90. Her life was rather unremarkable, save for one important fact. She was the last person to receive a pension from the United States government from the U.S. Civil War. Find out how a woman who died two decades into the 21st century was still receiving a pension from a war which ended 155 years ago on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Fear is the virus is trending on TikTok. vaccines are poison. Then your yoga teacher says that sex traffic children are being sacrificed by satanic liberals, but it's all okay.

The Great Awakening is coming. What is happening? Every week on Conspiratuality Podcast, we explore the fever dreams that suck friends, family, and wellness gurus down the right-wing cult spiral in a search for salvation. This episode is sponsored by Audible.com. As you know, Audible gives you a free moment. month with two free audiobooks when you sign up. If you really, really want to get your money's worth, I'd highly recommend The Civil War A Narrative by Shelby Foot. This is a three-volume series of

audiobooks, which are really long and in depth. The first book covers Fort Sumter to Perryville, the second from Fredericksburg to Meridian, and the final is from Red River to Appomattox. Combined the three audiobooks are 155 hours long. And I know this because I've actually listened to all three of these audiobooks during my many lengthy road trips. You can claim your one-month trial to Audible and your two free audiobooks by going to audible trial.com slash everything everywhere or by clicking on the link in the show notes. Irene Triplett was born in 1930 in Wilkes County, North Carolina, 65 years after the end of the U.S. Civil War. How she ended up perceiving a Civil War pension is one of those stories that you wouldn't believe if it

wasn't true, but when you do the math, it actually does work out. Her father was Moes Triplett, was a veteran of the Civil War. He had the distinction of having fought for both the Confederacy and the Union. He was a member of the 53rd North Carolina Infantry who fought in the Battle of Gittiesburg. On the way to Gittiesburg, Moes fell ill and was hospitalized. The illness probably saved his life because most of his unit was either killed or wounded during the battle. After he recovered, he deserted the Confederates and joined up with the third North Carolina mounted infantry, which fought for the Union. The unit was known as Kirk's Raiders after Commander Colonel George Washington Kirk.

After the war, Moes returned to North Carolina, got married, and started a family. His wife, Mary, passed away in 1920. As with many older Civil War veterans, they would often take younger second wives, especially during the Great Depression, as their pension was considered a source of stable income. In 1924, at the age of 78, Moes married his second wife, Alita, who was 29 years old. Moes and Alita had five children. One of them, Irene, was born in 1930, when he was married. when Moes was 83.

Irene was just eight years old when her father died at the age of 92 after returning home from a Civil War Veterans Reunion. Irene had a cognitive disability, which made her eligible to continue to receive her father's civil war pension after his death as a, quote, helpless child of a veteran. She received her father's pension of $73.13 every month from her father's death in 1938 to her death in 2020. The amount was never adjusted for inflation the entire time. It's estimated she received approximately $17,000 over the course of her life.

In addition to having received the last Civil War pension, she was also the last child of a Civil War veteran. The second to last child of a Civil War veteran also had an interesting story. In 2018, Fred Upton passed away at the age of 97. His father was William H. Upton, who was a Civil War veteran, and the former governor of the state of Wisconsin, who was elected in 1894. Because of the occurrence of young women marrying much older men with pensions, the passing of the last Civil War widow wasn't that long ago either. In 2008, Maudey Hopkins died at the age of 93.

In 1934, at the age of 19, she married 86-year-old William Cantrell, who served as a 16-year-old soldier in the Confederate Army. The last union widow was Gertrude Janeway, who passed away in 2003. The last surviving documented veteran of the Civil War was Albert Wilson, who died at the age of 106, in 1956. He was a 14-year-old drummer boy in the first Minnesota heavy artillery regiment. In 1956, there was an episode of the TV game show, I've Got a Secret, with a 95-year-old man named Samuel Seymour. The panelists had to guess what the guest secret was. Samuel Seymour was the last surviving witness to Abraham Lincoln's assassination.

He was a five-year-old boy who was taken to Ford's Theater and sat in the balcony across the theater from the president. There is a clip of the appearance on YouTube, and I highly recommend viewing it if you're interested in such things. The last surviving person who was born as a slave in the United States was Peter Mills, who died in 1972. He was born into slavery in 1861 and lived to be 110. One person was both born into bondage and lived to see the moon landing. The last surviving veteran of the Revolutionary War was John Gray, who died in 1868 at the age of 104. He is one of the only people who lived to see both the Revolution and the Civil War. Oddly enough, he was born on George Washington's estate in Mount Vernon, and his father died in the Revolutionary War.

The last surviving veteran of Napoleon's Army was a Polish man, Vincent Markowitz, who died at 108 in 1903. And the last veteran of the War of 1812 was Hiram Kronk, who passed away. in 1905 at the age of 105. In 2011 at the age of 110, American Frank Buckles was the last surviving veteran of World War I in the world to pass away. Demographers estimate that the last veteran of World War II will pass away sometime around the year 244. It will probably be someone who fought at a very young age and lives to be at least 110. It's amazing how the lives of some people can span such incredible lengths of time and how we can have lives that overlap them. We think of the Civil War as being a long time ago, yet we're only two or three generations

removed from people who lived through all of these events. Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is James Mackala. Special thanks to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Please remember to leave a review over on Apple Podcasts. Even a simple review can really help the show get discovered in the sea of other podcasts that are out there.