Irene Triplett

When the US Civil War ended in 1865, the US government promised a monthly stipend to the wives and children of Yankee soldiers. Now, 151 years later, and Irene Triplett is still receiving her Civil War pension.

During the 1920s, Mose Triplett – a Confederate soldier who had defected to the Union in 1862, married Irene’s mother, Elida. Irene was born to Mose Triplett and his second wife, Elida, in 1930. Mose, whose first wife Mary died in the 1920s, fathered five children with Elida, who was 50 years younger than he was. Mose died in 1938.

During 2013, after breaking her hip, Irene, the last child moved into a Wilkesboro skilled-nursing facility. She still collects $73.13 each month from her father's military pension.

Incidentally, about 15 children of veterans from the Spanish-American War of 1898 also still receive benefits.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday which occurs every year on the final Monday of May. It is a day of remembering the men and women who died while serving in the US Armed Forces. Originally, it was known as Decoration Day to commemorate the Union and Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War. Now it has been extended to honor all Americans who have died in all wars.

This Week in 1864

After his Civil War march across Georgia, Union General William T. Sherman sent U.S. President Abraham Lincoln this message: "I beg to present you as a Christmas present the city of Savannah."

Origin of Tabasco Sauce

Edmund McIlhenny was a self-made man, the kind of guy who picked himself up by the bootstraps, worked 12 hours a day and became a prominent New Orleans banker, just in time for the American Civil War to erupt and destroy everything he worked so hard to achieve.

Once Union soldiers invaded his town, McIlhenny fled with his family to his wife's home at a place called Avery Island, which wasn't actually an island. McIlhenny started a new life helping to run the family salt mines, which was actually pretty good business. The Avery Island salt mine provided the Confederacy with 22 million pounds of salt during the war, and before he knew it, McIlhenny was back on his feet!

That is, until Union forces mounted an attack on his salt mine and he had to flee once more. This time they went to Texas, where the McIlhennys wisely stayed put until the end of the war.

They returned and found that everything had been destroyed and the only crops that seemed to thrive in the ashy, salty soil were some pepper plants from the Mexican state of Tabasco.

Thanks to the war, in 1868 those peppers were pretty much the only thing McIlhenny had going for him. So, he mixed them up with some Avery Island salt, vinegar, other peppers and Tabasco sauce was born. He bottled his concoction in some old perfume bottles and started shipping to them grocers around the country. Two years later he got a patent, and the McIlhenny family has been running the Tabasco brand ever since.

Deadlines

The word 'deadline' originated during the Civil War. It signified a boundary line, generally drawn on the ground, which a prisoner of war could not cross.  If prisoners went beyond the line, they were shot by guards. The POWs were often warned, "If you cross the line, you are dead."