George & Lizzie King’s Complete Civil War Pension File

The following images provide a complete record of all documents contained in the Union Army Civil War pension file for George W. King (1847-1902) of Company A, 16th Regiment of the United States Colored Infantry, and his widow, Lizzie Howard King (1850-1918). George and Lizzie were both enslaved in Bedford County, Tennessee prior to George’s military service. After the end of the war the couple moved to nearby Coffee County, Tennessee, where they married and gave birth to six children, with four living to adulthood. Much more about their family and the findings from their pension file is detailed in the OBA links listed below.

All of the documents are organized in the same order as they were found by the researcher who retrieved and photographed the file at the National Archive. As a result, the first set of documents in the file relate to the most recent of the three pension claims that related to George’s Civil War military service. It is an approved request for accrued widow pension funds that was submitted by George and Lizzie’s eldest son, Thomas, in 1918. Those funds reimbursed Thomas for expenses related to Lizzie’s care during the weeks before her death and for the cost of her funeral. Moving backwards through time, the next set of documents reflected in the file is an approved widow’s pension claim submitted by Lizzie upon George’s death in 1902. The final set of documents was the earliest claim request and also the only one of the three claims that was not approved. In 1890 George and Lizzie submitted a “Declaration for Original Invalid Pension”, arguing that George was so badly injured by the brutal conditions that he endured during his yearlong enlistment that he was struggling to provide for his family.

Note: The following are images of all of the documents in the pension file. A PDF that will eventually contain a citation, draft transcription and notes for each document can be accessed by clicking here.