Southern Claims Commission


The Southern Claims Commission was an organization of the executive branch of the United States government from 1871 to 1880, created under President Ulysses S. Grant. Its purpose was to allow Union sympathizers who had lived in the Southern states during the American Civil War, 1861–1865, to apply for reimbursements for property losses due to U.S. Army confiscations during the war.

Application process

Southerners from 12 states filed claims with the Southern Claims Commission from 1871 to 1873 if they:
  1. were loyal to the United States during the Civil War
  2. had supplies officially taken by or furnished to the U.S. Army in the war
Southern Loyalists made 22,298 claims. Only 32 percent of the claims were approved for payment. The claimants used the testimony of their neighbors as evidence of their U.S. loyalty and property losses. The applications of claimants, testimony, and the SCC papers provide excellent historical background information about Southern life during the Civil War.

Required records

Although only a few people per county qualified for a settlement, the application papers of the Southern Claims Commission typically include questions mentioning hundreds of their neighbors. Neighbors of all races, and classes were questioned and discussed in SCC records, potentially including:

Example claim

In one such account, following the Battle of Antietam and during the winter of 1862–1863, a brigade of General William B. Franklin's VI Corps, totaling about 3,000 troops, camped on the New Baltimore, Virginia farm of Julia F. Claggett along the Warrenton Turnpike and Georgetown Road. The soldiers appropriated food stores and supplies, seized horses, pigs, and cattle, cut down of woodland, tore down barns and fences for fuel and torched what remained. E. C. Weaver, formerly an Orderly Sergeant in Company K, 121st New York Vols., Bartletts Brigade, had been present. He testified to the Commission:
Julia Claggett filed a claim valued at $7,322.50 with the Southern Claims Commission in 1871. They allowed her only $3,091. She still owed the prior owner Joseph Horner $8063.57 and she was forced to sell the farm at a loss to Gustavus Richard Brown Horner, her deceased husband's cousin.