Object 16: War of 1812 Widow’s Pension Claim

In 1776, the fledging American government passed the first national law compensating soldiers and sailors disabled in the Revolution, but it was slower to make any provisions for widows. Not until 1780 did the Continental Congress approve a resolution awarding widow’s pensions to women who lost a spouse in the war and this act only applied to the widows of officers.

Under the terms of the law, the widow was to receive half her husband ’s pay for seven years from the time of his death, which is the same pension the officer would have been granted after the war if he had lived and served for its entirety. In the 1790s and early 1800s, Congress periodically passed new laws providing half-pay pensions for widows of officers who lost their lives while serving but reduced the duration to five years.

Prior to the War of 1812, the federal government paid little heed to the plight of women whose deceased husbands did not reach the rank of commissioned officer. In the immediate aftermath of the war, Congress finally began offering pensions to the wives of all service members who died in action. This policy continued in subsequent wars.

Congress also took to renewing pensions after the five-year period expired and then made them a lifetime benefit before the Civil War. One element of the law that remained largely unchanged throughout the nineteenth century, however, was the process for submitting a claim. To qualify for a pension, the widow had to provide documentation about her husband’s military record and cause of death. She also had to furnish evidence of their marriage. Court or church records were the preferred form of proof, but pension officials would also accept affidavits from family members or acquaintances or even a family bible inscribed with the date of their marriage. 

Through the 1820s, widow pensions were reserved for women whose husbands died as the direct result of their military service. In 1832, however, Congress decided to grant full pay for life to all surviving Revolutionary War Veterans who had served for two or more years and a lesser amount if they had served for at least six months. In 1836, a full fifty-three years after the war ended, the government extended the same benefit to their widows.

Initially, women qualified for the pension only if they were married at the time of the war, but later amendments to the law first relaxed and then dispensed with this requirement altogether. Widows of men who fought in the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and on the Union side in the Civil War also became eligible for pensions after lengthy interludes of time, although the wives of Union Veterans got off relatively easy compared to their Revolutionary War and War of 1812 counterparts. While the latter had to wait more than 50 years before they could seek a widow’s pension, Congress began accepting claims from the former in 1890, a mere twenty-five years after the conflict ended.

A woman forfeited her widow’s pension when she remarried, although she could seek its reinstatement if her new husband died. An unintended consequence of this rule was that some widows who found a new partner opted for cohabitation rather than marriage in order to continue collecting a pension from the government. Then there was the reverse situation. The dispensing of the requirement to be married at the time of service also led to many May to December romances between elderly Veterans and women decades younger. Such marriages benefitted both parties. The aging Veteran gained companionship and care in his final years, while his youthful bride stood to gain a widow’s pension after his passing.

From the American Revolution through the Spanish-American War, over 100,000 women collected a widow’s pension from the federal government. The laws that regulated the granting of these pensions created bureaucratic hoops women had to jump through to claim one. Go behind the scenes at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., to examine the pension application of Rebecca Cameron, one of the first women to receive a widow’s pension during the Civil War. Her husband, Col. James Cameron, died at the Battle of Bull Run in July 1861.