Theses: how were the African Americans treated differently than white Americans? All-Union soldiers and their dependents were eligible to benefit from a pension system that was begun during the war and then greatly expanded in the postwar years. Not all applicants were equally successful in getting benefits. In the quarter-century that followed the war, African Americans, both veterans, and their dependents had significantly less success in obtaining pensions than did white veterans and their dependents. The reduced success was not, in theory, a product of race, for the pension laws made no mention of color. Rather, a combination of social perceptions and social conditions made it more difficult for black veterans or their dependents to successfully apply. At the same time, the destitution that a large number of black applicants faced made access to pension benefits even more critical for them than it was for white applicants.

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