There are many key words in the title of this collection: Index to Selected Final Pension Payment Vouchers, 1818-1864. Each are explained as follows:

Index: These are 3x5 slips created by the National Archives staff while working with the archived records of payments made by pension offices. Each card refers to a pension payment record and often to a pension voucher.

Selected: The vouchers were originally within pension agents' accounts. They were removed and selected by the National Archives staff to give researchers easier access to an important genealogical resource.

Final: While the title refers to "final" payment vouchers, there are also "last" payment vouchers included in this index. "Last" refers to the last payment of record while the "final" payment indicates that the pensioner has died and that a final payment was made on his account. A "last" payment could have been made for several reasons, including death or that the pensioner no longer visited the pension office to receive further payments due.

The final payment vouchers for Delaware and Georgia have been microfilmed and were formerly only available from NARA or the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. Now, the images can be viewed on Fold3.

Final Revolutionary War Pension Payment Vouchers: Delaware (M2079) was funded by the National Institute on Genealogical Research Alumni Association (NIGRAA) and the National Archives Trust Fund.

Final Revolutionary War Pension Payment Vouchers: Georgia (M1746) was funded by The R.J. Taylor, Jr., Foundation and the National Archives Trust Fund.

A Fold3 Blog post describes using the payment vouchers in your research and what you can do with them.

The remaining states are only available as textual records and files. They can be ordered from NARA. (See below.)

Several books offer abstracts of the records. Titles for "Selected Final Pension Payment Vouchers, 1818-1864" by either Alycon Trubey Pierce or Kathryn McPherson Gunning include:

• Alabama: Decatur-Huntsville-Mobile-Tuscaloosa (Pierce)
• District of Columbia (Pierce)
• Louisiana: New Orleans (Pierce)
• Maryland: Baltimore (Pierce)
• Mississippi: Natchez & Jackson (Pierce)
• New Jersey: Trenton (Pierce)
• Pennsylvania: Philadelphia & Pittsburgh (Gunning)
• Rhode Island (Gunning)
• South Carolina: Charleston (Pierce)
• Virginia: Richmond & Wheeling (Pierce)

Pensions Enacted by Congress for American Revolutionary War Veterans

History of Military Pension Legislation in the United States, by William Henry Glasson, is available as a download from Google Books.

To learn more about the various pension acts, visit the Fold3 description for the Revolutionary War Pension Files and scroll down to the Timeline entry.

There are index slips for the following Native Americans, all designated as "warrior" and all with a distinctive name. Most served in the War of 1812 and in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.

• Black, Prince (warrior)
• Hobacco-Mouch, Cho-la-chee-hus (Indian warrior)
• Keel-lah-nee-tah (Young Puppy) Indian warrior
• Mouse, (the) warrior
• Muskrat or Salerquce (warrior)
• Sa-tal-e-te-hee (warrior)
• Snake, Crawling (warrior)
• Tee-can-see-na-ka, (Overtaker) Indian warrior
• Territory, (Warrior)
• Too-noy, (warrior)
• Wa-hic-atow-ee (Indian warrior)

A full list of Cherokee soldiers who served at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend can be found here.

To order a copy of the final pension voucher from the National Archives (NARA), first be sure that the index slip has an asterisk (*) on it, indicating that the file can be located. Make note of all the information on the card and include it in your request.

Include a reference to ARC identifier #605894, and Record Group 217: Records of the Accounting Officers of the Department of the Treasury, 1775-1978.

More information on how to order textual records like these can be found through NARA's Textual Archive Services webpage at http://www.archives.gov/research/order/textual-records-dc.html.