The issue of pensions for the Continental army's veterans of the Revolutionary War (1775-83) emerged soon after the conflict began. On August 26. 1776, the Second Continental Congress passed a national pension act, offering compensation of up to half pay to soldiers injured during the war. Two years later, Congress made this law retroactive to the beginning of the war on April 19, 1775, and in 1782 soldiers who were sick or wounded were offered five dollars a month for life if they were unfit for duty and accepted a discharge. During the 1780s Congress relied on the states to determine eligibility and to pay the pensions, with the money spent to be deducted from what the states owed the federal government. This policy led to a hodgepodge pension system. In 1790, after the creation of the new government under the U.S. Constitution, Congress decided to take over the pension payments, and by March 1792 they had drawn up a list of 1,358 noncommissioned officers and 1,472 enlisted men, all designated as disabled veterans who would be given pensions not to exceed five dollars a month. The pension law was altered a number of times thereafter in an effort to provide more efficient distribution and to avoid illicit claims. By 1806 procedures had been ironed out, and the government established that pensions would be paid only to those who had been injured during their military service, and following the provisions of an 1803 statute, the secretary of war was given supervision of the pensions.

If Congress was relatively eager to aid injured war veterans, it was more hesitant about awarding pensions to the officers of the Continental Army. At Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-78, the army faced a crisis when large numbers of officers resigned. To maintain an experienced an officer corps, several officers proposed a pension of half-pay for life. Despite General George Washington's support of this proposal, Congress stalled. In August 1779, however, the legislature recommended to the states that they provide a pension to officers of half-pay for life. Several states, including Virginia and Pennsylvania, agreed to some pension for officers, but in October 1780, in the wake of the betrayal of Benedict Arnold, Congress finally agreed to the half-pay pension, albeit with the right to provide some future form of substitute compensation. Many in Congress and the public at large believed that pensions seemed unrepublican, with officers placing their own interests ahead of the public interest, and reflected the type of corruption typical of monarchies, where pensioners could be counted on to support a strong government that could threaten the people's liberty. Officers, on the other hand, saw pensions as a recognition of their sacrifice and as a financial cushion that could help ease the transition to civilian life.

By October 1782, however, officers had come to recognize the unpopularity of pensions, and they petitioned Congress to commute the life provision to full pay for a limited term of years. A committee chaired by Alexander Hamilton agreed to this proposal but set the term at five years. With the war almost over and the army about to disband, both the common soldiers--who wanted back pay--and the officers--who wanted their pensions--were restless and threatening action against the civil authorities. Nationalists in Congress used this potentially explosive situation to push for an impost and a strengthening of the federal government. Army officers, in turn, circulated two inflammatory pamphlets and called a meeting at Newburgh, New York. General Washington did not want the military to impose its will on the civil government, so he attended the meeting and defused the so-called Newburgh conspiracy. In 1783 Congress passed the commutation bill providing pensions for officers for five years, which launched a huge public debate that lasted into early 1784. The pension bill remained in place despite the public outcry, and officers were given a lump-sum payment in certificates bearing 6 percent interest.

While the national government agreed to provide pensions for the officers of the Continental army, the common soldier received little for his service. When and if the enlisted men received pay at the end of the war, it was often in the form of promissory notes or grants of lands on the frontier. Most regular soldiers sold these scraps of paper for pennies on the dollar. The national government avoided a more comprehensive measure until 1818, when the Limited Service Pension Act provided $8 a month to soldiers and $20 a month to officers, if they had served nine months in the Continental army or the militia and were in "reduced circumstances." In 1832 a new law established pensions for all veterans of the Revolutionary War.

Bibliography:

1) John Resch, Suffering Soldiers: Revolutionary War Veterans, Moral Sentiment, and Political Culture in the Early Republic (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999)

2) Charles Royster, The Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and the American Character, 1775-1783 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979)

3) Emily J. Teipe, America's First Veterans and the Revolutionary War Pensions (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellon Press, 2002)

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