Last surviving Confederate veterans

In Lee's Last Retreat: The Flight to Appomattox,[1] historian William Marvel identified Private Pleasant Riggs Crump, of Talladega County, Alabama, who died December 31, 1951, as the last confirmed surviving veteran of the Confederate States Army.[2] Citing English professor and biographical researcher Dr. Jay S. Hoar,[3] Marvel states that after Crump's death a dozen other men claimed to have been Confederate soldiers, but military, pension, and especially census records prove they were impostors.[4] Marvel further wrote that the names of two other supposed Confederate survivors alive in April 1950, according to Hoar, are not on the Appomattox parole lists and one, perhaps both, of their Confederate service claims were faked.[4][5] An extensively researched book[6] by Frank L. Gryzb, The Last Civil War Veterans: The Lives of the Final Survivors State by State, published March 29, 2016, supports the conclusion by Hoar, Marvel, Serrano and others that Pleasant Crump was the last confirmed and verified surviving veteran of the Confederate States Army.[7][8]

Following the entry in the table below for Pleasant Crump is a list of the discredited or unproven Confederate veteran claimants who died after Crump's death.[9]

  1. ^ Marvel, William. Lee's Last Retreat: The Flight to Appomattox. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. ISBN 978-0-8078-5703-8. p. 198.
  2. ^ In a 2000 work, A Place Called Appomattox, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2000, p. 264, ISBN 978-0-8078-2568-6, Marvel supports Crump's service with a citation to Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Alabama, M-311, RG 109.
  3. ^ Hoar, Jay S. The South's Last Boys in Gray. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1986. ISBN 978-0-87972-358-3. pp. 463–516.
  4. ^ a b Marvel, 2002, p. 280, citing Marvel, William (1991). The Great Impostors. Blue and Gray Magazine, Vol VIII, Issue 3. pp. 32–33.
  5. ^ Marvel's conclusions were supported by a later book: Serrano, Richard A. Last of the Blue and Gray: Old Men, Stolen Glory, and the Mystery that Outlived the Civil War. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2013. ISBN 978-1-58834-395-6. 'The Civil War Monitor'. Retrieved October 2, 2014.
  6. ^ In addition to the research he performed, Mr. Gryzb specifically thanks 47 people for their contributions to his research and writing, the National Park Service for republication of regimental histories, 3 persons who provided editorial comments and 7 descendants of Civil War veterans. He especially thanks Dr. Jay S. Hoar, Professor emeritus, University of Maine, Farmington, who published the main modern work on this subject in 1986, cited in the references, and who gave Mr. Gryzb guidance. Dr. Hoar and others showed that an earlier 1951 work contained suspect and erroneous material, p. 10. Mr. Gryzb does not include later authors such as Mr. Marvel and Mr. Serrano in the acknowledgements but discusses their work in the Introduction, pp. 7-8, cites them in the book and agrees with their key conclusions.
  7. ^ Gryzb, Frank, The Last Civil War Veterans: The Lives of the Final Survivors State by State. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2016. ISBN 978-1-4766-6522-1. pp. 133-135.
  8. ^ "That person (Crump), who will be revealed later, eventually became accepted as the last surviving Confederate veteran by an overwhelming number of Civil War historians." Gryzb, 2016, p. 7.
  9. ^ Marvel's statements are unambiguous. Yet, according to advocates for claimants who lived longer than Crump, some of the claims of these claimants may not be confirmed due to lack of conclusive evidence rather than due to debunking. In 'Last Surviving Veterans', Genealogy Trails, a volunteer-run web site, retrieved October 14, 2014, the author (Kim Torp is the name at the bottom of the page; also shown as the person who maintains the main page) states that "Marvel did not present his research on several other Confederate claims from the 1950s, some of which appear to be genuine." However, the page cites an earlier version of this article, which contained original research and speculation, as one of its sources. Gryzb, 2016, pp. 7, 133-135, supports Marvel's conclusion.