Edward
Walker, Jr.
applied for and received bounty land; his widow, Sarah
(Crumley) Walker, received a pension based on his service
for about 20 years. The entire pension file is transcribed
here.
1850
September 28:
Congress
passes a law granting bounty land to some veterans
of the War of 1812.
Almost
56 years to the day after the end of the War of
1812, Congress passed a law granting pensions to
soldiers and widows; it required that the widows
be married to the soldier before the peace treaty
was ratified and that the soldier had served for
60 days. Not surprisingly, most of the people eligible
for this pension had already died, and Sarah certainly
was not, having married Edward many years later.
1878
March 11:
In 1878,
Congress broadened the pension law to reduce the
number of service days required to 14 or that the
soldier served in a battle no matter what the length
of service, and the marriage limitation was removed.
Sarah was eligible 63 years after Edward left the
service. The law benefited mostly widows and applied
only to those who had not remarried; the soldiers
themselves, in most cases, were already dead. The
last soldier on the roll died in 1905 at the age
of 105.
