Last of the Blue and Gray: Old Men, Stolen Glory, and the Mystery That Outlived the Civil War

In April 1953 a group of young veterans from World War II mailed a letter to President Eisenhower. A year earlier they had formed a small fraternity called the Florence Guards “to preserve our friendships and particularly study American history.” Now they met every third Tuesday in a small hotel clubroom in Chicago.

They wrote to the White House after discussing an “item from the passing scene” that one of them had spotted and clipped from a newspaper. “In Duluth, Minnesota, there lives an elderly gentleman of 106 years old,” they told the president. “He is the last survivor of the nation’s Northern Army of 2,675,000 in the Civil War. He lives with his daughter and son-in law, Mr. and Mrs. John Kobus, at 215 East Fifth Street. His name is Albert Woolson, and today he is the nation’s senior war veteran.”

The veterans noted that Memorial Day was approaching. “If God spares his life,” they wrote, “Albert Woolson will be the only veteran left of the cause that gave us the grand tradition of Memorial Day.” The men did not ask for anything special for Woolson, but they did hope that Eisenhower would “take steps to call the eyes of this nation to Duluth, Minnesota” during the coming holiday. In closing, they noted that “this request comes from five young men who served under your command in Europe in the last war.”

Bauer was unable to get an invitation inside the White House, so he mailed the administration a letter from his home in Ridgewood, New Jersey, stating that he “saw no reason why the sole survivor of the Grand Army of the Republic could not be commissioned in the Officers Reserve Corps.” He told White House Chief of Staff Sherman Adams that “I could have presented it more cogently orally than in writing, but I enclose a formal request to you and ask as a favor that you will take the matter up with the president.”

Woolson was more than worthy, Bauer wrote, as “there is now surviving only one of the more than two million men who answered President Lincoln’s call to defend the Union in 1861–65.” He noted that Woolson had served as a drummer boy in the Tennessee campaigns of 1864–65, and that his father had died from an injury during the war. The honor of a commemorative brevet rank for Woolson, Bauer argued, “would cost the United States nothing except the piece of paper for the commission.”

“Such actions by the president,” he added, “would, I am sure, be popular with citizens as a whole as well as with members of our organization. As Comrade Woolson was a drummer boy, the Army Band might consider it an honor if he were commissioned in their organization, though only on paper.”

Then Bauer quoted Shakespeare, stressing the need for a speedy reply: “As Macbeth says, ‘If it were done, when ’tis done, ’twere well it were done quickly,’ for Comrade Woolson passed his 106th birthday in February and from the nature of things cannot be expected to live much longer.”

Unfortunately for Woolson, the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, and the World War II veterans in Chicago, Schulz denied the request. It fell to Adams to break the bad news to Bauer. It came just a week before Memorial Day.

Adams told Bauer that, in establishing the Reserve Corps, the intention of Congress was to create a ready force of soldiers, sailors, and airmen “for the defense of the United States in case of need, and not for the purpose of honoring our heroes for past deeds.… I am sure you can understand why the Department of the Army must adhere to the policies established to govern appointment in the Reserve Corps. An exception, no matter how meritorious, would lay the department open to criticism from rejectees better qualified to be officers. To make an exception in Mr. Woolson’s case would be unfair to the many deserving individuals who have been denied such a privilege. Also, criticism would be directed toward the Department by the active reserves who take pride in belonging to a force which is established to defend the country, and who look forward to belonging to the Retired Reserve after a number of years of active participation and expenditure of time and effort to make the organization effective.”

The White House also sent a short, two-paragraph letter to the Florence Guards of World War II. The news was not pleasant for them, either. The president did not think it advisable to single out Woolson for a Memorial Day tribute. “I am very sorry that the decision in this matter has taken so long, and that it must be negative,” the Chicago men were told five days before the holiday. “I am sure, however, that you will understand that were we to honor Mr. Woolson, it should likewise be done for the few surviving veterans of the Confederate Army. The president asked me to express to each of you his regrets.”

Two years later, three southern congressmen pushed for legislation granting free medical care for the last Confederate veterans, much like Woolson enjoyed as a U.S. Army veteran. Congress also authorized new gold medals for veterans in blue or gray. The Civil War Centennial Commission would soon be under way.

In Duluth, Woolson began that Memorial Day 1953 much as he did every morning. He dressed in shirt, tie, and vest and carefully climbed down the stairs. After his eggs and bacon, he awaited the morning mail. Outside the air was still brisk and chilly, even at the end of May, and he snuggled into a woolen greatcoat and his GAR hat before stepping outside. With cane in hand he greeted students from the neighborhood Nettleton Elementary School. They cheered and waved tiny American flags; Woolson snapped his heels under a larger American flag flying over his front lawn and saluted the youngsters.

The day would not warm up much. Overcast skies and biting winds whipped the city. But Woolson ventured out nevertheless. Today he was the honorary grand marshal in the city’s Memorial Day parade. He opened the program by laying a wreath at the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. Inside the local armory, he accepted tributes from the Lions Club, the American Legion, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Shouting so all could hear him above the racket of the armory’s furnace, Woolson bellowed, “My heart goes out to all you people who gave sons in past wars. God bless you all.”

Ben P. Constantine, judge of the probate court, addressed the gathering next. He spoke of the coming Civil War Centennial and the current Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. “Today,” he told them, “nearly 100 years later, our nation is threatened both from without and within. We still find bullets, not ballots, are being called on by some to decide issues.”

Woolson went home to his daily regimen. In December he briefly was taken to a Duluth hospital, struggling against bronchitis and pneumonia. Nurses reported him as in “fairly good condition.” Dr. C. H. Christensen could hear him in his room, his voice carrying out into the hall because he was hard of hearing. “If I ever marry again, it will be just for companionship,” Woolson joked, his spirits still high.

Soon he was home again, formally attired in his old GAR uniform to entertain the neighbor kids by tapping on his drums on his front porch. When he turned 107 in February 1954, a team of two mailmen could not manage all the cards and greetings to his front door, so the Post Office dispatched a truck to East Fifth Street to deliver the bundles. One of them was a birthday wish from President Eisenhower.

“Don’t count me out yet,” Woolson said with a sparkle and a grin. “I’m going to be around for at least three or four more of these nice birthdays.” For his visitors the drummer boy of 1864 tapped out a roll on his snare. He recited parts of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and he kissed some of the women who came by to wish him a happy birthday. “I’m feeling all right,” he assured everyone.

Three months later, on Memorial Day 1954, more friends, neighbors, and local officials called or visited. His daughter Mrs. Kobus complained that their house had been turned into “Grand Central Station.” Woolson wanted to join in the holiday events around town, but she urged him to stay home. Finally she let him ride in one of the parade cars, but there she drew the line. “For the first time we’re turning thumbs down on several things he’s done for years,” she said. “Things like giving speeches, taking part in school programs and cemetery services, and going to special church services.”

But he could not escape the press of the crowds. In August the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War honored his war service, and Woolson sent them his thanks. “As the last survivor of the Union Army, I have seen these United States grow into the greatest nation in the history of man,” he told them. “Our sacrifices were not in vain.”

The Sons displayed a new bust of the old man at a ceremony at the Hotel Duluth. The governor and the mayor were on hand in the hotel ballroom, and a chorus of nurses from St. Luke’s Hospital entertained the 600 guests. Prominent among them was Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant III.

Woolson dressed smartly in his double-breasted GAR jacket and cap. Holding firmly onto his cane, he stood between the mayor and the major general and watched as his young granddaughter Frances Ann unveiled the bust that soon would be on permanent exhibit at the city hall. The GAR motto was etched into its base, words first heard during the Gettysburg campaign: “To the Last Man.”

“It’s a good likeness,” Woolson said. He thanked the sculptor, Avard Fairbanks of Salt Lake City, whose works had included Abraham Lincoln and four sculptures in the Capitol building in Washington. “We are all here for a grand purpose,” Woolson said. “Thank you for this splendid assembly.”

Gov. C. Elmer Anderson proclaimed that Minnesota was “proud of Albert Woolson, one of the few men who remembers that terrible struggle” of almost a century ago. “In fighting to preserve this nation, the men of the Union forces made one of the greatest contributions in the history of this country, as well in the history of western civilization.”

Major General Grant read greetings from Vice President Richard Nixon. Gen. Douglas MacArthur wired that the “tradition that Woolson represents is perhaps the finest in the history of the republic.” (Woolson had sent MacArthur a birthday greeting a month earlier, in January, and MacArthur, in thanking the Yankee veteran, twice misspelled his name as “Wootson.”)

Woolson did not hear the speeches or tributes. By this time he was almost completely deaf. Even at his home that morning, his daughter had to write a note in large block letters telling him that Major General Grant was at the door to pay a short visit. Woolson read the note and then looked up sharply. His eyes beamed.

“I’ve always had nothing but the greatest of admiration for your grandfather,” he blurted out. “General Grant was my man. I loved and respected him.” His voice boomed loudly across the parlor. The first General Grant, he said, was “one of the greatest military men that ever lived.”

The Civil War general’s grandson looked down and smiled at the old man who strained to hear him. Before he left, he scribbled a note telling Woolson that he had brought him a box of cigars.

Next to arrive were reporters, and Woolson leaned back in his chair. Despite his deafness and his failing eyesight, despite how difficult it was to climb out of bed and down the stairs each morning, to read the morning papers and the mail, despite the exhaustion of honors and parades and the chill off Lake Superior, he aimed to show them his mind was still as sharp as ever, and his constitution too.

He could not hear their questions but assumed they wanted his take on world affairs in these dark days of the Cold War. What would an old man from a distant war think of today’s problems? He gathered up his strength and gave them the best he had.

“Old Uncle Sam needs to be cool and calculating these days,” he said. “You have got to work your way carefully in world affairs. I think our President Eisenhower is doing that right now. He’s a cautious man going very carefully.… I don’t think there’s any danger of war at the present time. We are too well equipped. I don’t think the Russians will venture into a war now. I think the Russian masses would be opposed to it.”

Force, he said, “is wicked. If we want to keep peace, the best way we can do it is to be strong.” He meant “tough,” as in what he had seen in his war. “All of our young men should learn strict military discipline and to obey orders. They should learn to work together in unison. A brief period of military training is good for the boy.”

The old soldier was 108, and the years were showing on his brittle frame. He mostly shunned the crowds now. He could no longer shovel the sidewalk. Instead he spent many an afternoon on the front porch. “Checking the weather,” he said, bundled up against the cold. For a while he alternated between cigars and a pipe. He watched television a bit but could only guess at what the actors and newsmen might be saying. He no longer had any words of wisdom for a modern world. “I’m no authority,” he said.

But he did venture to city hall and the rotunda for the installation of the new Woolson bust. He offered only a few words in thanks, spoken slowly to the 300 gathered around his chair up front. “I hope my career has been an example for the younger generation,” he said.

For several days he posed at home for Fairbanks the sculptor, busy at work on the Gettysburg statue. Sometimes Woolson spoke to the artist, often in a loud voice, about Lincoln and Grant and the grand old days when the Union won the war. Sometimes he asked questions, and the artist jotted down answers with his heavy grease pencil on a large tablet. Other times Woolson just sang to himself, often the sentimental 1840s ballad “Ben Bolt.”

Grass grows on the master’s grave, Ben Bolt,

The spring of the brook is dry,

And of all the boys who were schoolmates then

There are only you and I.

Two weeks after his birthday, he was hospitalized with lung congestion. Doctors frowned that he still smoked eight cigars and enjoyed his half ounce of brandy each day, and believed this new flare-up was similar to his earlier attack of bronchitis. But Woolson rallied, and they sent him home within two weeks.

But Woolson was not completely housebound. On Saturdays he rose early with his family and rode out to a lake cottage an hour away. His appetite remained strong, his attitude stronger. The area schools sent large bouquets of flowers, and he delighted in their beauty. All in all, reported his daughter, “he’s feeling very good.”

In June he was back at St. Luke’s. He was placed under an oxygen tent to ease the congestion, and eventually he came home again and returned to his cigars.

Woolson sent a birthday greeting in November to the Confederate veteran in Texas—Walter Williams. “Happy birthday and a good year to come!” he wished him. In February 1956, Williams returned the favor with a telegram to Woolson in Duluth. “Happy birthday greetings from Colonel Walter Williams, now 113.”

More cards and letters bombarded the Woolson household. Charles Edison, son of Thomas Alva Edison, told Woolson that his father was also born on February 11, 1847, and that while Woolson was playing the marching drum the future inventor, “as a young telegraph operator … helped to relay the reports of battle.” The First Lady sent birthday wishes from the White House. “May enduring peace and abiding happiness be yours in abundance,” wrote Mamie Eisenhower. Her husband added his greetings: “I am delighted to join once again in saluting you.”

Albert Henry Woolson was now 109 years old and declining. In early March the doctors put him back in St. Luke’s Hospital. Sen. Estes Kefauver, a Tennessee Democrat running for president, stopped to visit. Maybe that cheered Woolson up or helped him rally, because after two weeks under oxygen tents he was discharged and driven home. His first evening back he fired up several cigars and cleaned his plate at dinner.

In mid-July Woolson was returned to St. Luke’s and the oxygen tents. They gave him air through a nasal tube and fed him intravenously. For days and nights he struggled with congestion, and yet, between his horrendous coughing spells and gasps for breath, he soldiered on. Lying in his hospital bed, he recited from memory poems and other bits of verse from the Civil War, plus snatches of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Each morning he requested the same breakfast. “We just couldn’t seem to get the bacon crisp enough for him,” reported his nurse, Myrtle Solberg. “But he was always polite, modest, clean, and cooperative. When he rumpled his bed a bit he always said he was sorry that we had to fix it up for him.” For lunch they brought him vegetable soup. “I always saw that there was a bowl of broth on his tray,” Solberg said. His preferred dinner was corned beef and cabbage.

And he always asked for cigars. “The doctor didn’t want him to smoke because of his lung congestion,” Solberg said. “But there wasn’t much anyone could do about it. Mr. Woolson wanted his cigars, so we lit them for him.” Mostly she remembered her patient as a gentleman. “Whenever he wanted something, it was ‘please,’ and whenever anyone did anything for him, it was always ‘thank you.’ ”

Then on a Saturday he lapsed into a coma, and doctors downgraded his condition to critical. Yet even then as he lay unconscious in bed, the hospital staff detected a “strong, indomitable will to live.” Dr. Charles Bagley marveled that Woolson already had defeated death several times, had long ago beaten the odds against a long life, and had always pulled through. Where the source of his inner strength lay, the doctor could not say. So they just watched, the doctor and the Woolson family, as the days wore on and he lay silent in his sleep. Dr. Bagley warned the family on August 1 that death was imminent. “There’s nothing to be optimistic about,” replied his daughter, Mrs. Kobus. “We’re resigned that he won’t recover.… It’s just a matter of time.”

“The American people have lost the last personal link with the Union Army,” President Eisenhower said in a statement. “His passing brings sorrow to the hearts of all of us who cherish the memory of the brave men on both sides of the War Between the States.”

Gen. Maxwell Taylor, the Army’s chief of staff, said that Woolson’s passing saddened the ranks of the military, having lost someone so “distinguished as a volunteer and respected as a soldier.” Congressman John A. Blatnik of Duluth remarked, “He was our number one citizen, the last of his army and an era.” In upstate New York, Major General Grant said the death “marks the end of a great epic in our history. May he rest in peace and rejoin the happy comradeship of the boys in blue who preceded him.”

Flags were lowered in Duluth and around the country. One hundred and nine Army guardsmen, one to represent each of Woolson’s 109 years, marched alongside his cortege. His eight surviving children, twelve grandchildren, fifteen great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren mourned as his body lay in state, dressed in Yankee blue. Secretary of the Army Wilber M. Brucker headed a delegation that flew in from Washington, and he presented Mrs. Kobus with the flag from atop her father’s bronze coffin. “This is no ordinary flag, nor ordinary day,” he told her. “This is the last flag that shrouded the remains of the last veteran of the Union army.”

Twenty-five hundred people attended the funeral at the Duluth Armory, the site of so many of Woolson’s past honors and tributes. A military cordon lined the entryway; an army band performed as six army sergeants carried him inside. The Carillon Chorus Club of Duluth sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” the song that, even in his old age, Woolson could recite by heart.

The Sons of Union Veterans placed a wreath and a single rose, plus a miniature American flag, on top of the casket. Six military pallbearers hoisted their comrade up and into the hearse. The funeral proceeded down Superior Street, and then the four miles to Park Hill Cemetery. Children and grandparents, young and old, filled the lawns and sidewalks, some with cameras, some with flags, many in tears. Boy Scouts held toy rifles; some of them saluted. An Indiana fife and drum corps played slowly.

At the cemetery, three volleys of rifle fire crackled in the air. An Army bugler from Texas played “Taps” as ten F-94 Starfire jets roared above in a cross formation. Then they lowered Albert Woolson into the earth. One of the last to leave the gravesite was a teenage drummer.

In Washington that fall, U.S. District Court Judge Burnita S. Matthews, born in Mississippi as the niece of two Confederate soldiers, declared the Grand Army of the Republic officially no more; the last of their members was gone. The few GAR furnishings that remained—two flags and a box of badges—were donated to the Smithsonian Institution.

In Gettysburg the Woolson statue was formally dedicated that September. It shows the old warrior holding his cane, his hat by his side, sitting on a tree stump and surveying the battlefield. Speaking at the ceremonies was Frederic Bauer, national counselor for the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, who three years earlier had failed to persuade the White House to honor the old man with a Memorial Day tribute. Bauer noted that the statue’s front base did not bear Woolson’s name because he had not fought at Gettysburg (that battle raged the year before Woolson had enlisted). Rather it said, simply, “In Memory of the Grand Army of the Republic.”

Long ago in his youth, Woolson had hurried off to war to seize his “share of the glory,” as he himself once remembered. But in his failing years, the old Yankee came to see his experience in a remarkably different light. Like the nation itself, he had grown and matured; he had learned to set aside his harsh feelings and to reject the old hates. “We were fighting our brothers,” he once said in lament. “In that there was no glory.”

Now his Southern brethren, the three Confederate veterans still living, wondered who among them would be next and who would be last.

William Lundy, 108, limped around his Florida farm with a wooden sawhorse for support. He claimed he had served in an Alabama Home Guard. “I regret very much the passing of Mr. Woolson,” he said.

At 110, John Salling of the Virginia Appalachians continued to delight visitors with his booming baritone, his kaleidoscope of Confederate medals, and a fancy new Army blouse. His family at first did not tell him about the death in Duluth, worried that he might be too “greatly disturbed.” But eventually a friend gave him the news. “Albert has gone to his rest,” said “General” Salling. “I hope someday to meet him across the great river.”

Down in Texas, Walter Williams was 113. “I am right sorry to hear about it,” he said. “But this just goes to prove what I said before: the South is going to outlive the North.”

LAST IN BLUE