CREATOR: South Carolina. Confederate Home Commission.
TITLE: Applications for veterans' admission
DATE: 1909 - 1939
VOLUME: 0.66 cubic ft. (2a)
ARRANGEMENT: Series arranged roughly alphabetically by name of veteran.
BIOGRAPHICAL/HISTORICAL NOTE: The South Carolina Confederate Home,
established by S.C. Statute 1908 (25)1074, opened on Confederate Memorial Day,
May 10, 1909. The home was located near the State Hospital for the Insane on
Bellevue Place, a property formerly owned by Col. William Wallace and now the
corner of Confederate Avenue and Bull Street in Columbia. Initially its
governing commission consisted of five members, three of whom had to be
ex-Confederate soldiers or sailors, appointed by the governor. Two veterans
from each county recommended by the County Pension Board were to be admitted.
If such recommendations failed to be made, then the commission could fill the
vacancy from the same or another county.
With time both the makeup of the governing commission and
the home’s occupants changed. In 1921 SC Statute 1921(32)119 added four members
of the United Daughters of the Confederacy to the commission. In 1925 indigent
widows and wives were made eligible for admission whenever there were few enough
veterans in the home to allow one widow or wife from each county (S.C. Statute
1925(34)115). “Sisters of the full blood” were added in 1929, daughters in
1935, and nieces in 1943. The last veteran in the home died in 1944. Twenty-nine elderly women
were transferred to the custody of the State Department of Public Welfare when
the home closed in 1957. B.B. Rosenburg, Living Monuments: Confederate
Soldiers’ Homes in the New South (Chapel Hill and London: The University of
North Carolina Press, 1993) provides additional information about the home.
SUMMARY SCOPE NOTE: This series consists of the applications of
veterans for admission to the South Carolina Confederate Home. Information
includes the name of the applicant; date of application; his county of
residence; and a statement of when and where he enlisted in Confederate service,
his company and regiment, and the date, place and cause of his discharge. Age,
height, occupation, marital status, physical condition, and information about
his nearest relatives are also included. Some of the earliest applications also
include statements about any wounds, hospitalization, or imprisonment during the
war.
Applications also include signed statements as to his
service by two witnesses, signed approvals by the County Board of Honor, and
after 1922, approval of the service record by A.S. Salley Jr., Secretary of the
South Carolina Historical Commission. Most of the applications also contain
endorsements as to date of admission, any furloughs, and death and notations
like “Sent to the Hospital for the Insane.”
INDEX/FINDING AID: Entire series indexed in the repository’s
On-line Records Index. The names of applicants, the names of
witnesses to their service, the regiments in which they served, and the county
of residence are
indexed.
ADDITIONAL FORM: A project to digitize this series is underway.
The digital images are linked to index hits from the On-line Records Index on
the repository’s website. The entire series is also available on microfilm
produced by the Genealogical Society of Utah. By agreement with the
society, the repository has reproduction duplicates of this film and the right to make further
sale copies.
HIERARCHICAL NOTE: Forms part of the records of the Confederate Home
Commission.
