2025 National Department of Texas is proud to host the 144th National Encampment of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War and the Allied Orders.
Mike Flynn, Bruce Fortin, Tim Downey, Steve Clifford, Tom Latham, Todd Early, Eugene Wood, Mike Adams, Lyndon Stivers, Chris Stivers, John Martin, John Buckler, Charles DeHaven, Robert Jones, David Jones, Jack Mills, Dr Alben Shockley, Alan Bivens, Judy and Peter Hritsko Commander in Chief
How to become a member 2024 Encampment, Hodgenville KY
Department of KY Leadership
Department Commander- Mike Flynn
Senior Vice Commander-Todd Early
Junior Vice Commander- John Buckler
Secretary/Treasurer- Bruce Fortin
Chaplain- Dick Lima
We pride ourselves with an important mission of ensuring all veterans have a marker and that they are cared for. (click this link)
PDC John Charles Rutherford
PNP WRC Cynthia L Norton
PDC Robert M PetrovicPCinC Eugene MortoffPDC PA- Eric J SchminckePast National President Betty J BakerPast Commander in Chief Br. Keith G. HarrisonCamp Cdr David J KlinepeterPast Commander in Chief Br Donald ShawPast Commander in Chief Br. David MedertBrig Gen Henry E Shaw Jr (SVR)Past Commander in Chief Br. Andrew JohnsonLast Civil War Widow -Helen Viola Jackson
Passing MO John Rutherford.pdfGeneral Order # 13 - Passing of WRC PNP Norton.pdfMichael M. Phillips 3 June 2020
Irene Triplett, the last person receiving a pension from the U.S. Civil War, has died at the age of 90.
Ms. Triplett’s father, Mose Triplett, started fighting in the war for the Confederacy, but defected to the North in 1863. That decision earned his daughter Irene, the product of a late-in-life marriage to a woman almost 50 years his junior, a pension of $73.13 a month from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Ms. Triplett, who suffered from mental disabilities, qualified for federal financial support as a helpless ((CQ)) adult child of a veteran. She died Sunday from complications following surgery for injuries from a fall, according to the Wilkesboro, N.C., nursing home where she lived.
The Triplett family was the subject of a Page One article in The Wall Street Journal in 2014.
Pvt. Triplett enlisted in the 53rd North Carolina Infantry Regiment in May 1862, then transferred to the 26th North Carolina Infantry Regiment early the following year, according to Confederate records. He fell ill as his regiment marched north toward Gettysburg and remained behind in a Virginia military hospital.
He ran away from the hospital, records show, while his unit suffered devastating losses at Gettysburg. Of the 800 men in the 26th North Carolina, 734 were killed, wounded or captured in the battle Pvt. Triplett missed.
Now a deserter, he made his way to Tennessee and, in 1864, enlisted in a Union regiment, the 3rd North Carolina Mounted Infantry. Known as Kirk’s Raiders, the 3rd North Carolina carried out a campaign of sabotage against Confederate targets in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. The unit was named after Tennessee-born commander Col. George Washington Kirk.
After the war, former Kirk’s Raiders were despised in areas of the former Confederacy. Pvt. Triplett, by then a civilian with a reputation for orneriness, kept pet rattlesnakes at his home near Elk Creek, N.C. He often sat on his front porch with a pistol on his lap.
“A lot of people were afraid of him,” his grandson, Charlie Triplett, told The Wall Street Journal.
Pvt. Triplett married Elida Hall in 1924. She was 34 when Irene was born in 1930; he was 83. Such an age difference wasn’t rare, especially later, during the Great Depression, when Civil War veterans found themselves with both a pension and a growing need for care.
Both mother and daughter suffered from mental disabilities. Irene Triplett recalled a tough childhood in the North Carolina mountains, beaten by teachers at school and parents at home.
“I didn’t care for neither one of them, to tell you the truth about it,” she told The Wall Street Journal in 2014. “I wanted to get away from both of them. I wanted to get me a house and crawl in it all by myself.”
Pvt. Triplett died in 1938 at age 92, days after attending a reunion of Civil War veterans, attended by President Franklin Roosevelt, on the fields of Gettysburg.
Ms. Triplett and her mother lived for years in the Wilkes County poorhouse. Irene later moved through a number of care homes, her costs covered by Medicaid and her tiny VA pension.
She saw little of her relatives. But a pair of Civil War buffs visited and sent her money to spend on Dr Pepper and chewing tobacco, a habit she picked up in the first grade.
“She’s a part of history,” said Dennis St. Andrew, one of Irene’s supporters and a past commander of the North Carolina Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. “You’re talking to somebody whose father was in the Civil War, which is mind-bending.”
The number of what the group calls true sons and daughters of Civil War soldiers is fast heading toward zero. Mr. St. Andrew expects that as word spreads of Ms. Triplett’s death, the Sons of Union Veterans will, as is customary, declare a 30-day mourning period. Members will wear a black band on their membership badges.
Write to Michael M. Phillips at michael.phillips@wsj.com
The 141st National Encampment Grand Rapids Michigan
Attendees-
Brothers David Jones , Department Commander
Mike Flynn, Department Senior Vice Commander
Bruce Fortin Past Department Commander, Department Secretary/Treasurer
Jack Mills Past Department Commander
Chris Workman National Counsel of Administration
John Buckler Quartermaster volunteer
Great events we have held: see Events Page for these and more!
PVT Willis Corbit stone dedication 26 June 2021
Robert Lobb stone dedication June 13 2021
Memorial Day 2021
Decoration Day 30 May 2020 Fort Duffield
Great Ceremony Maysville GAR Monument recognition placed on NRHP. See below link
https://maysville-online.com/top-stories/158223/gar-monument-to-be-recognized
Colonels Thomas Fairleigh and Charles Pennebaker stone dedication (WHAS)
Magnet Indiana USS Argosy explosion 1865 ceremony
Annual Decoration Day 30 May :
Fort Duffield 10 AM @ Fort Duffield Westpoint KY and New Albany National cemetery at 730 PM
Check out Fort Duffield memorial plaza: http://www.brickmarkersusa.com/donors/duffield.html
Who are we
Battery Hooper Civil War Days Aug. TBD, 2022 event at 1402 Highland Ave, Fort Wright Kentucky.
Date 16 September 2021 for Nelson Augustus Graves interpretive marker ceremony Maysville, KY. We are looking for relatives to attend this event, Public are invited.
Organization Name is a registered 501(c) 3 organization. Our Tax ID Number is 61-1328200. You can download a tax donation form at the bottom of this page.
