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IN 1876, WILLIAM F. Mifflin, a Union veteran living near Liberty, Ohio, applied for a federal pension based on his Civil War service. There was nothing especially remarkable about Mifflin's application except that he was black. Mifflin was a veteran of the 27th U.S. Colored Infantry, one of approximately 178,000 African Americans who served in the Union army in the Civil War. The primary basis for his claim was the loss of sight in his right eye caused by a musket ball while charging the Confederate lines in front of Petersburg, Virginia, in July 1864. In an affidavit supporting his claim, Mifflin stated, "I would have felt like never saying or asking for a pension. But there are those in my neighborhood that had almost nothing the matter [compared] to what my disabilities are. They have got pensions:' Mifflin added in the next sentence, "Of course they were white men, and I am pretty near white, but I do not suppose that Uncle Sam looks at the skin.''1
As his affidavit shows, William F. Mifflin approached the issue of race and the Civil War pension system optimistically. Mifflin not only exhibited a feeling of entitlement to a pension but also hoped that his application would receive the same consideration from the federal government as those of the former white soldiers in his neighborhood. His expectation was not unfounded. The pension laws passed by Congress, unlike many statutes in the late nineteenth century, did not discriminate on racial grounds. In fact, federal military pension laws were neutral on the issue of race. This meant that black and white Union veterans and their families theoretically enjoyed the same eligibility for Civil War pensions-an important fact itself.
Still, a significantly smaller percentage of African Americans than white veterans and their survivors, ranging from 17 to 34 percent (depending on the type of applicant), won Civil War pension claims. The disparity between the racially neutral nature of Civil War pension legislation and the unequal results for African Americans needs to be explained. Certainly racial discrimination against black people in the United States was common in the late nineteenth century. However, Civil War pensions were not an example of statutory racial discrimination, such as separate railroad cars or segregated schools....
