Last Surviving Veteran?

[MRB1863]

Reported to be the last surviving Union Civil War Veteran:
One of the most fascinating monuments on the Gettysburg battlefield is one of the last most visitors pass. Just beyond the Brian Farm on North Hancock Avenue is the bronze likeness of an elderly man. He rests on a stone bench, a wooden staff in his right hand, a crumpled hat to his left, as he looks out over the field where Longstreet's Assault met its fate on July 3rd, 1863.

Albert Woolson, Grand Army of the Republic Memorial. NPS

For more, visit: npsgnmp.wordpress.com/2012/10/19/the-last-veteran/

 

[E_just_E]

From that link:

Albert enlisted as a drummer with the 1st Minnesota Heavy Artillery in October of 1864, served for just under one year, and ended the war having never seen combat. Woolson died on August 2, 1956, at about 106 years of age, having outlasted the more than 2 million comrades who had served with him during the war.

Hard to beat that. I wonder who was the last surviving combatant from either side, since Albert Woolson never saw combat.

 

[MRB1863]

From that link:

Albert enlisted as a drummer with the 1st Minnesota Heavy Artillery in October of 1864, served for just under one year, and ended the war having never seen combat. Woolson died on August 2, 1956, at about 106 years of age, having outlasted the more than 2 million comrades who had served with him during the war.

Hard to beat that. I wonder who was the last surviving combatant from either side, since Albert Woolson never saw combat.

The reported last surviving Union soldier to see combat was James Hard (1843–1953)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
James Albert Hard (July 15, 1843 – March 12, 1953) was the last verified combat veteran of the Civil War and the second-to-last verified veteran overall; only drummer-boy Albert Woolson post-deceased him. Though he claimed to have been born in 1841,[1] research in 2006 found that the 1850 Census indicated a birthdate of 1843. His war service record from 1861 was also located.
He died in Rochester, New York, at the claimed age of 111.[2] Census research indicates, however, that he was probably a year or two younger and may have inflated his age to gain service. He is recorded as having joined the Union army on May 14, 1861, aged '19.' The 1850, 1910 and 1920 censuses, however, indicate that he was born in 1843, 1842, and 1842, respectively. Hard is also the current record holder for the oldest verified person born in 1843.
Hard is reported to have fought as an infantryman in the 37th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment at the battles of First Bull Run, Antietam, and Chancellorsville, and to have met Abraham Lincoln at a White House reception.[3][4]

 

[TinCan]

No disrespect to Mr. Woolson, but he was a 14 year old drummer boy in an artillery company that never saw a day of action. My vote goes to another Union Army veteran, James Albert Hard.

 

[southern blue]

I thought Woolson was the last survivor of the Grand Army of the Republic, not necessarily the last surviving veteran ...?????

 

[MRB1863]

I thought Woolson was the last survivor of the Grand Army of the Republic, not necessarily the last surviving veteran ...?????

He was a member of the G.A.R. and became senior vice commander in chief in 1953.

 

[ErnieMac]

Hard's obituary Binghamton Press - March 13, 1953.
http://www.nycivilwar.us/jahard.html

Find A Grave
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=12689

 

[Al Murray]

Great stuff! Thanks for posting this thread.

 

[Just Jim]

For many years it was believed that Confederate Walter Williams, who died in 1959, was the last C.W. Veteran to die. Census records later pretty much disproved his claim. Woolson died the day before I was born.

 

[MRB1863]

Anyone remember the tabloids of the late 50's & early sixties? Remember some headlines like..."oldest living Civil War has 118th birthday". Don't know how many, but in hindsight speculate these were bunk.

Here is Mr. Woolson's obituary:
from The New York Times, August 2, 1956:

• • 
    Last Union Army Veteran Dies;
    Drummer at 17, He Lived to 109
    
    Albert Woolson of Duluth
    Also Was Sole Survivor of
    Grand Army of Republic
    
    DULUTH, Minn., Aug. 2---Al-
    bert Woolson, the last member
    of the Civil War's Union Army,
    died today at the age of 109.
    Mr. Woolson, who answered
    President Lincoln's call to arms
    and marched off to war as a
    drummer boy when he was 17,
    had been hospitalized for nine
    weeks with a recurring lung con-
    gestion condition. He lapsed into
    a coma early Saturday and did
    not regain consciousness. Since
    then, he had been fed intrave-
    nously and received oxygen
    through a nasal tube.
    Members of his family were at
    his bedside when he died in St.
    Luke's Hospital.
    Full-scale military funeral
    services will be conducted at the
    National Guard Armory here
    Monday at 2 P.M. Burial will be
    in the family lot at Park Hill
    Cemetery here.
    Only three veterans of the
    Civil War, all members of the
    Confederate forces, survive. They
    are Walter W. Williams, 113, of
    Franklin, Tex.; John Salling,
    110, of Slant, Va.; and William
    A. Lundy, 108, of Laurel Hill,
    Fla. Informed of Mr. Woolson's
    death, Mr. Lundy said "I regret
    very much the passing of Mr.
    Woolson."
    Mr. Woolson's last comrade of
    the Union Army, James A. Hard
    of Rochester, N.Y., died in 1953
    at the age of 111.
    In Washington, President Eis-
    enhower said today the death of
    Mr. Woolson "brings sorrow to
    the hearts" of Americans. The
    President said:
    "The American people have
    lost the last personal link with
    the Union Army.
    "His passing brings sorrow to
    the hearts of all of us who cher-
    ished the memory of the brave
    men on both sides of the War
    Between the States."
    With Mr. Woolson's death, only
    the Confederate veterans will get
    a medal being prepared for the
    last survivors of the Civil War
    unless the law is changed or
    broadly interpreted. Last month
    Congress passed a law directing
    the Secretary of the Treasury to
    prepare gold medals with suit-
    able inscriptions honoring the re-
    maining veterans of the North
    and South.
    Representative John A. Blatnik,
    Democrat of Minnesota, pushed
    for a quick award of the decora-
    tion to Mr. Woolson when the
    old soldier became critically ill.
    But Mr. Blatnik's office said to-
    day the Treasury would be un-
    able to get the medal finished
    before Oct. 1. There is no definite
    provision in the law for a post-
    humous award.
    Mr. Woolson married Sarah
    Jane Sloper in 1868. She died
    in 1901. Three years later he
    married Anna Haugen, who died
    in 1948. Survivors include six
    daughters, Mrs. John Kobus,
    Mrs. Arthur Johnson and Mrs.
    Robert Campbell, all of Duluth;
    Mrs. Adelaid Wellcome, Mrs. F.
    W. Rye and Mrs. J.C. Barrett,
    all of Seattle, and two sons,
    Dr. A.H. Woolson of Spokane,
    Wash., and R.C. Woolson of
    Dayton, Wash.
    The Kobus family had lived
    with Mr. Woolson for several
    years. Mrs. Kobus said late to-
    day that instead of floral me-
    morials the family preferred con-
    tributions to the Albert Woolson
    Scholarship Fund at the Duluth
    Branch of the University of Min-
    nesota.
    ------------
    Outlasted 2,200,000
    Mr. Woolson was the sole offi-
    cially listed survivor of the
    more than 2,200,000 men of the
    Union armed forces. He also was
    the last survivor of the Grand
    Army of the Republic, an organi-
    zation of Union veterans that
    exerted wide influence in Amer-
    ican politics for many years
    after the Civil War.
    Mr. Woolson's great age car-
    ried him into what was virtually
    another world of warfare as well
    as of politics. As a boy, he could
    have spoken with venerable men
    who had fought in the Revolu-
    tionary War. Veterans of the
    War of 1812 were numerous in
    his youth. When the war in
    which he served began in 1861,
    the commanding general of the
    Army was Winfield Scott, a
    hero of the War of 1812.
    The War with Mexico started
    in 1846, the year before Mr.
    Woolson was born. Last year,
    when he was 108, several de-
    pendents of veterans of that con-
    flict still were receiving Govern-
    ment benefits.
    This year, Mr. Woolson could
    include himself among the more
    than 19,000,000 living persons
    who had served in the United
    States armed forces. Of these,
    as of May 2, 2,715.896 were
    receiving cash compensation or
    pension payments from the Gov-
    ernment. This included some but
    not all of the 826,657 former
    members of the armed forces
    receiving education benefits.
    Mr. Woolson, who had been
    a bugler-drummer rather than a
    rifleman, might have been ex-
    cused if, in his later years, he
    had only a passing interest in
    the progress made in the art of
    war between the period of his
    Civil War service and the middle
    of the twentieth century. In 1865
    the most expert rifleman could
    kill no more than two or
    three persons in a minute. In
    1945, when Mr. Woolson was in
    his noneties, an estimated total
    of 100,000 persons were killed
    by atomic bombs.
    
    Civil War Still a Live Topic
    
    In 1956, ninety-one years after
    Appomattox, popular interest in
    the war in which Mr. Woolson
    had fought showed few signs of
    diminishing. Biographical studies
    of Civil War figures from Lin-
    coln down to generals such as
    "Fighting Joe" Hooker were in
    bookstores, and a dramatic read-
    ing of Stephen Vincent Benet's
    "John Brown's Body" had been
    presented successfully on Broad-
    way within a year or two.
    Mr. Woolson fought in no Civil
    War battles, although he
    drummed to their graves many
    who had. When he was 106 he
    remembered it all pretty well.
    He recalled himself as a drum-
    mer boy of 17 in a rakish blue
    forage cap in the precise line of
    drummers who beat out the res-
    onant slow step on muffled
    drums or, again, thudded the
    quick step--most likely "The
    Girl I Left Behind Me."
    "We went along with a bury-
    ing detail," he said. "Going out
    we played proper sad music, but
    coming back we kinda hit it up.
    Once a woman came onto the
    road and asked what kind of
    music that was to bury some-
    body, I told her that we had
    taken care of the dead and
    that now we were cheering up the
    living."
    Mr. Woolson was born in
    the New York farm hamlet of
    Antwerp, twenty-two miles
    northeast of Watertown, on Feb.
    11, 1847, the same day Thomas
    Alva Edison, the inventor, was
    born. James K. Polk, the dark
    horse Democrat, was in the
    White House and the issues that
    were to bring about the Civil
    War were being drawn into
    focus.
    Willard Woolson, his fath-
    er, was a carpenter in Water-
    town and apprenticed his son to
    this trade. The senior Woolson
    had, however, a second vocation.
    He was a musician in the band
    of a traveling circus. When Pres-
    ident Lincoln called for 75,000
    volunteers in 1861, the father
    and his fellow musicians enlisted
    as a body.
    
    Traced Father to Minnesota
    
    When his family did not hear
    from him for more than a year
    they traced him through Army
    records to a hospital in Minne-
    sota. The younger Woolson and
    his mother undertook the diffi-
    cult journey by Great Lakes
    boat and stage coach to Win-
    dom, where they found the fath-
    er suffering from a leg wound
    received at the battle of Shiloh.
    Shortly after the family was re-
    united his leg had to be ampu-
    tated and he died.
    Mr. Woolson and his mother re-
    mained in Windom and the boy
    went to work as a carpenter.
    But it was wartime. The sound
    of drum and bugle was in the
    air and it was agony for a spir-
    ited boy--mostly especially one in
    the drummer-bugler tradition--
    not to be in uniform.
    Minnesota's manpower was
    stretched thin to furnish its
    quota for the Union forces and
    at the same time to hold back
    the Sioux Indians, who went off
    the reservation in 1863. Mr.
    Woolson recalled the day he left
    for the Army he had seen thirty-
    eight Sioux hanged in Mankota.
    In the South, the war was
    dragging out its course. It had
    been a war of maneuver and
    field entrenchment, but by 1864
    the Confederates were beginning
    to dig in to save manpower and
    the Union needed heavy artil-
    lery. Col. William Colville or-
    ganized a Minnesota heavy ar-
    tillery regiment of 1,800 men.
    Mr. Woolson got his mother's
    consent and was accepted into
    Company C, First Minnesota
    Volunteer Heavy Artillery. His
    military service dated from Oct.
    10, 1864.
    Enlisted as a rifleman, he
    wanted to be assigned as drum-
    mer and bugler, but Company C
    already had its quota of one field
    musician.
    "I got the job by knocking
    his block off," Mr. Woolson re-
    called many years later.
    Late in 1864, the regiment
    joined the Army of the Cumber-
    land in Tennessee. It was com-
    manded by Maj. Gen. George H.
    Thomas, known to history as
    "The Rock of Chickamauga,"
    but more familiarly to his men
    as "Pap."
    
    Recalled Firing Cannon
    
    Minnesota's ponderous cannon
    and their north-country canno-
    neers waited hopefully at Fort
    Oglethorpe to be called into ac-
    tion, but the call never came.
    Mr. Woolson got to fire a
    cannon, though. It was the out-
    standing recollection of his Civil
    War service.
    The bored gunners of the First
    Minnesota Heavy Artillery pre-
    pared to fire one of their pieces
    just to hear the noise. Mr. Wool-
    son recalled it thus:
    "The colonel handed me the
    end of a rope and said: 'When I
    yell you stand on your toes, open
    your mouth wide, give a yell
    yourself and pull the rope.' I
    yanked the lanyard and the can-
    non went off and scared me half
    to death."
    The First Minnesota sat out
    the spring and early summer of
    1865 in the shadow of Lookout
    Mountain, near Chattanooga, and
    in August the regiment was or-
    dered home. Mr. Woolson re-
    ceived his discharge on Sept. 7,
    1865. He again practiced car-
    pentry.
    Veterans of both the Union and
    Confederate armies were return-
    ing to their homes or perhaps
    seeking new homes in the West.
    He was but one of thousands re-
    turning to civilian life and, in
    the case of Union veterans,
    an organization was soon formed
    that was to make the former
    wearers of the blue the most po-
    tent force in their country's pol-
    itics for the next twenty years.
    This organization was the
    Grand Army of the Republic, of
    which Mr. Woolson became the
    last member in 1953. He had
    been named senior vice com-
    mander in chief in 1950. The first
    G.A.R. post was formed at
    Decatur, Ill., in April, 1866.
    Mr. Woolson was still in his
    'teens when the G.A.R. was
    founded, and it is probable that,
    in common with most of the
    younger veterans, he did not join
    it for many years. The G.A.R.
    had a tinge of the secret society
    popular in the day. There was
    an oath and a ritual, and the or-
    ganization was ostensibly free
    from politics and dedicated to
    good works. In a few years, how-
    ever, it became one of the prin-
    cipal instruments for keeping the
    Republican party in power and
    for obtaing pensions and Gov-
    ernment job preferences for Union
    veterans.
    The G.A.R., as Mr. Woolson
    first knew it, was dominated by
    such figures as Maj. Gen. John
    A. Logan, a swarthy Illinois poli-
    tician nicknamed "Black Jack."
    A gallant and successful general
    and a thundering orator with a
    black mane, he never failed to re-
    mind his hearers that while "not
    all Democrats were rebels, all
    rebels had been Democrats."
    Mr. Woolson was a member of
    the G.A.R. in 1890, when it
    reached its peak of membership of
    408,489. Its political influence
    had declined in the Eighties, al-
    though it was a force to be
    reckoned with until the turn of
    the century.
    Mr. Woolson did not receive a
    pension until 1900. Immediately
    after the Civil War, pensions
    were limited to men who had
    suffered physical disability, but
    in time they were extended to
    all with recognized Civil War
    service with the Union forces.
    Unsuccessful attempts were
    made from time to time to ob-
    tain Federal payments for Con-
    federate veterans. In the South
    the states paid small pensions
    to their Civil War veterans.
    At his death, Mr. Woolson
    was receiving a pension of $135
    a month. He was then getting
    no other benefits, but was
    entitled to hospitalization and
    out-patient care.
    In May, records showed
    that 5,784 widows and children
    of Union veterans were receiv-
    ing pensions or payments under
    special acts of Congress.
    
    Formed Drum Corps
    
    Mr. Woolson and Robert
    Rhodes, an old friend who had
    been bandmaster of the Second
    Minnesota Volunteer Infantry,
    formed a drum and bugle corps
    in 1867. Mr. Woolson beat his old
    Civil War drum.
    "We played fine lively music,"
    he said. "Nothing sad."
    With the passing of years, the
    G.A.R.'s, as they came to be
    called, became older men and fi-
    nally old men. Their fellow coun-
    trymen seemed to recall them
    only on Memorial Day, which
    their organization had helped to
    establish. The National Encamp-
    ments of the G.A.R., lively and
    often more or less rowdy affairs
    in the early days, became quiet
    get-togethers.
    Mr. Woolson and his comrades
    wore the blue uniform coat and
    slouch hat of the G.A.R. and
    marched in the Memorial Day
    parades as long as they could.
    Finally they became very old
    men sitting quietly in the sun.
    There were other veterans of
    later wars to tell of the deeds
    they had done.
    Mr. Woolson was one of six
    Union veterans attending the
    last National Encampment of
    the G.A.R. in Indianapolis in
    August, 1949. Here these last
    survivors of the organization
    voted to disband it.
    With Mr. Woolson's death the
    Grand Army of the Republic
    passed out of existence. Its
    records will be turned over to the
    Congressional Library in Wash-
    ington, and its flags, badges and
    official seal to the Smithsonian
    Institution.
    In the Nineties, Mr. Woolson
    moved to Duluth and it was
    there that he discovered he had
    a knack for storytelling to sup-
    plement his brisk bugle and
    drum. He would drop into a near-
    by school, tell a couple of fanci-
    ful tales, give a little lecture on
    thrift and pass out a few bright,
    new pennies.
    In 1952 the children of Du-
    luth's schools turned the tables
    on him. They collected 27,652
    pennies and commissioned an oil
    portrait of Mr. Woolson that
    was hung in the City Council
    chamber.
    The aged veteran liked to say
    that he was born a Republican.
    He voted for President Lincoln
    when he was 17 under a special
    dispensation that gave the ballot
    to soldiers. He admitted he
    voted for the Democratic ticket
    once. That was for Franklin D.
    Roosevelt in his first bid for the
    Presidency. Mr. Woolson did not
    retire until 1930.
    In his later years, Mr. Wool-
    son liked to recite poetry and his
    favorite poem was "After the
    Battle, Mother." And it is un-
    likely that his school children
    friends for several generations
    let him forget that great senti-
    mental poem of the post-Civil
    War period, "The Blue and the
    Gray," by Frances Niles Finch.
    It ends:
    "Under the sod and dew,
    waiting the judgment day,
    Love and tears for the Blue,
    Tears and love for the Gray."

 

[CT_civilwar_buff]

For many years it was believed that Confederate Walter Williams, who died in 1959, was the last C.W. Veteran to die. Census records later pretty much disproved his claim. Woolson died the day before I was born.

I agree with you I'm not sure the name is right but I was watching Ken burns and it tells most veterans died in the early 50s but the last one died in 1959.

 

[Just Jim]

I agree with you I'm not sure the name is right but I was watching Ken burns and it tells most veterans died in the early 50s but the last one died in 1959.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...-to-be-over-100-or-did-they-180947577/?no-ist

 

[Patrick H]

I'm not nearly well-enough informed to know the identity of the last survivor, but some of these tough old guys lived to remarkable old ages--especially considering their living conditions during the war. Here is one of my favorites. If you visit the Confederate Historic Site and Cemetery in Higginsville, Missouri, his is one of the first graves you will see.

 

[lakertaker]

Our local news affiliate is out of Duluth, Mn and they recently had a special on Mr. Woolson. Of course, he was interviewed from time to time, and he delighted in them. The older he got, the more embellished the stories. Near the end of his life, seems as if had fought in most the major battles and knew Lincoln, Grant, Sherman and others on a personal basis.

 

[Northern Light]

Our local news affiliate is out of Duluth, Mn and they recently had a special on Mr. Woolson. Of course, he was interviewed from time to time, and he delighted in them. The older he got, the more embellished the stories. Near the end of his life, seems as if had fought in most the major battles and knew Lincoln, Grant, Sherman and others on a personal basis.

We all do that as we get older, don't we? One reason to be a bit cautious of oral history. Valuable but not necessarily accurate.