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U.S. Civil War Widows

KeyserXSoze

Gone But Not Forgotten
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http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBU2PAYNVD.html
Civil War Continues to Fascinate 139 Years Later as Widow Comes Forward

By Melissa Nelson Associated Press Writer
Published: Jun 19, 2004

LEXA, Ark. (AP) - Until this month, Maudie Celia Hopkins was best known for her fried peach pies and applesauce cakes.
Then relatives disclosed that the 89-year-old woman had been married 70 years ago to a veteran of the Civil War, making her a living link to history and triggering a stream of calls from journalists, historians and old friends wanting to know more about her three-year, Depression-era marriage to William M. Cantrell.

"Americans are thirsty for information about the Civil War, they cannot get enough of it," said Terry Winschel, a historian at the Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi. "For each day since Grant and Lee met at Appomattox, there has been a new book published on the Civil War."

Southerners see Hopkins and others like her as living relics who memorialize the conflict. Her story came out after the death of another woman, believed to have been the last surviving Civil War widow, who had been taken to rallies and conventions by members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

"It easy to understand the interest. It's more than just the fascination with the Civil War. It gives a personal connection 140 years later," Winschel said.

Hopkins, now a great-grandmother, met Cantrell at the height of the Great Depression. Cantrell, widowed five years earlier, had hired her to clean his house.

Hopkins told The Associated Press she married to escape poverty. He was 86; she was 19.

"My mother and daddy had a bunch of kids and it was hard times back then. My daddy couldn't make a living for us and I didn't have no shoes," she said.

She said Cantrell supported her with his Confederate pension of " every two or three months" and left her his house when he died in 1937.

Hopkins, who outlived three other husbands and had three children with her second husband, is now three years older than Cantrell was when she married him.

"I didn't want to talk about it for a while because I didn't want people to gossip about it," she said.

Hopkins' story came out after last month's death in Alabama of Alberta Martin, who had been believed to be the last surviving widow of a Civil War soldier. Relatives took Hopkins' story to the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va., which confirmed the link through Confederate military records, Census Bureau data and Arkansas marriage and pension records.

Records show Cantrell enlisted in the Confederate Army at age 16 in Pikeville, Ky., and was captured the same year. He was later exchanged for a northern prisoner.

"He was a good, clean, respectable man," said Hopkins, who refers to her first husband as "Mr. Cantrell."

The only war stories she recalls him sharing were about the lice that infested his uniform.

Hopkins' neighbors in this town of 300 - amid soybean and cotton fields about 50 miles south of Memphis, Tenn. - said they had no idea about her history.

"She shocked me," said Robert Drennan, who runs a corner grocery and went to school with one of Hopkins' daughters. "A lot of people are interested in this."

The Civil War remains a source of fascination for Southerners in part because of the Confederacy's defeat, said University of Arkansas historian Patrick Williams.

"Southerners have the unique experience of losing a war, which makes the memories of that war a lot more emotionally fraught. Its legacy is much more immediately obvious than, say, World War I," he said.

Glenn Railsback of Pine Bluff, president of the Arkansas Society of the Military Order of the Stars and Bars, researched Hopkins' claim for the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

"The war took place mostly in the South. The war was here. The devastation was here. The Reconstruction was here and all they had was the memory of the valiant Confederate soldier," Railsback said.

Hopkins, who has an American flag outside her home, said she never thought much about the Civil War. "I always loved to hear about it, but I never heard that much about it," she said.

Instead, she has memories of World War II rationing and neighbors who were killed in that war.

While Martin was taken to Confederate remembrances as the last Confederate soldier's widow, Hopkins said she will decline any offers to travel.

"I cannot go nowhere because I cannot walk hardly anymore," she said.

Hopkins said she doesn't think about her place in history but she is enjoying the attention. She even had her hair permed before entertaining reporters and photographers at her white, wood-frame home.

She longs to make pies and cakes for her relatives again, but can't because it takes too much out of her.

"I get kind of lonely," she said.
 
There was an article in the Irish papers last month about the death of a woman who was the last widow of the American Civil War. I'm trying to recall the details now - I think it was that as a teenager (about 18 or so) her husband died, leaving her with a very young child. She was offered marriage by a man in his 80s, which she accepted. He had fought in the Civil War. He died a couple of years later and ever afterwards she was entitled to claim his pension. She died recently, aged in her 90s - but a genuine Civil War widow 140 years after the war ended.
 
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Leaferne said:
Last (American) Civil War widow:
http://littlerock.about.com/b/a/093699.htm
Another claimant:
http://history-sites.com/mb/cw/arcwmb/i ... ;read=7357

Now if someone could turn up a widow from the English Civil War(s)* I'd be really damn impressed. ;)

*alternatively, English Revolution, last of Europe's wars of religion (pace John Morrill), whatever your flavour

What the ... what are ... I ... buh ... are you saying that history goes further back than 250 years?

(Ugly American turns, flees.)
 
(Transplanted from: Did ghostly soldiers pay re-enactors a courtesy call?)

Around 10 0r 15 years ago long-hidden human remains were unearthed from one of the battlefields of the American Civil War.
It could no longer be determined whether the dead man had served with the Union or with the Confederacy.
Therefore it was decided to re-bury the corpse as BOTH. If he'd been Union, he was now also an honorary Confederate. And vice versa.
A newspaper photograph was published of the re-interment
ceremony.
Forty or fifty Union re-enactors stand on the left side of the grave. They all clasp hands, with one of the soldiers clasping the left hand if the Union general. The general's other hand holds that of the last living Union Army widow (in a wheelchair). She clasps the hand of the last remaining Confederate widow (she too is in a wheelchair), who also grasps the right hand of the Confederate general....and so on.
The two women's hands link directly over the coffin.

The maths of your post had me a bit puzzled OldTimeRadio.

The Civil War ended in 1865, so any survivors or widows of men killed in the war, would be at least 141 years old in 1990 (even if they were in their teens when they married). I then realised, that the widows were the widows of men who survived the war and married very much younger women in their old age. Googling around showed that the last Union widow died in 2003, and the last Confederate widow (at 97) in 2004. Interesting what you find out when something intrigues you.
 
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Civil War Widows

Timble2 said:
"I then realised, that the widows were the widows of men who survived the war and married very much younger women in their old age."

I should have explained that.

There were numerous marriage of this type during the 1920s, especially, with girls in their teens or early twenties marrying Civil War veterans in their eighties.

The girls got roundly criticized (usually outside of their own communities) for having purely financial motives, but in many cases it seems to have been out of genuine concern to give assistence and comfort to a local hero in his last years, with the presence of a woman in the house not offending social mores.

And I can recall at least one such marriage which seems to have been genuine love. After the husband died following 10 years of what seems to have been a quite normal and happy marriage (in 1935) his widow spent the remainder of her long life in mourning and in tending his grave (which was on the family farm).

But in all cases the widows received their husbands' pensions.

P. S. I remember discussing this in high school American History class in the late 1950s, when the widows would have been only in their forties or fifties.
 
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The last Confederate war widow only died last year
 
'The American Civil War (also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States from 1861 to 1865'

So how old was this person ?

It's explained in the article. She was 90, and was born when her father was 83.
 
'The American Civil War (also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States from 1861 to 1865'

So how old was this person ?

Heh, I can just see the Social Security Administration realising they might have been conned!
 
Heh, I can just see the Social Security Administration realising they might have been conned!

No military related pensions are administered or paid by the Social Security Administration.
 
I worked with a guy back in the 1980s who told me he was the grandson of a '49-er, meaning he was one of those who headed to California in 1849 to participate in the Gold Rush. I asked him how that could be possible and he explained that his grandfather didn't have a son (my friend's dad) until he was 70. So, apparently, back in the old days, these old guys were getting lucky. :)

As for some of the comments I have seen here, it is quite apparent that ageism is the last safe haven for the bigot.
 
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If they had married a woman their own age, they wouldn't have had any kids.
 
Many did, but they are not interesting for this thread. It's the ones who have living links with the past we are talking about.

Though I am curious why there were confederate widows alive 100 years after the war.
 
So why didn't they marry a woman their own age back when they would both have been young enough?

They might have done and had children and done all the family stuff. Then their wives may have died and left them free to remarry in old age.
 
They might have done and had children and done all the family stuff. Then their wives may have died and left them free to remarry in old age.
That's true enough, I suppose. But I thought you'd made the point earlier in this thread that it was a fairly miserable bargain for the young women they married, and I agree. Can't see the post I'm thinking of, though.
 
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