Never has the government of the USA allowed pensions to be given to men who bore arms against the USA

Yeah it don't much seem like any government would pay you to fight them does it? Kinda goes against the law of survival. Hey Mahlon, I'm going to pay you to beat me up, ya don't see that too much, do ya? Howsoever there were quite a few southerners who got a pension who bore arms against the US. A large part of those folks in Northern Alabama, Northern Arkansas, East TN, West NC, North GA and East KY, Missouri, Maryland.. In your statement you wrote "who bore arms" against. the US. Actually there's the word in there.. "willingly". Many of these people who later join Union outfits during the war, claimed that their previous experience in the Confederate cause was because they had been conscripted and forced to join. And they gots the money.