Is the US federal government still paying Civil War survivor benefits?

Question

I read an article claiming that the US federal government is still paying out a Civil War survivor pension today, over 150 years after the Civil War ended. Is this accurate?

In 1924, Mose Triplett, who had served in both the Union and the Confederate armies, married a woman who bore him a daughter named Irene. Born five years later, she is still getting survivor benefits from the Civil War, 153 years after it ended.

@Richard [Yup, seems so](https://americanmilitarynews.com/2014/05/astonishing-tale-last-civil-war-pension/). Switched over to the Union side after falling ill or possibly faking illness in order to desert (and getting to miss out on Gettysburg as a result). Lucky guy. — HopelessN00b, Feb 06 '18 at 19:42
He married a woman who bore him a daughter in 1924, and she was born 5 years later? o_O — Aaron, Nov 09 '18 at 18:42
@Aaron I assume that's referring to 5 years after they got married — gfos, Apr 10 '19 at 16:39

score 94 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 05 '18 at 18:06

94

According to multiple recent news reports and articles, this is an accurate claim.

According to the US News article:

UPDATE, May 26, 2017: Randy Noller, a spokesman for the Department of Veterans Affairs confirmed Irene Triplett is still alive.

[...]

Irene Triplett – the 86-year-old daughter of a Civil War veteran – collects $73.13 each month from her father's military pension.

answered Feb 05 '18 at 18:06

HopelessN00b

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Are you able to tell if this is the only person who is being paid a Civil War survivor benefit? If so, then when she one day dies, the government will no longer be paying that to anyone, correct? – Thunderforge Feb 05 '18 at 22:32
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@Thunderforge Reportedly, yes, she's the only one. [There's a nice chart in the US News article](https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-08-08/civil-war-vets-pension-still-remains-on-governments-payroll-151-years-after-last-shot-fired). Of course, once she dies, there's still 80-something people receiving pensions from the Spanish American war, which was also fought in the 19th century. – HopelessN00b Feb 05 '18 at 22:37
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@HopelessN00b I would just like to point out this little tidbit from that article, which emphasizes just how out of the ordinary this situation is: "*Mose Triplett was 83 when Irene was born, nearly 87 when her brother Everette came along.*" – David K Feb 07 '18 at 18:21
@DavidK, I was gonna, the math doesn't seem to add up, but after surviving a Civil War, living to a ripe old age, and still making babies? Wow. – Feb 15 '18 at 22:34
@DavidK I'm not so sure it's out of the ordinary as much as a product of the times that we don't see anymore in the modern, Western world. History is rife with countless examples of geriatric men fathering children with their much younger, reproductive-age wives (or concubines or what have you), and that wealthy, powerful, much-older man with much-younger woman dynamic hasn't disappeared... but medical advances and social changes are probably what's reduced the incidence of children from those couplings, at least in our part of the world, these days. – HopelessN00b Feb 15 '18 at 22:45
@HopelessN00b how would medical advances reduce them? I agree with the social aspect, but medical advances would (logically, to me) only **increase** the odds of viability. Maybe I misunderstood. – Mar 01 '18 at 20:28
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@AytAyt Medical advances decrease infant mortality. Decreased infant mortality means you don't need to have 6 children for a good chance of having at least one survive to adulthood (historically, so that your adult children could look after you in old age). So, by decreasing infant mortality, medical advances have been indirectly responsible for decreasing the number of children couples generally have. (And the social changes bit, at least in our part of the world is that adult children aren't explicitly seen as retirement plan anymore, of course). – HopelessN00b Mar 01 '18 at 20:53
@HopelessN00b Aahhh. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks – Mar 01 '18 at 21:41
So, "survivor benefits" go to survivors, and then on to their children after death? – PoloHoleSet Oct 04 '18 at 17:57
@PoloHoleSet you don’t have that quite right. It’s not survivors of the war, it’s survivors of the person collecting the benefit. In this case, that Mose fellow was receiving a military pension for his civil war service. He died. His surviving dependents(spouse, children) are entitled to continue collecting that benefit. Specifically, his now geriatric daughter whom he fathered when he was geriatric himself. – HopelessN00b Oct 04 '18 at 18:07
@HopelessN00b - I'm glad I asked, then! So, military pension, and then survivors of the benefit recipients collect survivor benefits. Thanks. – PoloHoleSet Oct 04 '18 at 18:08

Is the US federal government still paying Civil War survivor benefits?

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