Widow of Confederate Soldier Dies at 93

AOL News ^ | 20 Aug 08 | PEGGY HARRIS

[PurpleMan]

Maudie White Hopkins, who grew up during the Depression in the hardscrabble Ozarks and married a Confederate army veteran 67 years her senior, has died. She was 93.

[PurpleMan]

Sorta time warp-ish

[Cpl. Dwayne Hicks]

Did she get VA benefits?

[jalisco555]

Did she get VA benefits?

I don't think her husband served in the United States military.

[impeachedrapist]

And according to the article there are other Civil War widows still alive. Wow.

[Tallguy]

“Did she get VA benefits?”

Yeah, paid in Confederate Army scrip...

[rhombus]

Did she get VA benefits?

Besides the mule and the house, it was that rebel yell that drove her insane with passion. ;-)

[Abathar]

"Baxter County records show they were married in January 1934 by a justice of the peace. She said Cantrell supported her with his Confederate pension of "$25 every two or three months" and left her his home when he died in 1937."

Looks like she didn't get his pension either.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

“Confederate pension” ?

[EdReform]

Ping

[PurpleMan]

“Other Confederate widows are still living, but they don’t want any publicity, Martha Boltz, of the United Daughters of the Confederacy said Tuesday.”

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/aug/19/maudie-hopkins-civil-war-widow-93/

[passionfruit]

I remember the article a few years ago about the “last civil war bride” dying. Her story was similar. Young girl married an old man and cared for him in his last years.

[stainlessbanner]

Ol Dixie Ping

[HIDEK6]

Sorta time warp-ish

Yeah, to think that she was married to someone who fought in the War Between the States!

[stainlessbanner]

The term ‘’Civil War veteran’’ includes a person who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, and the term ‘’active military or naval service’’ includes active service in those forces.

[TomServo]

Thanks you for the ping, Sir!

[Tallguy]

I was wondering the same thing... that maybe his State adopted a pension for former Confederate soldiers. The article says that all she got was some land & a home.

This passage is curious: Military records show Cantrell served in Company A, French's Battalion, of the Virginia Infantry. He enlisted in the Confederate army at age 16 in Pikeville, Ky., and was captured the same year and sent to a prison camp in Ohio. He was exchanged for a Northern prisoner, and after the war moved to Arkansas to live with relatives.

Now I'm wondering how Cantrell came to serve in a Virginia Volunteer Infantry battalion when he actually enlisted in Kentucky? Was it common practice for border state citizens to enlist in 'foreign' units? I guess it happened at least once.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Did she get VA benefits?

Right war. Wrong side.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Doubt it. Confederate soldiers typically received any pensions or benefits that they may have been due from their respective states, in whose regiments they served.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Yep. Happened all the time. For instance many of the Confederate veterans from Buchanan and Tazewell counties in Southwest Virginia actually served in the 10th Kentucky Cavalry. Also, a lot of men from East Tennessee served in the 54th Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

[arthurus]

The lady was not a “civil war bride.” She married her veteran long after that war was over. She is a civil war widow.