Bttt
4 minutes
Ozarks Life: Bolivar WWII veteran is the only son of a Civil War soldier still alive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULNcaHrDxiA
“...Charles was 80 when Bill was born...”
That’s even more remarkable. Good genes run in the family.
According to this page there is also one daughter of a Union veteran still alive
https://suvcw.org/real-sons-and-daughters
A good friend of mine from college was from Bolivar. What a cool claim-to-fame for a small town.
In the Clive Cussler novel ‘Raise the Titanic, one of the plot twists noted that at the time (late 1970’s), there were still over 50 women alive drawing US Civil War widow pensions. It mentioned that it was not uncommon for elderly Civil war veterans to marry very young women, thus securing these ladies pensions upon the soldiers’ deaths. This at a rime before Social Security or much of any social safety net benefits for the poor.
I can still remember being a child in Chicago and reading in the Chicago Tribune about the last Union and Confederate soldiers marching in the parade. And then the next time only the Confederate soldier marched and there were jokes about the Confederacy finally winning the war.
In Lee’s Last Retreat: The Flight to Appomattox, historian William Marvel identified Private Pleasant Riggs Crump, of Talladega County, Alabama, who died December 31, 1951, as the last confirmed surviving veteran of the Confederate States Army.
I’ve since read that the stories of that time were wrong and he was outlived by a Union soldier.
None of my Civil War soldier ancestors lived past 1922.
Sixth West Virginia Volunteers
Union soldier. Usually it was Confederate veterans who married younger women and passed on their pensions. It looks like Bill’s father married a young woman with four children whose husband abandoned her. He was 71, she was 27, and they had five more children.
Amazing. I thought I was lucky having met and corresponded with the daughter of a black Civil War soldier who served in the 55th Massachusetts Infantry. It was the sister regiment of the 54th Massachusetts which was depicted in the movie “Glory.” Her father, named Andrew had been a slave in Kentucky, but he ran away when he heard his master was going to take him off to war with him. He ended up running into an Ohio unit, and was at the Battle of Shiloh, serving as servant to the Colonel of the regiment. After the battle, the Colonel was sent home to recuperate from chronic diarrhea, and he took Andrew with him. While in Ohio, he heard they were recruiting black soldiers for the 54th in Boston. By the time he got there, the 54th was full, but they had so many men left over, that they formed the 55th. Andrew’s two daughters were born late in his life from his second marriage to a much younger woman. His first wife had died childless.