Did you know about this?? I could not believe it when I first heard about it.
(
Virginia & I think other states were enacting programs, pensions etc for the wounded, widows etc under their jurisdiction)
Government, Politics / By Truth or Fiction
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In the 19th and early 20th centuries, only Union soldiers were eligible for military benefits. It wasn’t until the 1930s that confederate soldiers began receiving pensions from the federal government. Prior to that, confederate soldiers could apply for benefits through the state they resided in
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The groundwork for reconciliation, however, was laid decades before Confederate soldiers and family members became available for federal benefits.
President William McKinley cited reconciliation between the North and South in a speech that followed the conclusion of the Spanish American War on December 14, 1898. A number of former Confederate officers had volunteered for service during the war, which had helped secure U.S. victory, McKinley said:
… Every soldier’s grave made during our unfortunate Civil War is a tribute to American valor. And while, when those graves were made, we differed widely about the future of this government, those differences were long ago settled by the arbitrament of arms; and the time has now come, in the evolution of sentiment and feeling under the providence of God, when in the spirit of fraternity we should share with you in the care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers.
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So, it’s true that Confederate and Union soldiers are considered equal under federal law, but critics argue that the same isn’t true of the American and Confederate flags.
