The VA also provides compensation to disabled veterans[3] who suffer from a medical disorder or injury that was incurred in, or aggravated by, their military service, and which causes social and occupational impairment.
[14] Archival record of the benefits awarded to injured soldiers and veterans of the American Civil War began after 1865.
Union soldiers received a more committed pension archival effort on the part of the Federal government, thanks to superior databases in the North and a more stable bureaucratic oversight.
[15] Turmoil during Reconstruction in the war-weary South made any effort at maintaining pension records difficult if not impossible.
Later university-led research projects would give insight into the history of pension provisions by the Federal government leading up to the Civil War.