Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application File
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NATIONAL ARCHIVES MICROFILM PUBLICATIONS
Microcopy No. 804

REVOLUTIONARY WAR PENSION
AND BOUNTY-LAND-WARRANT
APPLICATION FILES

Roll 331
Brewer, James -
Brewer, William

THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES
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                  INTRODUCTION

On the rolls of this microfilm publication are reproduced and estimated 80,000 pension and bounty-land-warrant application files based on the participation of American military, naval, and marine officers and enlisted mend in the Revolutionary War. Most of the records in the files are dated between 1800 and 1900. The files are part of Record Group 15, Records of the Veterans Administration.

Pension and Bounty-Land -Warrant Legislation and Administration Relating too Participation in the Revolutionary War

Pension Legislation

For more than a century before the beginning of the Revolutionary War, British colonies in North America provided pensions for disabled soldiers adsailors. During and after the Revollutionary War, three principle types of pensions were provided by the U.S. Government for servicemen and their dependents. “Disability” or “invalid pensions” were awarded to servicemen for physical disabilities  incurred in the line of duty: “seervice pensions,” to veterans who served for specified periods of time: “widow’s pensions,” to women whose husbands had been killed in the war or were veterans who had served for specified period of time. 

On August 26, 1776, the first pension legislation for the American colonies as a group was enacted. A resolution of the Continental Congress provided half pay for officers and enlisted men, including those on warships and armed vessels, who were disabled in the service of the United States and who were incapable of earning a living. The half pay was to continue for the duration of the disability. 

 On May 15, 1778, another resolution revised half pay for 7 years after the conclusion of the war to all military officers who remained in the Continental service to the end of the war. Enlisted men who continued to serve for the duration of the conflict were each to receive a gratuity of $80 after the war under the terms of the same enactment. The first national pension legislation for widows was a Continental Congress resolution of August 24, 1780 which offered the prospect of half pay for 7 years to widows and orphans of officers who met the requirements included in the terms of the resolution of May 15,  1778. On October 21, 1780, the Continental Congress resolution of May 15, 1778 was amended to provide half-pay-for-life provision was changed to 5 years’ full pay.

Pension legislation during the Revolutionary War was designed to encourage enlistment and acceptance of commissions and to prevent desertion and resignation. After the war, pensions became a form of reward for services rendered.  Both during and after the Revolution, the States as well as the U.S. Government awarded pensions based on participation in the conflict. The records reproduced in this microfilm publication pertain only to pensions granted or paid pursuant to public and private acts of the U.S. Government. Public acts, under
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NATIONAL ARCHIVES MICROFILM PUBLICATIONS

which the majority of such pensions were authorized, encompassed large classes of veterans or their dependents who met common eligibility requirements. Private acts concerned specific individuals whose special services or circumstances merited consideration, but who could not be awarded pensions under existing public acts.

On September 29, 1789 (1 Stat. 95), the First Congress of the United States passes an act which provided that invalid pensions previously paid by the States, pursuant to resolutions of the Continental Congress, should be continued and paid for 1 year by the newly established Federal Government. Subsequent legislation often extended the time limit. An act of Congress approved March23, 1792. (1 Stat. 243), permitted veterans not already receiving invalid pensions under resolutions of the Continental Congress to apply for them directly to the Federal Government. On April 10, 1806 (2 Stat. 376), the scope of earlier invalid-pension laws pertaining to Revolutionary War invalid-pension legislation. 

Before 1818 national pension laws concerning veterans of the Revolution ( with the exception of the Continental Congress resolution of May 15, 1778, granting half pay to officers for service alone) specified disability or death of a serviceman as the basis for a pension award. Not until March 18, 1818 (3 Stat. 410), did the U.S. Congress grant pensions ro Revolutionry War veterans for derive from which no disabilities resulted. Officers and enlisted men in need of assistance were eligible under the terms of the 1818 act if they had served in a continental military organization of in the U.S. naval service (including the Marines) for 9 months or until the end of the war. Pensions granted under this act were to continue for life. 

The the service-pension act of 1818 resulted in a great number of applications, many of which were approved. Congress had to appropriate greater sums than ever before for Revolutionary War pension payments. Financial difficulties and charges that applicants were feigning poverty to obtain benefits under the terms off the act caused Congress to enact remedial legisla
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every officer or enlisted man who had served at least 2 years in the Continental Line or State Troops, volunteers or militia, was eligible for a pension of full pay for life. Naval and marine officers and enlisted men were also included. Veterans who had served less than 2 years, but not less than 6 months, were eligible for pensions of less than full pay. Neither the act of 1832 nor the one of 1828 required applicants to demonstrate need. Under the act of 1832 money due from the last payment until date of death of a pensioner could be collected by his widow or by his children. 

The time limit for making claims under the Continental Congress resolution of August 24, 1780, which promised half-pay pensions to widows and orphans of some officers, expired in 1794. For many years thereafter, unless a private act of Congress was introduced on her behalf, a widow of a veteran was limited to receiving only that part of a pension that remained unpaid at the time of her husband’s death. By an act of Congress approved July 4, 1836 (5 Stat. 128), some widows of Revolutionary War veteran were again permitted, as a class under public law, to apply for pensions. The act provided that the widow of any veteran who had performed service as specified in the pension act of June 7, 1832, was eligible to receive the pension that might have been allowed the veteran''9990
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