Jim, a couple of footnotes to your interesting tidbits: I was advised by a public affairs officer at the Veterans Administration in February that President Eisenhower in late 1952 granted a blanket pardon to all those who participated on the Confederate side in the Civil War. Among other things, this made Confederate soldiers and their widows eligible for Federal pensions. As you noted, the last known Confederate soldier apparently died in 1951, so none of them received a pension. The VA spokesman could not tell me if pensions were paid to any Confederate widows and did state that the woman who is said to be the last surviving Confederate widow is not receiving a pension. He said he didn't know why, but presumed it was because she had remarried since her veteran husband died (but that doesn't mesh with the info you give). Some of the stories published in January upon the death of Gertrude Grubb Janeway made me just a tad skeptical concerning the facts in the case. Essentially, her husband was born John Janeway in Tennessee and he joined an Ohio unit while it was in Tennessee, using the name John January. (Complicating matters the coincidence that there was a second man named John January in the same outfit, albeit a different company. I have the records for both and they sometimes were confused with each other - one man's discharge was, in fact, entered on the others record.) The story told is that after John Janeway / January was discharged he "went west," perhaps to California, where he raised a family. No census record for him can be found until 1920 when, already well into his 70s, he is found in 1920 in the "Old Soldiers' Home" in Leavenworth, Kansas. Severn years later (!) he returned to the area in Tennessee were he was reared and married the 18-year-old Gertrude Grubb. The home in Leavenworth has no inmate records going back to 1920 so there is no record of his release or what else may have happened to him. The VA said the pension file for him and his widow is still with the VA and I was told where to write for it - and have done so, but that was in February and still no response. As I say, I am a skeptic about these things and it just doesn't seem likely when you say that a soldier enlists in the 1860s, disappears for more than 50 years after the war, turns up in the soldiers home in 1920, then 7 years later he returns for the first time to his native county to marry an 18-year old girl. BTW, the "other" John January - this one called John W. January, enlisted from Ohio, was captured in George, sent to Andersonville where he had to amputate (himself) both of his feet to prevent the spread of infection. He was hospitalized in New York and given a medical discharge (originally mistakenly placed in the file of the Tennessee John January) and moved to Illinois where he fathered a large family, eventually moving to Dell Rapids, South Dakota. Regards, Richard "Ain't this pension stuff fun!" <g> "Richard A. Pence" <richardpence@pipeline.com>