Civil War Pension Applications

A question arose recently as to what Civil War Pension Applications are available online. Here is what I found while searching collections on Ancestry and Fold3. Hope it serves as a handy reference.

Ancestry

• Confederate:  pension applications and/or indexes available for all Confederate states except South Carolina (Texas pension applications are now available online on Ancestry)
• Union:  General Index to Pension Files (covers service in all branches of the U.S. military from 1861-1916; same as NARA microfilm publication T288)

Fold3

• Union:  Civil War Pensions Index (covers service in U.S. Army from 1861-1917; same as NARA microfilm publication T289 - 99% complete)
• Union:  Widows Pensions (the pension applications that are indexed by both T288 and T289 - these original records are not microfilmed and digitization efforts are progressing very slowly - 11% complete)

Fold3's collections do include southern states as well, but records pertain to Union units from those states rather than Confederate units.

For a handy primer on Union pension applications, please visit: https://familysearch.org/wiki/en/Union_Pension_Records

Steven