I found this article quite interesting...and surprising. The life expectancy of someone who was born in the middle of the 19th century was somewhere around 48 years according to the stats I've seen. Yet, in 1913 there were upwards of 50 thousand Civil War vets still alive and attending the Battle of Gettysburg reunion. And that's not even counting those vets who were still alive and not planning to attend. Those guys really defied the odds, living through a war in their youth and on to a ripe old age that is old even by our standards.
The other thing I found interesting is that so many vets would even want to attend the reunion. That was a brutal war, not your push button annihilation warfare of today. Soldiers on both sides would have witnessed their comrades disemboweled, dismembered, and worse. Families were torn apart...cities on both sides destroyed. It is surprising that so many of those vets from both sides would have wanted to attend.
The last person receiving government benefits from a Civil War veteran passed away only a few year ago. She was the child bride of an aging veteran.
ROAR
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Ulrich I found this article quite interesting...and surprising. The life expectancy of someone who was born in the middle of the 19th century was somewhere around 48 years according to the stats I've seen. Yet, in 1913 there were upwards of 50 thousand Civil War vets still alive and attending the Battle of Gettysburg reunion. And that's not even counting those vets who were still alive and not planning to attend. Those guys really defied the odds, living through a war in their youth and on to a ripe old age that is old even by our standards.
AVERAGE life expectancy statistics can be a little misleading. Higher infant mortality for example will drive those numbers down. People didn't keel over at 50 because of old age, it's the higher number of babies that don't survive that skews the average. But if you manage to make it to adulthood and don't get copped by one of the various diseases that are today much more easily treatable with modern medicine, a person could live just as long then as now.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
That's probably it... in fact the article makes mention of one 112 year old vet who attended. Still, the modern life expectancy rate of 78 years is with the infant mortality rate factored in...So indeed, the big hurdle back then was to make it past childhood. If you could survive early death from natural causes then you had a good chance at a long life, as these vets proved.
UlrichThe other thing I found interesting is that so many vets would even want to attend the reunion. That was a brutal war, not your push button annihilation warfare of today. Soldiers on both sides would have witnessed their comrades disemboweled, dismembered, and worse. Families were torn apart...cities on both sides destroyed. It is surprising that so many of those vets from both sides would have wanted to attend.
I would say that they were not actually celebrating the evils of the war. Instead, they were celebrating their bond with each other that resulted from facing those evils together.
From what i have read, there were a lot of those gatherings based on the bond of surviving the horrors of war. There were/are some gatherings in Europe where both sides from WWII share experiences with each other.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
That was the most captivating history article (railroad or otherwise) that I've read in years, and it left me wanting to know more about the event. Just shows how tough those old guys were.
Bob Keller
I agree..and to say they were tough is an understatement. I've read a lot about the Civil War and just reading about some of what those soldiers and others went through was difficult.
Remember, those Civil War vets weren't celebrating the death, destruction, and the horror. What they missed and were nostalgic for was their youth. "In our youth our hearts were touched with fire," Civil War vet and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said.
And some of these men were VERY long lived. The last Civil War vets, both Confederate, died in 1959.
There's a great story I read years ago. A veteran journalist (who's name escapes me) had a chance as a reporter for his high school paper in the 30's to interview a Union Army veteran who'd been at the battle of Gettysburg, and then was one of the troops on hand when Lincoln gave the "Gettysburg Address." The old man saw the teenager was very nervous and asked him why. The young man said he was in awe of him, the old vet had been places and seen things that he'd only read about in history books.
"Oh, that's OK son, I understand fully," the old man said. "I felt the same way at your age when I met a man who'd been at Yorktown with General Washington!"
Kind of shows you what a young country this really is. When I was born in 1953 there were Civil War vets still living. When those men were born there were Revolutionary War vets still living.
Very good article!
Firelock76 Remember, those Civil War vets weren't celebrating the death, destruction, and the horror. What they missed and were nostalgic for was their youth. "In our youth our hearts were touched with fire," Civil War vet and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said.
True as far as it goes, but I think there's more to it than that. My father was a WWII veteran from the backwoods of south Georgia, who had very few close friends. Yet, to the end of his life he maintained friendships with a guy from Maryland and a guy from Ohio who fought beside him in the war. They had been through fire together and were sort of welded together by their shared experience. Even though they returned to the areas where they grew up after the war, they still cared about one another despite the distance between them and the passage of the years. Even veterans who didn't know one another during the War Between the States could respect one another for having fought during the war, even if it were on different sides.
Think back through your own life. If you ever went through a really tough time and had a friend then who stood by you through it, if they called on you today and needed help you would help them if you could. Somehow when you share a tough experience with someone and find them loyal and dependable when the chips are down, you feel close to them forever.
Firelock76 Kind of shows you what a young country this really is. When I was born in 1953 there were Civil War vets still living. When those men were born there were Revolutionary War vets still living.
Wayne,
I hope I may piggyback onto your interesting story. As a young lawyer Abe Lincoln belonged to an organization where the members gave speeches to the group in order to learn the art. In one of his speeches he pointed out there were still a few veterans of the Revolutionary War living. He compared then to old trees that had weathered many storms, trees which were venerated but which soon would be gone due to old age and infirmity. And he asked who would be left to remind Americans of what the nation was all about when the last one died. He answered his own question by saying at that point all we would have is the cold and unemotional logic of the founding fathers, logic that is memorialized in the Constitution. And we must hold on to that as a legacy.
Abe Lincoln was in his twenties when the made that speech. He certainly could not know where life would lead him. But the belief never left him. Many years later when Lincoln was elected President and secession began the men who had led the Republican party wanted to accept it. Horace Greely editorialized that we should not try to pin the Confederates to the Union with bayonets. And William Seward began negotiations with Confederate Commissioners about the terms of a peace. Lincoln would have none of it. The nation was the legacy of the founding fathers and he would do everything he could to protect that legacy. And he did just that.
John
UlrichThe life expectancy of someone who was born in the middle of the 19th century was somewhere around 48 years according to the stats I've seen.
That probably includes infant mortality. The life expectancy of those surviving into their teens and 20s had to be quite a bit longer.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
By everything I've ever read about soldiers in combat, is that you feel that you have more in common with the men shooting at you than anyone in your own rear echelon. A "band of brothers," if you will.
oltmanndThat probably includes infant mortality. The life expectancy of those surviving into their teens and 20s had to be quite a bit longer.
I'm sure you are correct on this point, Don. Still, these were the days before antibiotics and even adults could succumb. During the civil war many died when their war wounds became infected. And consider Theodore Judah who died of disease from a mosquito bite as he rode the Panama Railroad on his way to New York.
I don't know. I've read that the war didn't just end and all was good after that. Vets on the Confederate side were discriminated against by employers. Vets struggled to cope with injuries and disabilities when there was virtually no assistance from anyone. They had to suck it up and move forward as best they could. Hard feelings, anger and hatred lingered for decades after the war. Even today, particularly in the South, some people still fly the Confederate flag. It's a war that broke up families and pitted neighbour against neighbour. But I guess time does heal some wounds, and by 1913 some Union and Confederate vets could get together peacefully in remembrance.
John WRTheodore Judah who died of disease from a mosquito bite as he rode the Panama Railroad on his way to New York.
That's what he gets for taking the "short cut"!
Still, his death at age 37 was tragic. He was pretty important to the Central Pacific Railroad before the Associates brought him out. Had he lived railroad history might be different but we will never know.
Tragic indeed. He never really got the recognition he deserved. Maybe he was a bit too far ahead of his time...and sometimes the wrong people get all the credit. The Big Four, for whatever reason, live on in history (especially in California) while very few people would even recognize the name of Judah. His widow said as much when the UP and CP joined in 1869...I read somewhere that it was a said day for her as her husband even then had been all but forgotten.
Also, many of the vets served at a much younger age than vets of later wars. Ages in the ranks were as young as 14. Drummer boys were truly boys, as some were only 7 or 8.
You are absolutely right, Ulrich. And to top it all off the associates denied Judah's widow the support she should have had despite the fact that they could easily have afforded it.
Judah was a railroad man and a visionary. The associates were merchants always looking to make a profit. I don't want to use the standards of the present day to pass a harsh judgement on them as many have done. They simply were the men they were. But Judah did quarrel with them because he wanted to build a first class railroad and they wanted to take the money and run. Had Theodore Judah been in charge and remained in charge things would have been a lot better. As it is the railroad and the country were a lot better off because of his influence both on the route and on the Pacific Railroad Acts.
BroadwayLion The last person receiving government benefits from a Civil War veteran passed away only a few year ago. She was the child bride of an aging veteran. ROAR
That was the last Civil War widow. But because children under the age of 18 also qualify for benefits which can be expanded to a lifetime if the individual is permanently incapable of self-support before the age of 18 due to disability, there are still two children of Civil War veterans receiving government benefits due to their fathers having served in the Civil War. That's current information as of last March.
There are still 10 family members receiving benefits tied to the 1898 Spanish American War. And several thousand from World War I with approximately 1/3 being spouses and the rest children despite all veterans having now passed on from the Great War.
John WR You are absolutely right, Ulrich. And to top it all off the associates denied Judah's widow the support she should have had despite the fact that they could easily have afforded it. Judah was a railroad man and a visionary. The associates were merchants always looking to make a profit. I don't want to use the standards of the present day to pass a harsh judgement on them as many have done. They simply were the men they were. But Judah did quarrel with them because he wanted to build a first class railroad and they wanted to take the money and run. Had Theodore Judah been in charge and remained in charge things would have been a lot better. As it is the railroad and the country were a lot better off because of his influence both on the route and on the Pacific Railroad Acts. John
Well this isn't true.
The "Associates" AKA "The Big Four" were all about building a railroad that they intended to operate after construction was completed. They had no intention of "Taking the money and running." The poster's fallacious attack on these great men is unconscionable.
Judah did have a falling out with Huntington. He had crossed Huntington after Huntington had promoted Judah's concept to the others. That's a good way to commit corporate career suicide. Huntington remembered and eventually forced Judah out. To expand that into "They wanted to take the money and run" is an exercise in prejudice and hatemongering.
The falsely maligned Big Four did the nearly impossible. They built a railroad eastward across the Sierra Nevada Mountains. They did this operating at the end of a 18,000 mile supply line. They had to have tunnels driven with no dynamite and not even a kerosene lamp inside the tunnels for light. And they did it. They weren't looking to run, they were looking to build.
After the completion of the first transcontinental in the US they turned their attention to developing California. They did this by providing transportation which opened up a veritable cornucopia of nutritious, delicious, fresh fruits and vegetables for the US and Canada. The sold land cheaply on good terms to small farmers. In other words, they built.
They got rich doing so. Good for them.
To see some poster just trash people like this every time he gets a false chance is sickening. He'll take a thread off topic every time he gets the chance to falsely bash people.
Well hold on a moment. When John WR is describing the "Big Four" as men who wanted only to "take the money and run" he's only repeating what he was probably taught in high school or college years ago, which for decades of the 20th Century was the accepted academic doctrine. It's what I got too.
The great historian Steven Ambrose wrote he was taught the same things when he was a college lad. As he got older he realised what he was getting was the "spin" put on the story by his professors who were almost all "New Dealers" with a decidedly leftist bent. Ambrose did NOT say they were communists or socialists, however they did see things through an "Old Left" lens.
It was only when he did his own history of the building of the transcontinental railroad that he realised just how wrong his old profs were. Yes the "Big Four" did make a hell of a lot of money, but THEY raised the cash, THEY took the risks, and THEY were facing bankruptcy and ruin if they failed. So if they skimmed a little bit, who's to blame them? Look what they accomplished. And it was a blessing for America.
Please, folks, when you agree with a previous post, with several from the same source, be a little more specific: identify the one you agree or take issue with. Also suggest you consider John Jakes series "The Kent Chronicles" (Given, a work of fiction) to add to your appreciation of the 1860's post Civil War rail construction west of the Mississippi. Ulrich, I take exception to your approach to appreciation of veterans' associating long after the battles are over. Being exposed to death, wounding, privation and most other threats of combat tie men (and women) closer together than any other time of life, including 12 years of public schooling, 4 years of college or 20 years of railroading, and these close ties endure for a lifetime, or until age or an infirm body preclude attending reunions. At age 76, I missed my high school reunion this year due to health issues, but have tickets and reservations for my Vietnam era aviators convention in July. Back to the OP: My "RetGM" refers to having managed the Gettysburg Railroad during my 2nd career. We had a fine Historical narration onboard our Scenic Rail rides, and Civil War re-enactments staged several ties during the year. Thanks for your interest in our railroad and national history....JWH
100 years ago, were there many visiting the Gettysburg battle field at times other than veterans reunions? Were tourists a regular revenue source for railroads serving the town.
RetGM Please, folks, when you agree with a previous post, with several from the same source, be a little more specific: identify the one you agree or take issue with. Also suggest you consider John Jakes series "The Kent Chronicles" (Given, a work of fiction) to add to your appreciation of the 1860's post Civil War rail construction west of the Mississippi. Ulrich, I take exception to your approach to appreciation of veterans' associating long after the battles are over. Being exposed to death, wounding, privation and most other threats of combat tie men (and women) closer together than any other time of life, including 12 years of public schooling, 4 years of college or 20 years of railroading, and these close ties endure for a lifetime, or until age or an infirm body preclude attending reunions. At age 76, I missed my high school reunion this year due to health issues, but have tickets and reservations for my Vietnam era aviators convention in July. Back to the OP: My "RetGM" refers to having managed the Gettysburg Railroad during my 2nd career. We had a fine Historical narration onboard our Scenic Rail rides, and Civil War re-enactments staged several ties during the year. Thanks for your interest in our railroad and national history....JWH
I understand what you say about veterans getting together once the fighting is over...I too served in the military, although not in combat, and I appreciate that shared hardship builds camaraderie. I was a little surprised that Union and Confederate vets could get together peacefully...after all...they were not comrades...they were in the field butchering each other and their families. It would be like you and other Vietnam vets getting together with some Viet Kong vets in remembrance...does that happen? I've never heard of it, but maybe it does.
It does happen. Not so much with North Korea, but Viet Nam has cooperated with our Defense Dept. in looking for those still "missing in action" and the American Legion Magazine has reported on friendships developed when USA military people who were veterans of action in the Vieet Nam War visited Viet Nam.
I can also draw a comparison with my experience with a steward in a German Federal Ry's dining car in 1960. I asked him where he had learned such perfect American English. He said he had been in a US prison camp and was treated well, so he wished to treat all visiting Germany well. When I told him I was on my way to Israel he said I should make a point of riding the new diesel trains Germany was providing then as reperations.
I did, even one cab ride Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. But they were underpowered diesel-mechanical units and soon were being hauled by EMD export models.
Well, that speaks volumes for the survival of humanity...if people who were previously arch enemies can some 40 or 50 years later get together in remembrance under friendly circumstances. It must depend on the person and circumstances...I've met people who were still very angry and bitter some 40 years after the end of WWII... I guess if your parents or siblings were gassed or executed then forgiveness becomes that much harder.
I suppose it is an individual matter. I have found that some of the most forgiving and able to talk with former enemies or oppressors were actual participants or victims, while sometimes the most angry and unwilling to talk were those who had no actual experience in war. One could speculate why, but that seems pointless here.
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