Jacob Ayers with wife Bridget
A 1901 state law passed for “the relief of certain Confederate soldiers and widows” provided pensions to NC residents incapacitated for manual labor who had been “a soldier or sailor in the service of the State of North Carolina or of the Confederate States of America during the war between the States.”
There were 4 classes of eligible applicants, based upon their disability. First class pensioners, those totally disabled, were awarded $72 per year. Second class pensioners, those who had lost an arm or leg, were entitled to $60 annually. Loss of a hand or foot brought $48 each year to third class pensioners, and $30 was the award to a fourth class, those who were incapacitated due to other wounds. Widows of veterans could also qualify for a pension, so long as they had not remarried.
Jacob M. Ayers applied for a NC Confederate soldier’s pension on July 1, 1901. He had enlisted in the 58th Regiment in July 1862 and was wounded in the left thigh at the Battle of Chickamauga, September 1863. Two remaining pieces of buckshot affected his left side; his claim also stated the loss of his left eye. Dr. C. E. Smith attested to Ayers’ disability. Although the injury had made him “unfit for manual labor” and eligible for a fourth-class pension, he operated a store at Glen Ayre, for many years in a wheel chair.
Jacob Ayers (1840-1938) was the son of James W. and Emily Laws Ayers. Jacob Ayers and his wife Bridget “Biddy” Randolph (1845-1924) had children Doctor N. Ayers, Martha Emma Hobson, Mary Ayers, James Augustus Ayers, Laura Gouge Ledford, Alfonso Ayers, Vallie Octavia Riddle, and John Hamilton Ayers.
