The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896 (Oxford History of the United States)

by Richard White

Between 1879 and 1881, total disbursements for pensions roughly doubled and then rose even more steeply during the 1880s. Civil War pensions became the leading expenditure of the U.S. government. Republicans used it to justify high tariff rates.