Professor Robertson asked us to discuss the little tidbits that stand out as worth further academic investigation; reading through the documents provided for my soldier, Herman Pfeil, I think I found one. He died before his wife, but shortly before he passed, he filed for his pension to be paid to her. It seems there was some issue, as some years later she filed further paperwork to ensure receipt – or so it seems. While I’d need to look into some background material on how pensions were paid out for American Civil War veterans (as it seems many of us must), if this indicates ineptitude, then I’ve found a potential research topic: coverage of spouses or extended family under American Civil War pension programs.
There’s another angle I could take with that. Perhaps there was discrimination instead of ineptitude, and related to Herman’s background, not the change of beneficiary. In that case, if I could find a group of people like Herman who had troubles finagling their pension payouts, I’d have a research topic (as would everyone else with a Herman-like soldier).
Of course, there’s also why Herman died – it appears he settled his affairs beforehand, so I suspect he saw it coming. I could try to find what that process would entail for someone like Herman, though that would only be interesting were there complications or challenges; the medicine behind his demise I find more interesting. How were patients treated at Blenheim? on the field? in general hospitals? Diving into Herman’s struggle to heal after sustaining wartime injuries would, with occasional asides contrasting treatment quality then with treatment quality now, guide the curious into the foreign past with a handrail of comparison. Stories that connect to the foreign with the familiar hook strongly; and with a strong hook, the curious might actually learn something.
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