Mose Triplett enlisted in the Confederate Army at 16, then deserted and joined the Union. He married at 78, and his daughter Irene, born when he was 83, still receives his Civil War pension of $73.13 per month. The last surviving Civil War veteran died in 1956, and the last known widow died in 2008.
Mose Triplett was born in North Carolina in 1846. When he was about 16, Triplett enlisted in the Confederate Army, about a year after the outbreak of the American Civil War. A year later, Triplett deserted and joined the Union. After the war and the death of his first wife in the early 1920s, Triplett married Elida Hall in 1924. At the time, Triplett was 78 years old, some 50 years older than his new bride. Only two of the couple’s children survived beyond infancy, one of whom was Irene, born when Mose Triplett was 83 years old. Now in her late 1980s, Irene lives in a nursing home and receives the last of her Civil War pensions paid for by the federal government. Irene Triplett receives $73.13 USD each month from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Caring for Veterans and Their Families:
Mose Triplett died in 1938, just days after returning home from commemorations for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.
The last surviving Civil War veteran died in 1956 at the age of 109, says the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Maudie Hopkins, the last publicly known widow of a Civil War veteran, died in 2008 at the age of 93.
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