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When the United States government offered pensions to aging Revolutionary War veterans in the early 1800s, they ran into an issue – many did not have a record of their service.
The solution was simple in nature: have veterans come into local government offices to record details about their service.
“So what you could do is you could go into the local courthouse, and there was sort of a printed questionnaire and you had to say where you were born, where you were living at the time, if you were enlisted in the Continental Army, who the officers were that you remember serving under and the details of your service,” said Scott Stephenson, president and CEO of the Museum of the American Revolution.
The unintended result was almost 80,000 perspectives of the Revolutionary War, and a priceless collection of oral history accounts from some of America’s first veterans.
“They provide really rich sources of what the experience of fighting in the Revolutionary War was like, or in some cases, from family members living through the American Revolution while loved ones were away fighting,” Stephenson said.
Now, a new virtual project at the Museum of the American Revolution is linking these accounts to present-day veterans.
“I just came up with this idea long ago that maybe one way to bridge that distance would be to recruit living veterans to read pensions,” said Stephenson. “I figured we could pair veterans with pensions that reflected some aspect of their military service because it is both a very remote and different era.”
Connecting living with past
Stephenson explained that the museum reached out to local veterans to pair them with pensions that were similar to their own experiences.
There are currently five videos up – all from present-day veterans who have served in different branches of the U.S. military.
“As we’re searching for new stories, we would want, if you watched all of them, for it to give you a whole range of experience from what it’s like to join the military, to the mundane aspects, to the moments of adrenaline and terror and trauma that come about it,” Stephenson said.
Matthew Midget is a U.S. Air Force Reserve veteran. As part of the project, he read the pension of Continental Army wagoneer William Burnett.
“I guess you could say that what he did and how he contributed was as similar as you could get to what I did for someone who fought in that war,” Midget said. “He was a wagoneer, transporting goods and war rations and things like that around. He traveled with the cargo by nature of how things got around at that point in time. My job field has three main areas – ramp, cargo and passenger services.”
Midget explained that his job often revolved around loading planes with equipment that the Army was handling, hauling chemicals and medicine or shifting military equipment and troops while deployed.
Midget said he resonated with many parts of Burnett’s testimony, including Burnett’s experiences and attitudes during his service. He felt especially connected to Burnett’s recounting of the end of the war in his testimony.
“The news of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis was read, and remembers that the officer threw his cocked hat up in the air and almost every American did the same, and the words ‘America is ours’ seemed to almost rend the air and was the joy at that time,” Burnett said in his testimony.
“The part in William’s pension where he discusses the end of the war and the excitement with the end of the war, I’ve definitely related to,” Midget said. “Coming home after my deployment was amazing. It’s so easy to appreciate so little once you finish something like that.”
Jaz Ritz is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served for almost eight years. As part of the Pension Project, she read the pension of Jacob Francis – an African American who was born free in New Jersey and served in the Continental Army, including Washington’s crossing of the Delaware.
“I’ve been to so many of the places touched on in Jacob Francis’ pension,” Ritz said. “To read through and say, ‘wow, he bounced from Hunterdon County, over to Newark over to Trenton,’ I’ve lived in Trenton and I’ve seen some of these spaces and places and the creek and I’ve walked there.”
She said it is surreal to reflect on how life would be back then, and how different her experience was now.
Ritz explained that she was in a dark place when joining the Marine Corps as she dealt with the loss of a loved one and a cycle of partying.
“I always attribute the Marine Corps to saving my life,” she said.
Ritz said it was also eye-opening to read Francis’ testimony, as she knew African Americans weren’t free at the time.
“A lot of people say veterans are selfless, and they thank us for our service and tell us how courageous we are,” she said. “But to do that and your family is not even free in this country to just be is unfathomable to me.”
Ritz’s story was one of those that explored the intersection of many experiences, said Tyler Putnam, the museum’s senior manager of gallery interpretation.
“Ritz was a Black female Marine, and there were no Black female Marines in the Revolutionary War,” Putnam said. “So she and I had great conversations about: Are you most interested in reflecting on the story of a Marine, reflecting on the story of an African American or reflecting on the story of a woman? All of those are options, and kind of helped her think about which of her various intersecting identities would be most exciting, and then reading pensions from all of those, she eventually chose an African American veteran to reflect on.”
He emphasized that having this variety of experiences showcased in the exhibit is helpful to widening perspectives.
Continuing to keep the past current
The museum is soon uploading a new “season” of videos with even more veterans reading from other pensions. This includes Jim Cawley, a Vietnam-era veteran and decorated historian.
“Generally speaking, only 1% of the American public has a direct connection to our American military, meaning a family member,” Cawley said. “So for the folks that serve, the men and women that serve in our armed forces, there’s a kind of isolation.
“I hope that this Pension Project really bridges that gap and lets people see. These men and women who fought in the Revolution, they were real people.”
Cawley said he noticed many differences between how he was treated as a veteran before 9/11 and after 9/11. He said people seemed to be more appreciative of his service after the tragedy.
But as he thought about his treatment, he realized the same insight doesn’t often exist for Revolutionary War veterans.
“I went, gee it’s really funny, I never thought about how Revolutionary War veterans were treated,” he said.
Cawley emphasized that although things have changed for veterans over the years, there are many parallels that keep the stories of all veterans relevant.
“When they started the pensions, the evolution of what we know as the modern GI Bill has had a sense of flux to it over time,” he said. “It changes, but that idea is that the government actually values its citizens and the service of soldiers. I think these pensions, like the one of William Hutchinson, are an early genesis of the modern GI Bill.”
Putnam agreed.
“As soon as you read these pensions, or especially when folks watch these videos, that resonance has become really apparent,” Putnam said. “There are things that have changed enormously, but there are also things that transcend time and that people can identify.”
Putnam said the next “season” of videos has three new veterans reading pensions and sharing their experiences.
He said he is hopeful about the project’s future and what it provides for both listeners and the veterans participating in it.
“Every time we drop a collection of these, we get different responses and inquiries, and people give us feedback about perspectives that we have yet to highlight or types of service, or people we haven’t thought about making connections to, so I think it’s really open-ended,” Putnam said. “It’ll be exciting to see where the conversations I was mentioning carry us in the future.”
You can view the videos that are part of the Pension Project here. Three more videos will be added to this collection Wednesday, Nov. 11 (Veterans Day).
