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.
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
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.
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.
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!"
Very good article!
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
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.
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