Civil War Veterans

Veterans of the Civil War returned to lives either very similar or completely different from the world they left behind to fight for their cause. For veterans of the U.S. Army, life went on, as victors, much as it had before the war. They returned as celebrated, often decorated heroes who’d brought a country split apart back together again.

For veterans of the Confederacy, life after the war was very different, for many years after the war. Many Confederate veterans returned to farms and entire towns laid waste by Sherman’s March to the Sea, to plantations that had once been prosperous now lying fallow and looted, both by the Federal troops and their own fellow Confederate soldiers, forced to forage to survive the war. Yet the ruin that they found at home was minimal compared to the hardships they would face as subjects of the United States.

Confederate veterans by and large lost their rights as citizens after the Civil War. For years after the war their citizenship was debated; only those who pledged allegiance to the United States could have their citizenship restored, and that usually did not happen for years after the conclusion of the war. Their unusual status as subjects of their former foes was compounded by the fact that they now lived, for the most part, in an occupied area. During Reconstruction, the U.S. government established military rule in the South by assigning military districts to oversee the Confederacy’s reassimilation into the Union. It would be years until these former Confederate soldiers had their rights reestablished on a large scale.

Celebration of the veterans of the Civil War began in earnest, both North and South, soon after the war, although for ostensibly different reasons. Groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Sons of Confederate Veterans sprang up in the South, while the Grand Army of the Republic and the Loyal Legion formed in the North, giving those who wished to honor veterans of both sides the opportunity to support and celebrate these veterans. Annual parades and reunions of veterans and members of these groups began to proliferate throughout both the North and the South, persisting until the 20th century in many areas.

As the 20th century dawned, and the numbers of Civil War veterans decreased, honoring those who still survived became a veritable national past time, one that resulted in oftentimes hotly-contested battles regarding who was the Oldest Living Civil War Veteran on both sides.

The oldest living Union veteran of the Civil War is generally thought to be Albert Woolson, who died in 1956 at the age of either 106 or 109. His date of birth, like many who served in the Civil War, is unclear due to the fact that he may have lied about his age to enlist before he was old enough to do so.

At least two men claimed to be the oldest living Confederate veteran of the Civil War, only to have their claims debunked.

For years Walter Williams was celebrated as the last living Confederate veteran for years until a 1959 New York Times article revealed that he was born in 1854, too young to have served. Another claimant to the title, John Salling, was revealed by the magazine Blue & Gray to have been born in 1858, also too young to have served.

It is possible that William J. Bush was the last living Confederate veteran. Bush, whom Census records listed as being born in 1846, died in 1852.