The U.S. Civil War may have ended more than 160 years ago in 1865, but the last surviving widow of a Union soldier, and indeed the last surviving widow of a Civil War veteran overall, passed away just five years ago. How is that possible?
Helen Viola Jackson, born August 3, 1919, died at age 101 on December 16, 2020. Jackson was only 17 when she married James Bolin, age 93, in 1936 in the midst of The Great Depression. Bolin died in 1939, and Jackson never remarried. She never had children and did apply for the Civil War pension of $73.13 per month to which she was entitled ($1,420 in 2021 dollars) because Bolin’s daughters threatened to ruin her character. In fact, the marriage was not revealed until Jackson met with her pastor in 2017 to plan her own funeral. The historical significance was instantly apparent, however.
The last surviving wife to receive a Civil War pension died in 2008, and the last person to receive one overall was a daughter of a veteran who died in May 2020.
The Pension bill signed into law by President Benjamin Harrison in 1890 was seen as quite the boondoggle, granting pensions to Union soldiers with 90 days of service, and thus by extension their spouses after their death. President Grover Cleveland vetoed a similar bill three years earlier. By 1894, pension payments comprised 37% of the entire federal budget.
