To All,
When the Spainish-American War was successfully concluded in December 1898, President McKinley used this event as an opportunity to "mend the fences." On December 14, 1898, he gave a speech in which he urged reconciliation, in which he said, "...every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor... And the time has now come...when in the spirit of fraternity we should share in the care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers... The cordial feeling now happily existing between North and South prompts this gracious act and if it needed further justification it is found in the gallant loyalty to the Union and the flag so conspicuously shown in the year just passed by the sons and grandsons of those heroic dead."
The response from Congress to this plea was magnanimous and resulted in the Appropriations Act of 1901.
Congressional Appropriations Act, FY 1901, signed June 6, 1900, Congress passed an act of appropriations for $2,500 that enabled the "Secretary of War to have reburied in some suitable spot in the national cemetery at Arlington, Virginia, and to place proper headstones at their graves, the bodies of about 128 Confederate soldiers now buried in the National Soldiers Home near Washington, D.C., and the bodies of about 136 Confederate soldiers now buried in the national cemetery at Arlington, Virginia.
In 1906, Confederate Battle flags were ordered to be returned to the states from whence they originated. Some states refused to return the flags.
Congressional Act of March 9, 1906, (P.L. 38, 59th Congress, Chap. 631-34 Stat.56), Authorized the furnishing of headstones for the graves of Confederate soldiers who died, primarily in Union prison camps and were buried in Federal cemeteries.
U.S. Public Law 810, approved by Congress February 26, 1929 (45 Stat 1307 - Currently on the books as 38 U.S. Code, Sec. 2306), authorized the "Secretary of War to erect headstones over the graves of soldiers who served in the Confederate army and to direct him to preserve in the records of the War Department the names and places of burial of all soldiers for whom such headstones shall have been erected.
U.S. Public Law 85-425: Sec. 410 approved May 23, 1958, (US Statutes at Large Volume 72, Part 1, Page 133-134), states: The Administrator shall pay to each person who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War a monthly pension in the same amounts and subject to the same conditions as would have been applicable to such person under the laws in effect on December 31, 1957, if his service in such forces had been service in the military or naval forces of the United States.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/titles.html
http://www.criticalhistory.info/html/us_support_for_cv.html
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