From Revolutionary War to Korean War to Today, Here's How Much Troops Were Paid in Every American War

Think it’s hard making it month to month in the barracks on just an E-1 pay? Well, the recruits who won America’s earlier wars had to make ends meet with much, much less to draw on. See how much troops made in each conflict, both in their own currency and adjusted for inflation:

1. Revolutionary War

American soldiers in combat at the Battle of Long Island, 1776.

Privates in 1776 earned $6 a month plus a bounty at the end of their service. That pay would equate to $157.58 today, a pretty cheap deal for the poor Continental Congress. Unfortunately for soldiers, Congress couldn’t always make ends meet and so troops often went without their meager pay.


2. War of 1812

The Battle of New Orleans, the last major fight of the War of 1812.

Pay started at $5 a month for privates but was raised to $8 at the end of 1812. This was in addition to bounties ranging from $31 and 160 acres of land to $124 and 320 acres of land.

That $8 translates to $136.28 in 2016. The bounties ranged from $528.10 to $2,112.40 for terms of five years to the duration of the war.

3. Mexican-American War

Mexican-American War, Battle of Buena Vista, 1847.

Young infantrymen in their first year of service during the Mexican-American War pocketed $7 per month, according to this Army history. That’s $210.10 in 2016 dollars.

4. Civil War

Union and Confederate troops clash at the Battle of Franklin in Tennessee, 1864.

Union privates in 1863 brought home $13 a month which translates to $237.51 in modern dollars. Confederate privates had it a little worse at $11 a month. The Confederate situation got worse as the war went on since the Confederate States of America established their own currency and it saw rapid inflation as the war situation got worse and worse.


5. Spanish-American War

An undated photo shows soldiers manning a battle signal corps station during the Spanish-American War. (Photo: Naval History and Heritage Command)

While Army private pay in the Spanish-American War was still $13 like it had been in the Civil War, a period of deflation had strengthened the purchasing power of that monthly salary. In 2016 dollars, it would be worth $356.26.

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Extraordinary Mugshots of Turn-of-the-Century Prisoners

“Some years ago I discovered a cache of glass negative mug shots taken in the early 20th century; each negative was inscribed with the man’s name and alleged crime. In order to research the life of each man pictured in the 500 negatives, I spent the next three years traveling back and forth from New York to the small Northern California town where the photos were taken. I discovered the photographs were taken by Clara Smith, a town photographer more accustomed to taking images of brides and babies than newly arrested suspects. The only extant records of the men's crimes were the newspapers of the time, so I read through every copy of the daily newspaper(s) from 1901 to 1908 to find news of the men pictured in the images. The project resulted in the book, Prisoners, a collection of 70 images with accompanying narrative text on each subject.” — Arne Svenson

In Prisoners, New York artist and photographer Arne Svenson presents some two dozen portraits of turn-of-the-century prisoners, which the artist developed from found negatives. Each image (about one to two feet) is a diptych mug-shot (full face and profile), with the criminal's name and crime etched into the emulsion and visible above the subject's head. The crimes range from petty larceny to murder in various ages and races.

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60 Fascinating Color Photographs That Capture Street Scenes of Saigon During the Vietnam War

Saigon at this time was a city full of energy! It it was overcrowded, full of refugees and one wondered at times how it functioned as a municipality. People were always busy, yet always had the time to stop and talk or spend a while in a caf矇.

Saigon in the 1960s and early 1970s was the capital of America’s global proxy war to counter the ‘domino effect’ of spreading communism, the focal point of the battle between ideologies. Most of the fighting, however, took place in rural villages throughout central Vietnam. In Saigon, life went on much the same as it had for years — except with more American soldiers around.

The motorbikes are older, and nobody’s wearing helmets, but much of the street life in Saigon looked the same back in the 1960s as it does today: tall trees, ao dais, conical hats, and cyclos. You don’t get the sense of a cataclysmic war in these photos, because it hadn’t come to Saigon yet. These are scenes of business as usual, with people out hustling to get ahead, just like their children and grandchildren still do today.

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36 Color Pictures of John Lennon on Streets in the Last Year of His Life

These color pictures, some rare, that captured John Lennon on streets in 1980. Several pictures were the last hours of his life.

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49 Beautiful Photos That Capture Street Portraits of Tokyo Girls in the Early 1970s

These beautiful photos from nick dewolf photo archive that captured portraits of Japanese girls on Tokyo's streets from 1971 to 1973.

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In World War II, Boeing Built a Fake Rooftop Town to Hide Its Factory Beneath From Potential Air Strike by the Japanese

During World War II, a strange, house-filled neighborhood could be seen in the middle of an industrial area from the air. A close-up look would reveal that it was camouflage for Boeing's Plant No. 2, where thousands of B-17 bombers were produced.

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese submarines were spotted off the San Francisco Bay and near Santa Barbara in 1942. The West Coast was the next presumed target for the Japanese so the U.S. decided to hide its major wartime factories.

John Stewart Detlie, a Hollywood set designer, helped "hide" Boeing's Seattle plant using his Hollywood design techniques with this camouflage. The fake housing development covered nearly 26 acres with netting. Built almost entirely from plywood and cardboard - with trees made from chicken wire and painted burlap - the town looked convincing enough from the air to hide the factory from any bombers flying by. Factory workers took a series of secret tunnels through fake cafes and shops to get to the factory each morning.

On the roof of Boeing Plant 2, camouflage trees and structures were shorter than a person.

The faux neighborhood was designed to throw off possible air attacks.

Thousands of Boeing workers gather in front of Boeing Plant 2 for ceremonies marking the changeover from B-17 to B-29 production on April 10, 1945.

Suzette Lamoureaux and Vern Manion examine one of the miniature bungalows in the “Boeing Wonderland.”

Structures that look like cars from overhead are parked along a fake street.

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25 Rarely Seen Photographs of Celebrities From Between the 1950s and 1970s

Rarely seen photographs of celebrities from the decades of the heartthrobs, rebels and Rock 'n' Roll...

Brigitte Bardot on a custom Harley-Davidson built by Maurice Combalbert which Bardot used on her television special ‘Le Show’ in 1967.

Alain Delon welcomes Romy Schneider at Nice airport before the set of the film ‘La Piscine’, 1968

Catherine Deneuve

Brigitte Bardot, 1959.

Steve McQueen signs an autograph for a young fan during the filming of the movie ‘Bullitt’, 1968.

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