The last Confederate veteran

Although there is some doubt as to the absolute authenticity of the fact, it is claimed that Walter Williams closed out the ranks of Confederate veterans when he died in 1959. However, the records of the Southern armies were in such disorganized condition that that has not been verified. The last substantiated veteran was Pleasant Crump, who died in 1951.

I have a vague recollection of a to-do being made over the death of a Confederate soldier, and I suppose it must have been Williams, since I would have been six years old when that happened. As in all such cases, it was the end of an era, whoever the last survivor was.


Williams