Citizen archivists are helping reveal the untold stories of Revolutionary War veterans

By Phaedra Trethan, USA Today, May 27, 2024

Tunis Cole was obviously proud of his service in the war and his role in the fight for American freedom.

And the Revolutionary War veteran hoped that he could have some measure of financial security in his old age. So Cole wrote to the U.S. government to ask for a pension made possible by a series of laws passed in the 1800s.

Cole's 1848 pension application was written, like thousands of other veterans' applications, by hand – sometimes by the vets themselves, sometimes by their widows, sometimes by friends who helped the elderly farmers and tradesmen who'd taken up arms for their new country.

Now, almost 250 years later, Americans are hearing a new call to arms. Citizen archivists are needed to transcribe original pension applications from the nation's first veterans into a massive database − and help reveal their extraordinary and untold stories.