Recent from talks
Armed Forces Retirement Home
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Armed Forces Retirement Home
38°56′4″N 77°0′28″W / 38.93444°N 77.00778°W
The Armed Forces Retirement Home refers to one of two Old Soldiers' retirement homes, one in Gulfport, Mississippi, the other in Washington, D.C., that house veterans and retired members of the United States Armed Forces.
Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from New England to the Carolinas, laws were passed by the colonies to provide for the injured and wounded volunteer colonial soldiers back from the Indian Wars on the frontier. During the American Revolution, both the states and the Continental Congress made provision for disability pensions, but Congress was reluctant to fund so-called half-pay-for-life service pensions for commissioned officers, because they wanted no part of "Standing Armies," or "Career Soldiers" and had no money in any event. In the end, Congress agreed to pay the Officers the equivalent of five years pay at the end of their service, and enlisted people got $80.
From that time until 1885 there were no retirement pensions for either commissioned officers or enlisted personnel. Finally, in 1885, retirement plans were provided for enlisted Army and enlisted Marines. Navy enlisted had to wait until 1899 for a retirement pension. The absence of retirement pensions drove efforts to establish homes for the disabled and decrepit soldiers and sailors.
On 26 February 1811 Congress passed an act authorizing construction of U.S. Naval Hospitals which included the phrase "... to provide a permanent asylum for disabled and decrepit navy officers, seamen, and marines." The addition of an "Asylum" (meaning "refuge") was in lieu of a retirement or service pension for naval personnel. This act eventually resulted in the purchase of the Pemberton Estate in 1826 for $17,000, which came with a large mansion to be used as a hospital, and the decision to construct a new building for an asylum. William Strickland was selected as Architect and Contractor to build the Philadelphia Naval Asylum. What was to become Biddle Hall was completed in 1834. "The entire cost of the building, excluding the finishing of the attics, was $195,600: about four-ninths of which came from the Treasury directly, the remainder from the Hospital Fund." These Treasury funds were required because the Hospital Fund had gotten into trouble in the 1820s when the Trustee's elected to invest fund assets in private equities rather than Treasury Bonds. From that time to the present, Naval Home Trust Funds have only invested with the U.S. Treasury. When the U.S. Soldiers' Home and Trust Fund was created in 1851, some of its funds were invested in bonds issued by the states of Virginia and Missouri, from which little or no interest was received during the Civil War, and in the future the Soldiers' Home Trust Fund would also only be invested with Treasury.
Biddle Hall was used to house not only the home for pensioners, but the Asylum staff, a Naval Hospital, an insane asylum and a School for Naval Midshipmen, the predecessor of the Naval Academy at Annapolis. Some of the residents of the Asylum were buried on the grounds of the Asylum, and then reburied at Mount Moriah Cemetery following the Civil War. The number of "Inmates" varied over the long history of the Philadelphia Home, beginning with five in 1834, going to 220 in 1885, and 204 on 1 July 1921. Residents were provided with a small private room, furnished with simple furniture, to which they could add their own furniture. Structural defects noted by Lieutenant Commander George Stockton in his 1886 paper on the Naval Home included the home basement, described as "low and damp" with insufficient drainage, The rooms in the attic were too hot for comfort, and asking the old and decrepit to climb up and down three flights of stairs from attic to the improperly placed dining commons in the basement was difficult for some of the inmates.
The United States Soldiers' Homes was authorized by Congress in 1851. In 1827, while the Naval Asylum was under construction, Secretary of War James Barbour recommended that an Army Asylum be constructed for soldiers. For the next twenty years people like Major Robert Anderson promoted the idea of homes for retired soldiers, without success. The problem was to develop a system of funding a Soldiers' Home that would not involve any expenditure of public money. In 1846, he wrote to all the regiments in the active army, asking for information on fines and forfeitures from Courts Martial. He got answers from about half the regiments, added the twenty cents a month for the hospital fund received from the 9,438 enlisted soldiers then on active duty, and was able to estimate the annual revenue from both sources at $42,642, which turned out to be on the low side. "He computed the annual cost of each member, using the Army clothing allowance of that year of $15.36, and the annual cost of one year's ration at the prevailing rate of ten cents a day, to arrive at an annual cost for each member for these two items, of $51.86."
On 14 September 1847 General Winfield Scott received the surrender of Mexico City, and accepted a "contribution" of $150,000 in gold from the Mexico City fathers "in lieu of pillage." Of this money, $118,791.19 was deposited on his orders in a New York bank with the notation "for Army Asylum." This action outraged the Secretary of War: he accused Gen. Scott of larceny under Art. 58 of the Articles of War, but Scott refused to turn the money over to the Treasury, and in the end he won.
Hub AI
Armed Forces Retirement Home AI simulator
(@Armed Forces Retirement Home_simulator)
Armed Forces Retirement Home
38°56′4″N 77°0′28″W / 38.93444°N 77.00778°W
The Armed Forces Retirement Home refers to one of two Old Soldiers' retirement homes, one in Gulfport, Mississippi, the other in Washington, D.C., that house veterans and retired members of the United States Armed Forces.
Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from New England to the Carolinas, laws were passed by the colonies to provide for the injured and wounded volunteer colonial soldiers back from the Indian Wars on the frontier. During the American Revolution, both the states and the Continental Congress made provision for disability pensions, but Congress was reluctant to fund so-called half-pay-for-life service pensions for commissioned officers, because they wanted no part of "Standing Armies," or "Career Soldiers" and had no money in any event. In the end, Congress agreed to pay the Officers the equivalent of five years pay at the end of their service, and enlisted people got $80.
From that time until 1885 there were no retirement pensions for either commissioned officers or enlisted personnel. Finally, in 1885, retirement plans were provided for enlisted Army and enlisted Marines. Navy enlisted had to wait until 1899 for a retirement pension. The absence of retirement pensions drove efforts to establish homes for the disabled and decrepit soldiers and sailors.
On 26 February 1811 Congress passed an act authorizing construction of U.S. Naval Hospitals which included the phrase "... to provide a permanent asylum for disabled and decrepit navy officers, seamen, and marines." The addition of an "Asylum" (meaning "refuge") was in lieu of a retirement or service pension for naval personnel. This act eventually resulted in the purchase of the Pemberton Estate in 1826 for $17,000, which came with a large mansion to be used as a hospital, and the decision to construct a new building for an asylum. William Strickland was selected as Architect and Contractor to build the Philadelphia Naval Asylum. What was to become Biddle Hall was completed in 1834. "The entire cost of the building, excluding the finishing of the attics, was $195,600: about four-ninths of which came from the Treasury directly, the remainder from the Hospital Fund." These Treasury funds were required because the Hospital Fund had gotten into trouble in the 1820s when the Trustee's elected to invest fund assets in private equities rather than Treasury Bonds. From that time to the present, Naval Home Trust Funds have only invested with the U.S. Treasury. When the U.S. Soldiers' Home and Trust Fund was created in 1851, some of its funds were invested in bonds issued by the states of Virginia and Missouri, from which little or no interest was received during the Civil War, and in the future the Soldiers' Home Trust Fund would also only be invested with Treasury.
Biddle Hall was used to house not only the home for pensioners, but the Asylum staff, a Naval Hospital, an insane asylum and a School for Naval Midshipmen, the predecessor of the Naval Academy at Annapolis. Some of the residents of the Asylum were buried on the grounds of the Asylum, and then reburied at Mount Moriah Cemetery following the Civil War. The number of "Inmates" varied over the long history of the Philadelphia Home, beginning with five in 1834, going to 220 in 1885, and 204 on 1 July 1921. Residents were provided with a small private room, furnished with simple furniture, to which they could add their own furniture. Structural defects noted by Lieutenant Commander George Stockton in his 1886 paper on the Naval Home included the home basement, described as "low and damp" with insufficient drainage, The rooms in the attic were too hot for comfort, and asking the old and decrepit to climb up and down three flights of stairs from attic to the improperly placed dining commons in the basement was difficult for some of the inmates.
The United States Soldiers' Homes was authorized by Congress in 1851. In 1827, while the Naval Asylum was under construction, Secretary of War James Barbour recommended that an Army Asylum be constructed for soldiers. For the next twenty years people like Major Robert Anderson promoted the idea of homes for retired soldiers, without success. The problem was to develop a system of funding a Soldiers' Home that would not involve any expenditure of public money. In 1846, he wrote to all the regiments in the active army, asking for information on fines and forfeitures from Courts Martial. He got answers from about half the regiments, added the twenty cents a month for the hospital fund received from the 9,438 enlisted soldiers then on active duty, and was able to estimate the annual revenue from both sources at $42,642, which turned out to be on the low side. "He computed the annual cost of each member, using the Army clothing allowance of that year of $15.36, and the annual cost of one year's ration at the prevailing rate of ten cents a day, to arrive at an annual cost for each member for these two items, of $51.86."
On 14 September 1847 General Winfield Scott received the surrender of Mexico City, and accepted a "contribution" of $150,000 in gold from the Mexico City fathers "in lieu of pillage." Of this money, $118,791.19 was deposited on his orders in a New York bank with the notation "for Army Asylum." This action outraged the Secretary of War: he accused Gen. Scott of larceny under Art. 58 of the Articles of War, but Scott refused to turn the money over to the Treasury, and in the end he won.
Recent media