Albert Woolson’s final days were widely reported at the time, particularly in the Duluth (Minn.) News-Tribune, Mar. 13 and Aug. 3, 1956; the St. Paul Pioneer-Press, Aug. 2, 1956; and Stars and Stripes, July 31 and Aug. 1, 1956.
Likewise, Walter Williams’s last days were given wide news coverage, especially in the Houston Post, Dec. 20, 1959; the Sacramento Bee, Dec. 20, 1959; Stars and Stripes, Dec. 11, 12, 15, and 18, 1959; and the Chicago Tribune, Dec. 13, 1959.
The Life magazine feature on Williams can be found in its May 11, 1959, issue.
The story of the Georgia veteran (William J. Bush) who disrupted the Civil War museum has been richly told, and it can be traced from various sources, including the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, May 30, 1951; the Florida State News, Nov. 12, 1952; the Milledgeville (Ga.) Union-Recorder, Aug 23 and 30, 1951; and the United Daughters of the Confederacy magazine, Feb. 1989. More material on Bush and the anecdote is available at the Blue and Gray Museum in Fitzgerald, Ga. The novelist Flannery O’Connor saw these articles, which inspired her to write her short story, “A Late Encounter with the Enemy.”
Bruce Catton’s recollections of meeting Yankees as a child come from his memoir, Waiting for the Morning Train: An American Boyhood (New York: Doubleday, 1972), and Mr. Lincoln’s Army, from his Civil War series The Army of the Potomac (New York: Doubleday, 1962).
The story of President Taft’s harrowing motor car drive to Manassas, Va., is recounted in Michael L. Bromley, William Howard Taft and the First Motoring Presidency (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2003), which also includes a good profile of Maj. Archibald Willingham Butt. The major’s writings are compiled in Taft and Roosevelt: The Intimate Letters of Archie Butt, Military Aide, 2 vols. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran, 1930). Another source on Butt is a profile in the Potomac (Md.) News, June 6, 1991.
The Manassas Journal and the Manassas Democrat, as well as the Washington Post and the New York Times, gave lengthy treatments to the reunion, beginning on July 20, 1911. The Manassas Museum published a commemorative edition on the Jubilee in June/July 1986, and copies of the work are available at the museum. Other works include Catherine T. Simmons, Manassas, Virginia, 1873–1973: One Hundred Years of a Virginian Town (Manassas: Manassas City Museum, 1986), and R. Jackson Ratcliffe, comp., This Was Manassas (1973), both retrievable at the museum.
Walt Whitman’s account of the Union retreat from Manassas is taken from The Sacrificial Years: A Chronicle of Walt Whitman’s Experiences in the Civil War, edited and with an introduction by John Harmon McElroy (Boston: David B. Godine, 1999).
Details about the life of George Carr Round and his leadership of the Jubilee reunion at Manassas are included in his obituary, papers, and other records housed at the Manassas Museum. The museum also has many of Round’s letters, including those he wrote home during the war as well as other correspondence and reports detailing his work on the Jubilee effort. A worthwhile profile of Round ran in the Potomac (Md.) News, Aug. 10, 1988.
The Washington Post of July 19, 1911, reported the protest by Brooklyn GAR members against the Confederate flag being flown at the Manassas reunion.
James Redmond’s interview with the Washington Post was published July 21, 1911.
The odd story of James E. Maddox first surfaced in the Washington Post, July 23, 1911. Further details were reported in the Manassas Democrat, July 27, 1911; the Manassas Journal, July 28, 1911; and the Washington Post, July 29, 1911. H. A. Strong’s report to Round is part of the records on file at the Manassas National Battlefield Park.
The fiftieth reunion at Gettysburg was covered in great detail by the New York Times beginning June 29, 1913. Civil War Times magazine printed a retrospective called “Gettysburg: The 50th Anniversary Encampment” in Oct. 1970. The files at the Gettysburg National Military Park include reams of material on the 1913 and 1938 reunions.
Walt Whitman’s description of hearing the news in Washington of the victory at Gettysburg is included in McElroy, The Sacrificial Years.
President Wilson’s address was reprinted in the New York Times, July 5, 1913.
The anecdote of the two soldiers reuniting at the site of Pickett’s Charge was told in the New York Times, July 2, 1913.
The story of the Gettysburg Hotel brawl was reported by the New York Times, July 3, 1913.
The seventy-fifth anniversary reunion was covered extensively by the New York Times, beginning June 29, 1938. Prologue Magazine, a publication of the National Archives, ran a retrospective by archivist Mitchell Yockelson, “The Great Reunion: The Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of Gettysburg,” in the summer of 1992. Another magazine, Gettysburg, also looked back at the reunion in its July 1, 1992, issue.
Paul L. Roy recounted his efforts to coordinate the seventy-fifth anniversary in his book The Last Reunion of the Blue and Gray (Gettysburg, Pa.: Bookmart, 1950).
The Gettysburg Times, Sept. 10, 1935, reported that many Union veterans opposed the flying of the Confederate flag at the reunion. The New Orleans Times-Picayune, Feb. 6, 1938, told of the defiance of Confederate veteran David Corbin Ker.
The Gettysburg Times, June 30, 1938, reported that P. Guibert had walked to Gettysburg from Pittsburgh.
Harry Rene Lee’s passion for the Stars and Bars was reported in Gettysburg magazine, July 1, 1992.
John W. Weaver’s death was reported in the Gettysburg Times, July 7, 1938.
President Roosevelt’s address was reprinted in the New York Times, July 4, 1938.
Overton H. Mennet was quoted in the Gettysburg Times, June 28, 1938, as was John Milton Claypool. Mennet also was quoted in the New York Times, July 2, 1938.
The Gettysburg Times of June 3, 1938, told the story of Charles W. Eldridge turning 107 at the reunion.
Gettysburg magazine of July 1, 1992, reported Louis Quint’s drive from Minnesota to the Gettysburg party.
A photograph of the Harris father-and-son duo was printed in the New York Times, July 1, 1938.
The stories of Warren Fisher, his wife, Daisy, and Alvin F. Tolman were told by the Gettysburg Times, June 16, 1938.
On July 1, 1938, the Gettysburg Times reported how M. A. Loop scaled the observation tower.
The Washington Star, July 3, 1938, printed the comments from Samuel B. Hanson.
James Handcock’s trip to a Philadelphia ball game was recorded in the Gettysburg Times, July 11, 1938.
The telegram from veterans asking Washington officials for permission to remain forever at Gettysburg was printed in the Gettysburg Times, July 7, 1938.
Sources on Helen Dortch Longstreet are bountiful. Her books include Lee and Longstreet at High Tide: Gettysburg in the Light of the Official Records (self-published, 1904). Her essay “Wooed to the Warrior’s Tent” can be found in the Helen Dortch Longstreet Papers at the Atlanta History Center. Further information regarding the widow of General Longstreet is included in Sarah E. Gardner, Blood and Irony: Southern White Women’s Narratives of the Civil War, 1861–1937 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). Stories about her wanderings around upstate New York were published in the Savannah Evening Press, May 2, 1956; the Atlanta Journal, May 3, 1956; and the Atlanta Constitution, May 3, 1956. Her work as a reporter/columnist at the two Gettysburg reunions was carried in the New York Times on July 2 and 4, 1913, and July 3, 1938. Her battlefield posts also were published in the Atlanta Constitution, July 4, 1938, and the Gettysburg Times, July 1, 1938. The Gettysburg Times also quoted her in a June 27, 1938, article. Life magazine featured her at the Bell plant in Atlanta in its Dec. 27, 1943, edition. Her experiences as a riveter also were covered by the Atlanta Journal on Oct. 12, 1943, and Dec. 20, 1943. She also can be found in a Time magazine article, July 22, 1935. One of the best obituaries of this remarkable Southern woman was published in the Atlanta Journal, May 4, 1962.
LaSalle Corbell Pickett’s obituary ran in the Washington Post and the New York Times, both on Mar. 23, 1931. Her autobiography is titled What Happened to Me (New York: Brentano’s, 1917). The online Encyclopedia Virginia also includes material on the widow of George Pickett (http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Pickett_LaSalle_Corbell_1843-1931), as did Time magazine, Apr. 6, 1931.
Dr. Paul White’s study of Charles Thiery was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Jan. 8, 1959. The Boston Globe ran Thiery’s obituary on Mar. 17, 1958.
J. P. Moore’s reminiscences about Henry Dorman and other aged Civil War veterans appear in his narrative This Strange Town—Liberal, Missouri (Liberal, Mo.: Liberal News, 1963). Dorman also was covered in the New York Times, Feb. 11 and 12, 1910; the San Jose (Calif.) Evening News, Mar. 16, 1914; and the Hayti (Mo.) Herald, Mar. 26, 1914. He also can be found in the Herald of Gospel Liberty magazine, published by the General Convention of the Christian Church, Mar. 31, 1910.
For more on J. Frank Dalton, aka Jesse James, a good read is Dale L. Walker, Legends and Lies: Great Mysteries of the American West (New York: Forge Books, 1997). The columns by Robert C. Ruark in the New York World Telegram ran on July 5, 6, and 7, 1949. His trial in Union, Mo., was covered by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Mar. 10, and 11, 1950, as well as the Washington (Mo.) Citizen of Mar. 17, 1950; the Washington Missourian, Mar. 16, 1950; and the Franklin County (Mo.) Tribune, Mar. 17, 1950.
Walter Urwiler’s remarkable ability to manipulate his heart rate was documented in J. B. Harris, H. E. Hoff, and R. A. Wise, “Diaphragmatic Flutter as a Manifestation of Hysteria,” Psychosomatic Medicine 16, no. 1 (1954) 56–66, and in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Mar. 21, 1936, Apr. 1, 1939, Apr. 12, 1941, and Aug. 4, 1951. His adventures in hospitals in Nevada, California, Washington State, and Texas were reported in the Nevada State Journal, July 21 and 26 and Aug. 3 and 8, 1951; Stars and Stripes, Aug. 4, 1951; Time magazine, Aug. 13, 1951; the Tacoma News Tribune, Aug. 6, 7, and 8, 1951; the Seattle Times, Aug. 8, 1951; and the Idaho Falls Post-Register, Oct. 18, 1951.
Every war collects its share of pretenders. After World War I the future novelist William Faulkner, who would write so truthfully about the Civil War, the Confederacy, and the emerging New South, leaned on a cane and hobbled about the town square in Oxford, Mississippi. He said he had been injured in aerial dogfights over Europe, even though the war had been over before Faulkner could get to it.
In Korea, Ferdinand W. Demara posed as a physician and performed operations on the battlefront. He was serving in the Canadian navy as a lieutenant surgeon and had enlisted as “Dr. Joseph Cyr” after the real Dr. Cyr’s medical papers were stolen. Authorities placed Demara in a state mental hospital in Boston.
Others, most peculiarly politicians, have inflated their service during the Vietnam years, boasting of jungle battles when in truth they never left their National Guard posts in the States. Medals and battle ribbons from the Gulf War, Iraq, and Afghanistan have been awarded to veterans not entitled to wear them. In 2005 Washington passed the Stolen Valor Act, which outlawed false claims of military honor. But in June 2012 the Supreme Court struck down the act, ruling that the First Amendment “protects the speech we detest as well as the speech we embrace.”
The Stolen Valor Act was triggered in part after Rick Duncan stood in front of television cameras and traveled the country reliving his time at the U.S. Naval Academy, his tours of duty as a Marine Corps captain, and his efforts sponsoring homeless shelters for military veterans. He told audiences he was in the bombed Pentagon during the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and later suffered a brain injury from a roadside explosion in Iraq. “I have a plate roughly about the size of a cup and saucer on this portion of my skull,” he said in a CNN interview. “Right here, I have a scar that runs back here and then down here.”
None of it was true. His real name was Richard G. Strandlof. He was a drifter, mental patient, and petty crook. Eventually he was questioned by the FBI and charged by authorities. “Sometimes I don’t know where, basically, what reality I am in,” he confessed. He reappeared on CNN and admitted he had been home in San Jose, California, on the morning of September 11, watching the airplane attacks on television. He did not attend the Naval Academy, he did not serve in the Marines, and he did not fight in Iraq. Why the lies? “It came to be a combination of things,” the disgraced thirty-two-year-old Strandlof said. “One, some severely underdiagnosed mental illness. And two, being caught up in the moment.”
William Faulkner masquerading as a disabled World War I veteran comes from Joseph Blotner, Faulkner: A Biography (New York: Random House, 1984). Ferdinand W. Demara was unmasked as a counterfeit surgeon in the Pacific Stars and Stripes, Aug. 1, 1956. Richard Strandlof’s fall from grace as a phony decorated Marine Corps captain in Iraq was reported in the New York Times, May 15 and June 8, 2009, and May 20, 2011; in the Los Angeles Times, July 8, 2009; and the Stars and Stripes Middle East edition, June 9, 2009. The CNN interviews aired at various times in June 2009.
The best sources for Albert Woolson’s life come from the man himself, especially his short but helpful autobiography, “My Reminiscences,” a separate memoir titled “Personal Remarks,” and a third called “The Baldwins,” all available in the H. N. (Bert) Woolson collection on Albert Woolson at the Whitman College and Northwest Archives, Walla Walla, Wash. Many of his numerous letters are housed there as well. A separate letter he wrote July 14, 1943, to the family of Albert Sweet is included among the Albert Burbank Sweet and Family Papers at the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul. The Whitman College and Northwest Archives also has several recorded interviews with Woolson. The one I found most intriguing was housed at the Veterans’ Memorial Hall for St. Louis County and Duluth, Minn., especially because it includes his dubious story that he and his father once met Abraham Lincoln. Also of tremendous value is Steven Aaron Passon, “Last of the Union Blue: A Biography of Albert Henry Woolson” (PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 1967). Upon Woolson’s death, the New York Times printed a lengthy and useful front-page obituary on Aug. 3, 1956. The Banner, a publication of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, ran a lengthy tribute to Woolson in its Fall 1956 issue. His and his father’s Union army records can be found in the Adjutant General’s Report, Minnesota Military Service Records, 1866, Minnesota Historical Society, Division of Archives and Manuscripts. The National Archives in Washington, D.C., also retains copies of Albert Woolson’s service record. His father, Willard Woolson, is listed in Alonzo L. Brown’s History of the Fourth Regiment of Minnesota Infantry Volunteers during the Great Rebellion, 1861–1865 (St. Paul: Pioneer Press, 1892). Also of note is Richard Moe, Last Full Measure: The Life and Death of the First Minnesota Volunteers (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press 2001).
The death of Civil War veteran Henry T. Johnson, which prompted Woolson to join the Grand Army of the Republic, was reported in the Duluth News-Tribune, Nov. 12 and 13, 1928.
An outstanding source for the Grand Army of the Republic is the Grand Army of the Republic Museum and Library in Philadelphia. It houses not only abundant materials on Woolson but also records and reports from the national organization and the various state chapters around the North, including Minnesota. These documents include transcripts of the yearly encampments, where I found Woolson’s recollections after visiting the Gettysburg reunion and his report on closing the Minnesota chapter. Similar documents can be found at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., including the Final Journal of the Grand Army of the Republic, 1866–1956 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1957). That report includes Woolson’s photograph prominently displayed, and his title as the “solitary sentinel” of the GAR at its end.
The feud between Woolson and Orrin S. Pierce was reported in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Nov. 12, 1945; the Minneapolis Tribune, July 6, 1946; and the Minneapolis Star, June 27, 1947. Minnesota History magazine ran a lengthy treatment on the dispute in its Winter 1980 edition. Pierce’s obituary was published in the Minneapolis Tribune, Feb. 24, 1948.
The disbanding of the Duluth chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic is covered in the Duluth News-Tribune, Mar. 19, 1932.
The closing of the Minnesota chapter was reported in the Sheboygan (Wis.) Press, June 5, 1947.
The dispute over the Grand Army of the Republic encampment held in 1936 in Washington, D.C., was covered by the New York Times on Apr. 14, 1935. The parade and encampment itself was covered by the Washington Evening Star on Sept. 23, 24, and 25, 1936. The Washington Post also covered the event on Sept. 23, 24, and 25, 1936.
The Grand Army of the Republic gathering in Columbus, Ohio, was recorded by the Columbus Dispatch on Sept. 13, 15, and 16, 1941.
A report on the Des Moines encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic can be found in the Des Moines Register, Sept. 10, 1944.
The second reunion in Columbus, Ohio, of the Grand Army of the Republic was covered by the Columbus Dispatch on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, 3, and 4, 1945.
The Grand Army of the Republic’s activities in Indianapolis were recorded by the Indianapolis Star on Aug. 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, and 30, 1946. The Duluth News-Tribune reported on Aug. 26, 1946, that Woolson was attending the encampment. Fremont Power, the Indiana reporter, wrote a recollection of his meeting Woolson at the gathering, which was published upon Woolson’s death a decade later, in the Indianapolis News, Aug. 2, 1956.
The Grand Army of the Republic’s meeting in Cleveland was covered by the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Aug. 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14, 1947.
In Grand Rapids, Michigan, the Grand Army of the Republic’s encampment was covered by Stars and Stripes on Nov. 14, 1948. Included was a photograph of several surviving veterans, including Woolson.
The final encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic was held in Indianapolis. The Indianapolis Star reported the last joint activities on Aug. 28, 1949, in an edition that included a lengthy Indianapolis Star Magazine retrospective feature titled “The G.A.R.—Forever in Memory.” Other coverage by the newspaper appeared on Aug. 29, 30, and 31, 1949 (with a photograph of a group of veterans including Woolson), and Sept. 1, 1949. The Duluth News-Tribune, Aug. 27, 1949, ran a photograph of Woolson smoking a cigar as his train left Duluth for the encampment in Indianapolis. The Saturday Review column by John Mason Brown appeared in the magazine’s Sept. 24, 1949, issue. The recollections of Nancy Baxter are from conversations with the author.
Unlike Woolson, Walter Williams apparently did not write down his reminiscences or memoirs. He did, however, speak randomly of his past adventures both in the Civil War and herding cattle up the Chisholm Trail. These stories can be found most often in newspaper and magazine accounts around the times of his birthdays, including the following: Dallas Morning News, May 10, Oct. 16, Nov. 16, and Dec. 20, 1953, July 10, 1954, Nov. 13 and 15, 1955, Aug. 12 and Nov. 1, 2, and 4, 1956, Jan. 8 and 10, June 16, Sept. 6, and Nov. 14 and 15, 1957; the Austin American-Statesman, Nov. 27, 1953, Mar. 26 and 29 and Nov. 1, 1954, Nov. 14, 1956, June 16 and 19 and Nov. 3, 6, 12, 15, and 26, 1957; the Houston Post, Nov. 3, 1957; the United Daughters of the Confederacy magazine, Sept. 1951, May 1954, July 1954, and Dec. 1954; the Port Arthur (Tex.) News, Aug. 5, 1953; the Los Angeles Times, Nov. 16, 1953, Nov. 15, 1954, and Nov. 15, 1957; and Stars and Stripes, Nov. 17 and 20, 1953, Mar. 31 and Nov. 17, 1954, Oct. 10, 1955, and June 20, 1957. Copies of many of these newspaper accounts are kept in the collections of the Center for American History at the University of Texas, Austin. More background on Williams was recorded by his daughter, Carrie Williams James, in her chapter “Walter W. Williams,” in Father Wore Grey, ed. Lela Whitton Hegarty (San Antonio: Naylor Co., 1963).
Walter Williams’s pension records were obtained from the Texas State Archives and Library Commission in Austin.
The Frank X. Tolbert interview in the Dallas Morning News ran Apr. 15, 1954.
The 1937 reunion that Williams attended in Corsicana, Tex., is reported in the Navarro County Scroll, vol. 15 (1970), and also is housed with the Navarro County, Tex., Historical Society.
Life magazine’s feature on Walter Williams was published in the June 1, 1953, issue.
A useful summary of the lives and activities of Confederate veterans in Louisiana after the war is Herman Hattaway, “The United Confederate Veterans in Louisiana,” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana History Association 16, no. 1. (Winter 1975): 5–37. This article also details the 1903 reunion in New Orleans.
The Confederate Veteran magazine of Dec. 1915 reported the creation of Memorial Day in Louisiana to honor former Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
The Little Rock, Ark., convention and President Taft’s letter were reported by the Arkansas Gazette, May 16, 1911.
W. P. Park’s letter to Jefferson Davis, written June 3, 1888, and Davis’s 1888 speech in Mississippi City, Mississippi, are both included in Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers, and Speeches, collected and edited by Dunbar Rowland, director of the Department of Archives and History of the State of Mississippi, and secretary of the Mississippi Historical Society (Jackson: Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1923).
Confederate Veteran magazine reported in July 1928 and Aug. 1928 on the reunion that year in Little Rock, Ark.
The 1933 reunion at Baton Rouge, La., was covered by the State Times of Baton Rouge on Oct. 19, 1933.
The reunion there five years later was covered by the State Times on Oct. 13, 1938. The 1939 Baton Rouge reunion was covered by the State Times on Oct. 12 and 13, 1939.
The State Times reported on the 1940 convention on Oct. 1, 17, and 18, 1940.
The 1942 convention in Baton Rouge was covered by the State Times on Oct. 15, 1942.
The 1945 reunion at Baton Rouge was covered by the State Times and Sun Advocate on Nov. 24, 1945.
William D. Townsend recalled his war stories in the United Daughters of the Confederacy magazine, May 1951.
The Shreveport (La.) Times ran a lengthy profile of Townsend and his wife on Apr. 16, 1950.
Townsend’s antics at the 1951 reunion in Norfolk, Va., were reported by the Virginian-Pilot on June 2, 1951.
Townsend’s obituary ran in the Baton Rouge State Times on Feb. 14, 1953; in the Shreveport Times, Feb. 24, 1953; in Stars and Stripes Europe, Feb. 24, 1953; and in the United Daughters of the Confederacy magazine, Apr. 1953.
Townsend’s funeral was covered by the Shreveport Times, Feb. 25, 1953, and the Baton Rouge State Times, Feb. 24 and 25, 1953.
Townsend’s pension records were obtained from the archives maintained by the Louisiana secretary of state in Baton Rouge.
The letter from Willie Mae Bowles regarding the daily routine of her dying father, Walter Williams, was included in Jay Hoar, The South’s Last Boys in Gray (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1986), as well as in Confederate Veteran magazine, May–June 1987.
Albert Woolson’s daily life and birthdays in snow-bound Duluth, Minn., were described in the St. Paul Pioneer Press Sunday magazine, May 14, 1953; the Duluth News-Tribune, May 31, 1953; Stars and Stripes Pacific, Feb. 6, 1953, and June 12, 1954; and Stars and Stripes Europe, Feb. 13, 1953, and Feb. 12, 1955.
The vignette of the Duluth schoolchildren collecting pennies for Woolson is recounted in Time magazine, Mar. 23, 1953.
The 1953 Memorial Day parade and ceremonies are reported in the Duluth News-Tribune, May 31, 1953.
Woolson’s letters to his son Rob and his family come from the H. N. (Bert) Woolson collection on Albert Woolson at the Whitman College and Northwest Archives, Walla Walla, Wash.
The Cora Gillis and A. B. Kapplin letters are housed in the H. N. (Bert) Woolson collection, Whitman College and Northwest Archives.
The letter from President Eisenhower is stored at the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, Abilene, Kans.
Researchers wishing to trace the lives of Union army veterans would be well served to start with Jay Hoar, a New England professor who has dedicated much of his professional life to tracking down stories about Civil War veterans and contacting their descendants. He has compiled these narratives in his two-volume work, The North’s Last Boys in Blue (Salem, Mass.: Higginson Book Co., 2006 and 2007).
The Portland Oregonian ran a full obituary on Theodore Penland in its Sept. 15, 1950, edition. The newspaper also published an accompanying editorial marking Penland’s passing.
The Manchester (N.H.) Union featured James Lurvey in a profile on Dec. 3, 1949. His obituary ran in the paper on Sept. 18, 1950. The New York Times marked his passing on Sept. 18, 1950, as did the Boston Globe, the Concord (N.H.) Daily Monitor, and the New Hampshire Patriot. For further reading, there is Gettysburg magazine, Jan. 1, 1997.
Lansing Wilcox appeared in the Wisconsin State Journal, Mar. 4 and 5, 1951. He was also featured in the Mar. 16, 1951, edition of the Milwaukee Sentinel. His obituary ran in the Milwaukee Journal and the Wisconsin State Journal, both on Sept. 30, 1951.
Material on the life and wartime experiences of James A. Hard was compiled in a six-part, first-person account that ran in the Rochester (N.Y.) Times-Union from July 7 to 14, 1950. In addition, more material from the interviews conducted by Times-Union reporter Andrew Wolfe is housed in scrapbook vol. 2, 1951, nos. 1–3, at the Rochester Historical Society. A fine example of the pageantry of parades and funerals that Hard attended and officiated at is described in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Oct. 16, 1938. Obituaries ran in the Democrat and Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, the Binghamton (N.Y.) Press, and the Youngstown (Ohio) Vindicator—all on Mar. 13, 1953. The Democrat and Chronicle of Mar. 17, 1953, covered his funeral.
Albert Woolson’s comments upon the death of James Hard were printed in the Democrat and Chronicle, Mar. 13, 1953.
The telephone conversation between Woolson and John Salling, as well as an account of how the chat was organized, were summarized by Lewis Gough in the American Weekly, the magazine of the American Legion, on May 24, 1953. Gough was the legion’s national commander.
Stories abound concerning Walter Williams’s ailments and his unconventional home health care. Examples can be found in the Dallas Morning News, Aug. 8, and Sept. 8, 1956, and June 21 and 22, 1959; and the Houston Post, June 21, 1959.
A feature story on the Confederate Soldiers’ Home in Raleigh, North Carolina, ran in the News and Observer on Dec. 5, 1920. Also of great value is Herbert Poole, “Final Encampment: The North Carolina Soldiers’ Home,” Confederate Veteran magazine, July–Aug. 1987, which also covered the protest by home residents. The story of Joe Carpenter’s problems at the home comes from the News and Observer, Apr. 24, 25, 26, and 27, 1935.
Just as he did for Union veterans, Jay Hoar also compiled biographical sketches of Confederate veterans and included them in The South’s Last Boys in Gray.
John Graves’s pension records are maintained by the Missouri secretary of state’s office, specifically the state archives. He also appears in Walter Williams, ed., A History of Northeast Missouri (Chicago: Lewis Publishing, 1913). He is cited prominently in the Higginsville (Mo.) Advance, Jan. 2, 1942, and May 12, 1950; the Kansas City (Mo.) Star, July 22, 1949, and May 9, 1950; the Anniston (Ala.) Star, May 9, 1950; the Sedalia (Mo.) Democrat, May 9, 1950; the Fayette (Mo.) Democrat-Leader, May 12, 1950; and the United Daughters of the Confederacy magazine, June 1950 and July 1950
The Missouri Confederate Home is best presented in Wade F. Ankesheiln, The Heart Is the Heritage: The Story of the Founding of the Confederate Home of Missouri (Coral Springs, Fla.: Llumina Press, 2007). It also was featured in Missouri Resources magazine, Winter 1997–98, in “Resources to Explore: Confederate Memorial State Historic Site,” by Jill G. White, the historic site administrator. Also of interest is a photograph in the United Daughters of the Confederacy magazine in July 1954.
Pleasant Crump’s pension records are housed at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. His presence at Appomattox is verified in William Marvel’s Lee’s Last Retreat: The Flight to Appomattox (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006). Additional information can be found in the United Daughters of the Confederacy magazine, Feb. 1949 and Feb. 1952; the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, Jan. 2, 1952; the Talladega (Ala.) Daily Home, Jan. 1, 1952; the Anniston (Ala.) Star, Jan. 1, 1952; and the Dothan (Ala.) Eagle, Dec. 23, 1949.
The Birmingham (Ala.) News, Apr. 26, 1950, covered the visit by “Gen.” James W. Moore to the Crump farm. More on Moore can be found in the Birmingham News, Feb. 26 and 28, 1951; the United Daughters of the Confederacy magazine, Feb. 1950, Mar. 1951, Apr. 1951, and May 1951; and the Alabama Department of Archives and History, whose Civil War Service Database includes remarks Moore made upon his election as commander in chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans on Sept. 27 and 28, 1944.
The Confederate service pension file for William J. Bush is located in the Georgia Department of Archives and History. In addition, the Blue and Gray Museum in Fitzgerald, Ga., has more material on Bush. His theatrics at the Atlanta museum were reported in his obituary by the Florida Times-Union on Nov. 12, 1952. Reports about how he reacted to his wife’s college degree can be found in the Milledgeville (Ga.) Union Recorder, Aug. 23 and 30, 1951, and the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, Aug. 26, 1951. The United Daughters of the Confederacy magazine ran his obituary in Dec. 1952, and additional material in its editions of Aug. 1953, Feb. 1989, and Feb. 2000. His antics at the 1951 Confederate reunion in Norfolk, Va., were described with great flair in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, May 30, 1951, as well as in the Florida State News, Nov. 12, 1952; the Milledgeville Union-Recorder, Aug. 23 and 30, 1951; and the United Daughters of the Confederacy magazine, Feb. 1989. Bush’s obituary also appeared in the Atlanta Journal, Nov. 11, 1952, and his funeral tributes were described on Nov. 12, 1952. Confederate Veteran magazine ran a sketch of Bush in its July–Aug. 1987 edition.
The congressional visit at Walter Williams’s home is related in Robert J. Cook, Troubled Commemoration: The American Civil War Centennial, 1961–1965 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007). It is noteworthy that Cook believes Williams’s claim that he served in the Confederacy “was probably fraudulent.” The visit also was reported in the Houston Post on Apr. 27, 1958.
A selection of General Ulysses S. Grant III’s writing and speeches were included in Civil War History 2, no. 2 (June 1956), a quarterly then published by the State University of Iowa. A profile of Grant ran in the New York Times, Jan. 9, 1961. Material about Sam Willett, the letter to Maine veterans, and the GAR pallbearers at President Grant’s funeral can be found in Charles Bracelen Flood, Grant’s Final Victory: Ulysses S. Grant’s Heroic Last Year (Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo, 2011).
The most thorough work on the U.S. Civil War Centennial Commission and its leadership difficulties is Cook’s Troubled Commemoration. A complete file of the commission’s papers and documents is preserved at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. An example of the holdings is the commission’s Jan. 1958 “Statement of Objectives and Suggestions for Civil War Centennial Commemorations.” For timely records of their work, consult the monthly bulletins titled “100 Years After,” which were printed and distributed during the late 1950s and early 1960s. I found a complete set of copies at the National Museum of the U.S. Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. Other Centennial Commission research was published in the “Notes & Queries” section of the Quarterly Journal of Studies in Civil War History 4, no. 2 (June 1958): 197–98. More information is available in W. Fitzhugh Brundage, “Commemoration and Conflict: Forgetting and Remembering the Civil War,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 82 (1998): 559–74.
Eisenhower’s admiration for Robert E. Lee is discussed in John S. D. Eisenhower, General Ike: A Personal Reminiscence (New York: Free Press, 2003), 138.
The president’s recollections about Civil War veterans in his hometown of Abilene, Kans., can be found in his memoir, At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends (New York: Doubleday, 1967).
Grant’s election to the head of the Civil War Centennial Commission was reported in the New York Times, Dec. 21, 1957.
Virginia Livingston-Hunt’s letter is contained in the National Archives holdings of centennial records, as is Bruce Catton’s Nov. 1958 speech to the Civil War Round Table in Washington, D.C. So is the Dallas couple’s letter to Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson.
The New York Times published an overview of the Centennial Commission’s preparations on June 9, 1957.
President Eisenhower’s proclamations regarding the Civil War Centennial are among his official papers at the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Abilene, Kans. The key dates are Dec. 7, 1960, and Jan. 5, 1961. More can be found in the New York Times, Dec. 8, 1960.
Newspaper coverage of the ceremonies kicking off the centennial at Grant’s Tomb and Lee’s burial site ran in the New York Times, Jan. 9, 1961.
The correspondence from the Florence Guards in Chicago, as well as that from Frederic Bauer of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, is housed at the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, Abilene, Kans.
Coverage of President Eisenhower’s wreath-laying ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial appeared in Stars and Stripes Europe, Feb. 13, 1954.
News of free medical care for the remaining Civil War veterans appeared in Stars and Stripes, Jan. 18, 1956.
Coverage of the special gold medals for the remaining Civil War veterans appeared in Stars and Stripes, May 23 and July 14 and 21, 1956.
The Duluth parade and ceremonies honoring Woolson on Memorial Day 1953 were reported in the Duluth News-Tribune, May 31, 1953, and the Stars and Stripes Europe, May 31, 1953.
Woolson’s hospitalization for bronchitis was noted in Stars and Stripes Europe, Dec. 6, 1953. Doctor C. H. Christensen’s memories of Woolson in the hospital were shared by his son, Anders Christensen, in a Feb. 28, 2011, online comment (http://attic.areavoices.com/2011/02/28/last-union-civil-war-vet-dies-in-duluth-1956/).
Woolson’s 107th birthday celebration was reported in Stars and Stripes Europe, Feb. 13, 1954.
The Woolson family’s decision to taper off his public activities for Memorial Day 1954 was reported in Stars and Stripes Europe, May 30, 1954.
Woolson’s determination to “be around” for several more birthdays was cited in Stars and Stripes Pacific, June 12, 1954.
The Duluth News-Tribune reported about the new Woolson bust on Aug. 9 and 10, 1954; Stars and Stripes Europe carried a news item on Aug. 16, 1954. The Woolson interview with reporters and the visit by Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant III was reported in the Duluth News-Tribune, Aug. 10, 1954. The News-Tribune also covered the installation of the bust at the city hall on Feb. 12, 1955.
Stars and Stripes Europe covered Woolson’s 108th birthday on Feb. 12, 1955. The Eisenhower and MacArthur letters are housed among records at the Gettysburg National Military Park.
Woolson posing for sculptor Avar Fairbanks was featured in the Daily Utah Chronicle, Feb. 17, 1955.
Woolson’s hospitalizations for lung congestion were noted in Stars and Stripes Europe, Feb. 28 and Apr. 20, 1955.
Woolson’s Memorial Day 1955 message to remaining Confederate veterans was reported in Stars and Stripes Europe, Apr. 28, 1955.
The family’s decision to sit out the Memorial Day 1955 activities, and instead to take a lake trip, was reported in Stars and Stripes Europe, May 30, 1955.
The June 1955 hospitalization was reported by Stars and Stripes Europe, June 1, 1955.
Woolson’s birthday greeting to Walter Williams in Texas was covered by Stars and Stripes, Nov. 9, 1955.
Williams’s Feb. 1956 birthday greeting to Woolson, the letter from Charles Edison, and the greetings from President and Mrs. Eisenhower are all housed among the records at the Gettysburg National Military Park. The park also has copies of greetings from Secretary of the Army Wilber M. Brucker and former Minnesota Gov. Harold E. Stassen.
Woolson’s next hospitalization was reported by the Duluth News-Tribune, Mar. 17, 1956, and Stars and Stripes Europe, Mar. 17, 1956.
Tim Johnson’s remembrance of meeting Woolson was shared in an online comment on Mar. 19, 2011 (http://attic.areavoices.com/2011/02/28/last-union-civil-warvet-dies-in-duluth-1956/).
Woolson’s final hospitalization, struggle for life, and his death were reported by Stars and Stripes Europe, July 31 and Aug. 1, 1956; Stars and Stripes, Aug. 3, 1956; the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Aug. 2 and 3, 1956; the Minneapolis Morning Tribune, Aug. 3, 1956; the Duluth News-Tribune, Aug 3, 1956; the Sheboygan Press, Aug. 3, 1956; and the New York Times, Aug. 3, 1956. A separate tribute to Woolson appeared in the Washington Post, Aug. 3, 1956.
His funeral was reported in the Duluth News-Tribune, Aug. 5 and 7, 1956; the Minneapolis Morning Tribune, Aug. 7, 1956; the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Aug. 4, 1956; the Daily Oklahoman, Aug. 7, 1956; Stars and Stripes, Aug. 7, 1956; and Stars and Stripes Pacific, Aug. 8 and 12, 1956.
The federal court’s order officially closing the Grand Army of the Republic was reported by Stars and Stripes Europe, Oct. 19, 1956.
Dedication of the Woolson statue at Gettysburg was reported in Stars and Stripes Europe, Sept. 3 and 14, 1956.
Bruce Catton’s elegy appeared in Life magazine, Aug. 20, 1956.
Reactions to Woolson’s death from the three living Confederates, including Walter Williams, were recorded in Stars and Stripes Pacific, Aug. 4, 1956.
Louis Baker’s claim as the last veteran in blue appeared in the Oklahoma City Times, Aug. 3, 1956, and Stars and Stripes, Aug. 7, 1956.
The Daily Oklahoman of Sept. 24, 1945, and Sept. 19, 1948, described him loafing and whiling away his days on the downtown stoop in Guthrie, Okla.
The Daily Oklahoman, Sept. 4, 1949, reported his disinterest in Grand Army of the Republic activities.
The Haskin Service Report was composed in Washington, D.C., for the Daily Oklahoman and is dated Nov. 8, 1956; it was made available from the newspaper’s files.
Baker’s obituary, noting his claim to be the last Union army soldier, ran in the Daily Oklahoman on Jan. 19, 1957.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy magazine, Apr. 1952, published a profile of William Lundy.
Photographer Bruce Roberts, who took pictures of Lundy in 1954, was interviewed by the author, Sept. 21, 2010.
Lundy’s deer hunting trip was reported by Stars and Stripes, Nov. 22 and 24, 1954. Sports Illustrated mentioned him in its “Pat on the Back” column on Dec. 13, 1954.
The Boston Traveler, Jan. 18, 1955, reported Lundy’s television appearance on his 107th birthday, as well as his comments that he was “always sorry” he did not shoot a Yankee. This clipping can be found in the McCain Library and Archives, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg.
Stars and Stripes Europe, May 31, 1955, told how Lundy was awarded an honorary diploma, along with his nieces.
William Lindsey McDonald, Civil War Tales of the Tennessee Valley (Killen, Ala.: Heart of Dixie, 2003) includes the interview Lundy granted, on the condition that he could hold the author’s two small daughters.
Stars and Stripes, Oct. 8, 1956, and the United Daughters of the Confederacy magazine, Jan. 1957, each reported that Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Nathan F. Twining awarded Lundy a special gold medal.
Stars and Stripes, Jan. 20 and 23, 1957, recorded Lundy’s 109th birthday.
Lundy’s gallbladder problems, surgery, and recuperation were reported by Stars and Stripes, Mar. 3, 6, and 9 and Apr. 1 and 16, 1957.
Stars and Stripes, July 4, 1957, reported that the military had named Lundy an honorary plane spotter.
Progressive Farmer magazine carried Lundy on its Aug. 1957 cover, with a profile featured inside.
The Houston Post, Sept. 2, 1957, reported that Lundy had died, as did the Chicago Tribune, Sept. 2, 1957; the Reno (Nev.) Evening Gazette, Sept. 2, 1957; and Stars and Stripes, Sept. 3, 1957.
Lundy’s Confederate pension file records are maintained by the Florida State Library and Archives, Tallahassee.
His funeral was covered by the Tampa Morning Tribune, Sep. 5, 1957, and Stars and Stripes, Sept. 6, 1957.
John Salling was often interviewed and featured in profiles, and he rarely passed up the opportunity to impart his mountain-home wisdom. The more notable articles include the Cincinnati Enquirer, Nov. 8, 1958; the Washington Post, May 15, 1955; the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, May 15, 1955; and Stars and Stripes Pacific, Oct. 9, 1956, and Nov. 11, 1958.
Salling’s appearance at the Confederate reunion in Norfolk, Va., was covered by the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, May 31 and June 1 and 2, 1951.
Pension application and other related records for John Salling, James Salling, Lydia Salling, and Elisa Salling are all maintained by the Library of Virginia, Richmond.
The George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida Digital Collections, Gainesville, houses a transcript of M. J. Hansinger’s Jan. 30, 1959, interview with Salling in Slant, Virginia.
A good primer on the role of saltpeter miners during the Civil War can be found in the Nov. 2001 issue of Virginia Minerals magazine, published by Virginia’s Division of Geology, Charlottesville. It notes that “the identity of the last surviving Confederate veteran is a hotly disputed topic.”
The Washington Post article quoting Salling on war was published Mar. 11, 1951.
The Richmond (Va.) News Leader, Apr. 4, 1951, included Salling’s story about the visit from federal revenue agents, his daughter Nancy Thompson’s comments about how he acted after taking a “spoonful of likker,” and his trip to the veterans’ hospital in Johnson City, Tenn.
Salling’s airplane stop in Richmond appears in the Richmond News Leader, July 17, 1953.
His trip to Washington, D.C., was covered by the Kingsport (Tenn.) Times News, July 19, 1953.
Salling’s soldier bonus was recorded by the Richmond Times Dispatch, Apr. 1, 1954.
His cold and pneumonia, and his joke about an eighty-two-year-old woman, come from Stars and Stripes Europe, Feb. 27, 1956.
Salling’s 110th birthday was reported by the Richmond News Leader, May 12 and 15, 1956; the Washington Post, May 13 and 16, 1956; the Kingsport News, May 16, 1956; the Independent Press-Telegram of Long Beach, Calif., May 13, 1956; and Stars and Stripes, May 15, 1956. The gifts he received were noted by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Nov. 2, 1956, and the Washington Post, Nov. 2, 1956.
When he turned 111, his birthday was reported in the Richmond News Leader, May 15, 1957; the Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 16, 1957; the Kingsport News, May 16, 1957; and Stars and Stripes, May 19, 1957.
His 112th birthday brought the proclamation from the Civil War Centennial Commission; it can be found among the commission’s records housed by the National Archives in Washington, D.C. The records also include the press release and speeches given by the commission in his honor. Salling’s birthday celebrations were reported by the Washington Post, May 9, 1958; Stars and Stripes, May 13 and 17, 1958; and the New York Times, May 16, 1958.
When Salling died, his passing was reported by the Richmond News Leader, Mar. 16, 1959; the New York Times, Mar. 17, 1959; the United Daughters of the Confederacy magazine, Apr. 1959; the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Mar. 17, 1959; the Washington Post, Mar. 17, 1959; the Washington Daily News, Mar. 16, 1959; Stars and Stripes, Mar. 17, 1959; and the Knoxville (Tenn.) Journal, Mar. 17, 1959.
His funeral was covered by the Richmond News Leader, Mar. 18, 1959; Stars and Stripes, Mar. 21, 1959; the Kingsport News, Mar. 17, 1959; and the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Mar. 18, 1959.
The funeral wreath sent by Walter Williams was reported by the Associated Press on Mar. 17, 1959, as was Williams’s statement upon learning of Salling’s death: “Am I the last one? Well, I always wanted to stay here until they were all gone, to see what happened.”
Walter Williams’s reaction to the death of William Lundy was reported in the Los Angeles Times, Nov. 15, 1957. Dr. Russell Wolfe’s statement that “anything can happen” to Williams was reported in the same article.
Williams’s ride in the 1957 Veterans Day parade was reported by the Austin (Tex.) American, Nov. 12, 1957. His 115th birthday celebrations were recorded by the Los Angeles Times, Nov. 15, 1957; the Dallas Morning News, Nov. 14, 1957; and the Austin American, Nov. 15, 1957.
The correspondence between Cooper Ragan, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant III, Edmund Cass, Willie Mae Bowles, and Dr. Russell Wolfe is housed in the Civil War Centennial Commission files at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Also there are documents related to the Apr. 1958 tribute the commission awarded Williams, including statements from President Eisenhower and Representative Schwengel’s remarks at the home in Houston. The poem is from “Paul Revere’s Ride,” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The event was covered by the Houston Post, Apr. 24 and 27, 1958, and the Houston Chronicle, Apr. 27, 1958.
News of extra pension assistance for Williams was reported in the Dallas Morning News, June 16, 1957, and the Austin American, June 16 and 19, 1957.
Walter Williams’s 116th birthday was covered by Stars and Stripes, Nov. 16, 1958.
The Life magazine feature on Walter Williams ran in the May 11, 1959, issue.
Stars and Stripes reported on June 12, 1959, that Williams had been promoted by the Confederate High Command.
Williams’s stroke was covered by the Chicago Tribune and Stars and Stripes, both on June 21, 1959, and again by Stars and Stripes on June 24, 1959.
The New York Times, Aug. 12, 1960, quoted Willie Mae Bowles as saying her father’s condition was “just up to the Lord, now.”
The correspondence between Bill Elliott, Thomas Stephens, Andrew Goodpaster, and Maj. Alfred Kitts is stored at the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Abilene, Kans.
The Dallas Morning News, June 21 and 22, 1959, reported that Williams’s health was deteriorating, as did the Austin American, June 10 and 22, 1959; the Washington Daily News, Aug. 11, 1959; and the Houston Post, June 21, 1959.
The telegrams between Frank Vandiver and Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant III are part of the Civil War Centennial Commission files at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
The internal White House memo is housed at the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, as are drafts of the presidential proclamation honoring Williams and instructions for Fort Sam Houston on how to proceed upon Williams’s death.
The Lowell Bridwell story appeared in newspapers around the nation, most notably in the Post and Times-Star in Cincinnati.
The Dallas Morning News, Sept. 5, 1959, quoted Willie Mae Bowles defending her father. That same day, the newspaper published reactions from Williams’s neighbors in Franklin, Tex., about whether he truly was a Confederate veteran.
Williams’s pension application files are housed by the Texas State Archives in Austin.
Robert S. Harper, a fellow at the American Association of Historians at Princeton University, was quoted by the Columbus (Ohio) Evening Dispatch, Sept. 4, 1959. Also quoted in that article were Warfield W. Dorsey, commandant of the Mount Vernon, Ohio, Sons of Union Veterans Fife and Drum Corps, and Mrs. Marcus Crocker, past Ohio president of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The article further quoted Willie Mae Bowles defending her father, as did a piece in the Austin American, Sept. 4, 1959, and another in the Washington Post, Sept. 4, 1959.
The Austin American, Sept. 5, 1959, quoted Gov. Price Daniel, state comptroller Robert Calvert, Veterans Affairs commissioner Charles Morris, and Ethel Everitt, all defending Williams.
The Houston Post, Sept. 6, 1959, quoted Sen. James Eastland defending Williams, as well as Vick Lindley of the Bryan (Tex.) Eagle, explaining the old Hood’s Brigade roster.
Tom Crigler of the Sons of Confederate veterans was quoted in the Austin Daily Texan, Sept. 16, 1959.
Charles Morris was quoted in the Uvalde (Tex.) Leader News, Sept. 12, 1959.
Mrs. G. W. Chambers was quoted in the Austin American Statesman, Sept. 6, 1959, defending Williams.
Lester Fitzhugh was quoted in the Houston Post, Sept. 8, 1959, about a roster of Hood’s Brigade that he had uncovered.
Mrs. Fisher Osborn was quoted in the Houston Post, Sept. 11, 1959, about other brigade records.
United Press International, Sept. 5, 1959, reported Willie Mae Bowles’s comments that “my daddy is the type of person that never lied.” She also said she never told him about the controversy accusing him of dishonesty.
Stars and Stripes, Sept. 28, 1959, reported that Walter Williams had recovered from his illnesses of July and August. The paper’s feature article, “We’re Catching up with Methuselah,” ran on Sept. 24, 1959. On Nov. 13 and 15, 1959, the paper described Williams’s upcoming birthday plans.
The birthday extravaganza was reported in the Houston Post, Nov. 15 and 16, 1959; the Houston Chronicle, Dec. 13, 1959; the Dallas Morning News, Nov. 11, 1959; and Stars and Stripes, Nov. 17, 1959.
On Dec. 11, 1959, Stars and Stripes reported that Williams was in critical condition. Stars and Stripes Europe reported Dec. 12, 1959, that his doctor had predicted Williams might have only “48 hours left.”
The Chicago Tribune, Dec. 13, 1959, quoted Willie Mae Bowles saying, “I think he’s in a coma.” The Austin Daily Texan, Dec. 13, 1959, reported his condition as critical.
Stars and Stripes, Dec. 15, 1959, reported a slight gain in Williams’s health, and then on Dec. 18, 1959, that he was “losing ground again.”
News of Williams’s death appeared in the Houston Post, Dec. 20, 1959; the Austin American-Statesman, Dec. 20, 1959; the Dallas Morning News, Dec. 20, 1959; the New York Times, Dec. 20, 1959; the Gettysburg Times, Dec. 21, 1959; the Sacramento Bee, Dec. 20, 1959; and the Nevada State Journal, Dec. 20, 1959.
The comments from Stephen Jones are from an interview with the author on May 4, 2010.
Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant III’s telegrams to Frank Vandiver are contained in the Civil War Centennial Commission’s files at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
The White House correspondence, including the instructions from Colonel Schulz and President Eisenhower’s statement on the passing of Williams, are all housed in the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, Abilene, Kans.
The Time magazine story, “The Unquenchable Legend,” was published Jan. 4, 1960.
There were two Robert D. Price appreciations, both in the Austin American-Statesman. One was a tribute to all the Civil War veterans, which ran on Dec. 20, 1959; the other was a tribute to Williams, Dec. 21, 1959. A separate appreciation was published in Stars and Stripes, Dec. 21, 1959.
The Bruce Catton eulogy in Life magazine appeared on Jan. 11, 1960.
Williams’s funeral and burial were national news. Among numerous media outlets, they were covered in the Houston Post, Dec. 21, 22, and 24, 1959; the Cincinnati Enquirer, Dec. 21, 1959; Stars and Stripes, Dec. 24, 1959; and the United Daughters of the Confederacy magazine, Feb. 1960.
Texas State Senate Resolution 4 was printed in the Journal of the State of Texas, Regular Session for the Fifty-Seventh Legislature, convened Jan. 10, 1961, and adjourned May 29, 1961.
The federal pension rolls were released from the Veterans Administration on Dec. 19, 1959—the day Walter Williams died in Texas.
An overview of the South’s reaction to the centennial commemorations can be found in Robert Cook, “(Un)Furl that Banner: The Response of White Southerners to the Civil War Centennial of 1961–1965,” Journal of Southern History 68, no. 4 (Nov. 2002): 879–912. Another overview is provided in chap. 4, “The Civil War Centennial,” of Robert G. Hartje’s Bicentennial USA: Pathways to Celebration (Nashville: American Association for State and Local History, 1973). Also of great interest are the monthly reports called “100 Years After,” issued by the U.S. Civil War Centennial Commission. A complete set is housed at the National Museum of the U.S. Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. Further, as previously noted, is Cook’s book Troubled Commemoration. A complete file of the commission’s papers and documents is available at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.; examples of their holdings include the Jan. 1958 “Statement of Objectives and Suggestions for Civil War Centennial Commemorations” and the commission’s initial summary report of May 1961, titled “Centennial Observance Unfolds: Faithful to Past and Present.” Of further interest is chap. 8 in John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992).
The anecdote about Gen. Daniel Sickles can be found in Thomas Keneally, American Scoundrel: The Life of the Notorious Civil War General Dan Sickles (New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2002).
The 1884 Memorial Day address by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. is reprinted in American Speeches: Political Oratory from Abraham Lincoln to Bill Clinton (New York: Library of America, 2006).
The anecdote about Joseph “Fighting Joe” Wheeler comes from William Manchester, Controversy and Other Essays in Journalism, 1950–1975 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1976), 81.
The Kansas speech is covered in Robert S. La Forte, “Theodore Roosevelt’s Osawatomie Speech,” Kansas Historical Quarterly 32, no. 2 (Summer 1966): 187–200. It is reprinted in full in American Speeches: Political Oratory. The New York Times reported on the speech in its Aug. 31, 1910, editions.
John Clem’s retirement was announced in the New York Times, Aug. 8, 1915.
Henry Adams’s recollections of old Civil War soldiers and sailors crossing Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., can be found in his memoir, The Education of Henry Adams (1907; repr., New York: Modern Library, 1996), 325–26.
The Confederate adventures and postwar life of William Henry Lafayette Wells come from her niece, Elizabeth Teass, in a July 1998 interview with the author. A Wells profile also appeared in the Plano (Tex.) Daily Star-Courier, Apr. 20, 1979.
The New York Times, June 9, 1957, described preparations around the nation for the coming centennial observations.
The Montgomery, Ala., celebrations were reported by the Montgomery Advertiser on Jan. 8, 1961 and Feb. 3, 8, 18, and 19, 1961. The letter to the editor from William Martin was printed Feb. 3, 1961, in the Montgomery Advertiser. The W. J. Mahoney column, “As I See It,” ran in the Montgomery Advertiser on Jan. 8, 1961.
Stories of the celebrations and protests in Jackson, Miss., ran in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger on Mar. 26, 27, and 29, 1961.
News of the celebrations and protests in Charleston, S.C., were published in the Charleston News-Courier, Mar. 14, 15, and 25, 1961; the Boston Globe, Apr. 13, 1961; the New York Times, Apr. 12, 1961; the Atlanta Constitution, Apr. 12, 1961; and the State newspaper in Columbia, S.C., Apr. 12, 1961. President Kennedy’s comments about the furor over hotel accommodations were made during a press conference and are contained in his public papers at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.
Vice President Lyndon Johnson’s speech at Gettysburg is noted in Robert A. Caro, The Passage of Power (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), and Taylor Branch, Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963–65 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998).
The resignations by Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant III and Karl Betts from the Civil War Centennial Commission are covered in depth in Cook, Troubled Commemoration.
Laurence D. Reddick’s speech at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York was reported by the New York Times, Apr. 23, 1961.
Allan Nevins’s appointment to head the Civil War Centennial Commission was reported by the New York Times, Dec. 5, 1961.
Accounts of the commemorations at Bull Run, the Lincoln Memorial, and Gettysburg were included in the “100 Years After” reports by the Civil War Centennial Commission.
The May 1965 gathering at Gettysburg was described at length by the Illinois Civil War Centennial Commission in its “Final Assembly of the Civil War Centennial Commission and the State Historical Society’s Spring Tour,” housed in the national commission’s files at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
Allan Nevins’s address, “The Challenges of 1864 and 1964,” was reproduced in the Civil War Centennial Commission’s final report and can be found in the commission’s records at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
The commemoration in Fitzgerald, Ga., was reported in the “100 Years After” report for June 1965, as were highlights of the final gathering at Gettysburg. More on Fitzgerald is included in Brundage, “Commemoration and Conflict.”
William Marvel’s investigation was published as “The Great Imposters” in Blue and Gray magazine, Feb. 1991. The files at the Gettysburg National Military Park include a copy of a letter Marvel sent on Jan. 23, 1991, suggesting that the Woolson statue at the battlefield be renamed in his honor as “the last participant in that war.”
The Mark Twain quote comes from Twain’s Autobiography, vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 30.
The Huck Finn quote comes from Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (New York: Modern Library, 1993), 3.
The investigation by the Texas Civil War Centennial Commission into Williams’s authenticity is summarized in J. W. Baker, A History of Robertson County, Texas (Franklin, Tex.: Robertson County Historical Survey Committee, 1970). It is available at the Franklin, Tex., public library. The Texas Historical Marker stands at the front gate of the Mount Pleasant Cemetery, just outside Franklin. The debate over its placement is recounted in the files of the History Programs Division of the Texas Historical Commission.
Willie Mae Bowles’s grave and marker can be viewed at Memorial Oaks Cemetery, Houston.
The “Recollections of Sylvester Magee,” by Eva Velma Davis Betts of Columbia, Mississippi, are located in the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in Jackson, under her name in box 2 of her records. Among the other holdings is her article “The Oldest Story,” published in Dixie Roto Magazine, Aug. 29, 1976.
Magee also appeared in the Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger, June 6, 1965, and Oct. 16, 1971; the Los Angeles Times, June 1 and Dec. 10, 1966; the Birmingham (Ala.) News, Dec. 10, 1966; and the Toronto Globe and Mail, May 30, 1967.