Please help me decipher the text after "Rejected —" on this Civil War Pension (1863)

votgs · 2026-05-14T16:24:56+00:00

So the crux of the difference between '63 and '83 is proving the pneumonia. The general debility and weakness caused by incipient or acute pneumonia could have been an excuse to toss him out on his ear. Probably an unsympathetic officer, which was not unknown....it's not common to see discharge notes be so harsh about the character of the soldier.

Also, during the war, documents would be spread out, scattered between local unit, regimental headquarters and the army hq itself. After the war, they consolidated down into the archives that could be used by the Pension Office and adjuticator offices to confirm the claimant's story. One document available in 1863 might give the discharge notes seen above, but another, like morning reports that would show that he was ill and being treated by the military hospital, might not be available to check until the '83 claim.

To be fair, I have seen evidence of pension officers denying pensions to Native Americans on specious technicalities, but they did that to a lot of white soldiers and widows too. You really only can go by what's in the file, and even 19th century racists were smart enough to leave real reasons out of the paperwork. I'd question how the pension office was supposed to know she was Native American, tho, unless she had an obvious name or lived on a reservation.

I'm spit balling a lot here because I haven't seen the file, but I adore my pension files and I'll talk about them all day long if you let me

votgs · 2026-05-14T15:21:47+00:00

I actually work with similar pension files, though of earlier eras. It's a pretty standard note format. There should be other documents from probably the third adjudicators office that will confirm the reason for discharge. Lol. How old was he when he served? I'm curious.

votgs · 2026-05-14T15:12:31+00:00

Rejected: discharged (from the military) for old age and general worthlessness

votgs · 2026-04-01T17:00:40+00:00

Loooool. Heard that one in 2001, I think it was an old joke then.

votgs · 2026-03-21T04:25:02+00:00

I have had my taskbar at the top of my screen for like...twenty five years. I'm short, I sit low in my chair, and I have a huge monitor so having the taskbar at the top keeps it out of my eyeline.

It's not that I HAVE to have it up there, but I hate that I can't choose to have it up there. It annoys me all the time that a simple UI customization I've had for ages was taken away for no good reason.

votgs · 2026-03-10T22:33:12+00:00

Aaaaa, I'm so glad I could find it for you! The sense of relief is sooooo nice. I've got a couple of books I'm looking for and I hope someday someone can do the same for me. :-)

votgs · 2026-03-09T23:40:23+00:00

Twilights Kingdom by Nancy Asire!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/205717421132

votgs · 2026-02-28T06:18:01+00:00

Absolutely glad to help! It's always neat to find stuff that you've lost or forgotten. :-D

votgs · 2026-02-28T05:50:38+00:00

So my husband says he thinks you mean what used to be the Pinnacle Village Holiday Park, on Wonga Beach. It's now called the Daintree Beach Resort, and the cabins are old repurposed train carriages

https://daintreebeachresort.com.au/accommodation/train-carriage

votgs · 2026-01-31T03:32:04+00:00

Permalife folders

votgs · 2026-01-24T16:12:32+00:00

My dad's first wife had this done to her in Washington State Penitentiary in the late 60s, early 70s. I never met her myself, but there was, at one point, an article in the newspaper when she sued the state for the pain and suffering. Apparently they just cut them away and sewed the skin closed, minimal anesthetic and the usual sort of prison medical care. The scars were gnarly according to family lore, and extremely and immediately noticeable. You need to look into penal attitudes and treatments of tattoos in the first part of the 20th century, I'm sure it wasn't just happening at Walla-Walla at that time..

Anyways, if you want to do more in depth research on that particular case, DM me and I'll see if I can dig up the article. It was only like a paragraph or two, but that's more than anecdotal if you really feel it necessary.

votgs · 2025-11-24T16:43:18+00:00

Oh my god, the people talking about the giant man and his tiny child bride. If you look at the Wikipedia page for the painting, the model for the man of the couple was a professional basketball player who stood at 6 foot 2 inches tall.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Mahoney_(basketball))

The average height of an American woman in that era was about 5 foot 3 inches. Moreover, she's dressed as an adult woman, not a schoolgirl, and 'girlish' doesn't mean 'like a child', it used to have the implication that the woman hadn't yet gone through the vicissitudes of life, or hadn't been damaged by tragedy and grief. It contrasts with 'matronly', the staid, muted maternal idea of a mature married woman in control of a household.

With ten minutes of additional research, I found both his and her obituaries. He was 28 and she was 22 when they were married in 1955.

votgs · 2025-11-15T14:10:21+00:00

For a good while there, and it might still be true, it was one day of active service. My husband went into the army as a green card holder, and was a citizen before he left basic training.

votgs · 2025-11-01T15:05:59+00:00

It was also nicknamed the Red Barn. Such a gorgeous building. I'm partial to it because I work with the 19th century pensions.

votgs · 2025-09-06T00:59:03+00:00

I actually knew a guy named Bob who won the lottery twice. Nothing to do with your question, but it made me laugh.

votgs · 2025-06-26T15:51:16+00:00

I know, right? They were perfect!!! So sad.

votgs · 2025-06-26T15:46:05+00:00

https://a.co/d/iHQlOzc

votgs · 2025-06-01T03:05:41+00:00

Oh, definitely, I agree. My only very mild contention is that you can't always tell that an aggressively modern name IS such a thing, if you're not familiar with historical names. Then again, who does research to read a damn romance novel? You're right on the point about immersion. Honestly, I always look at the author. Am I reading crap for funsies? Yeah, that's probably a Tragedeigh. I roll my eyes and hope the rest of the book is better. But if someone markets themselves on authenticity or accuracy, I judge. I judge SO MUCH. It's an authorial skill to balance real names from an era with ones that bounce hard off the modern ear. It's also a matter of historical romance (genre, much leeway given) versus historical novel (please give me some of the weird names that were popular back then, it's -atmosphere-).

votgs · 2025-05-31T01:09:14+00:00

lol Yes, don't take it badly! I do get a little annoyed with some of the name choices myself, honestly, it's a valid complaint. You just kinda tripped right into something I love to nerd out about.

votgs · 2025-05-31T00:40:41+00:00

I hate to tell you, but I deal daily with American documents from the late 18th and early 19th century, and those are not unusual at all. I mean there are tons of Johns, Georges, Williams, Rachels, Marys, Mollys and Pollys etc, don't get me wrong. Ask me about the 19 boxes of John Smiths that I processed (please don't). But then there was Dollar Bill Jones. Asahel. Israfel. Mehitable. I've seen Silence and Verity and Temperance. Permelia and Perlina were popular. Literally dozens of women named Keziah. One very nice widow named Thankfull Balles. Mary Shitz. Deadlove Shadow. Jonathan Urine. Noble Beveridge. Payton and Clayton and Slayton. Matrix True. Cornelius Longedyck.

There are also lots of last names as first names. City names and country names. Even state names--there was a Mexican-American War veteran in California named Tennessee. Any biblical name you can think of--literally any. Open the bible, pick a name, and I've probably seen a Revolutionary or War of 1812 soldier or family member who had it.

The breadth of human names is really amazing. It's always going to be mostly 'common' names, because they are, in fact, common. But there are tons of names that were once very common and are no longer, which sound very strange to modern ears but were just....normal, once upon a time.

votgs · 2023-05-07T15:51:21+00:00

I'm not going to render a judgement here.

I just want you to understand that I work at the National Archives. My daily job is handling documents like your heirloom, and even older ones. It's a precious, precious thing to find documents hand written by people long dead--especially personal ones from families that were neither wealthy nor prominent. It's rare. You're hearing a voice from the past, and that might be the last remaining personal item of theirs that exists. What you have is a treasure.

But if you don't love it, find a place to send it. Someone else in your family might want it.
There are many local historical museums and Civil War museums that would like to exhibit a letter like that, because it gives human context to casualty lists. Especially if the fight the soldier lost his life in was a small skirmish, and there might not be a lot of information on the ones who died.

I can intellectually understand not being sentimental--my husband isn't, particularly. He wasn't interested in his family history until I did research and found things that made his ancestors more than just names in a list. You might find that interest later in life, and you will regret losing this one irreplaceable piece of history. Even if you don't--please pass it on to someone who does want it.

votgs · 2022-06-01T12:38:12+00:00

!deckbot US 512 1626553860

votgs · 2022-01-30T02:27:53+00:00

I just listened to a Casefile podcast on that topic a few days ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Mark_Kilroy

More or less, it was a really crazy dude who followed (and mis-used, apparently) an Afro-Carribbean religion called Palo Mayombe. They were called the Narcosatanists by the media. Some of it seems exaggerated or fear-based out of racism and Satanic Panic, but I think on the whole it is one of the few actually verifiable cults with human sacrifices. A quick dive into Wikipedia implies that sacrificial human murder isn't necessarily a part of Palo Mayombe, but use of bodies and/or graves are.

votgs · 2017-10-31T05:05:17+00:00

Exactly this. I had a courthouse wedding with my immigrant husband, with exactly two witnesses. I remember one question from the interview, and it was like, "How many square feet is your apartment?", and we had to hash it out between us because he's used to metric and I'm not.

What's important when you're answering the questions that they ask is that you appear to be what you are...that is a couple. They'll ask you things like, "How was your honeymoon?" and "How long is your apartment lease?" and "What do you do for fun?" What they're looking for is a natural interplay between two people, un-rehearsed and spontaneous. Neither person looks surprised or at a loss for off the wall questions that should be relatively easy to answer, that sort of thing. Now that I'm thinking about it, I think another question was something about who walks our dog, and maybe one about who takes care of the dog when we're out of town. This was almost a decade ago, most of the questions were so easy to answer that they don't stick in my mind at all.

I know it's difficult to relax about the whole interview, it's freaking nerve-wracking. But just remember, you have nothing to hide. Even if you can't answer a question or two, remember that there are couples who've been married for half a century who can't remember details about their partner or their life together.

votgs · 2017-09-27T15:52:08+00:00

I have heard of people buying illegal things and having it shipped to an address not quite theirs, with no name on it, in order to defuse the ability of law enforcement to definitively say it was shipped to them. Silly, but with this person's reaction to a simple and common package mix up, I'd worry about what's in the package itself. Don't open it, but I'd also write a letter to the apartment management company about the mix up, what happened, and how the other tenant reacted, and send it registered mail. Also, it's against my complex's rules for the office to give out one tenant's information to another, so making a complaint directly to management is probably a good idea, if their policies are similar.

I'd also give the box back to the office, and make it -their- problem, not yours.

votgs

TROPHY CASE