Walter
Washington Williams who claimed to be the last living Confederate veteran died
December 19th 1859.
Walter
Washington Williams was born in Itawamba County, Mississippi, he said in 1842.
Williams
claimed to have served in Confederate General John Bell Hood’s brigade,
beginning in 1864 as a forgemaster.
Research into his military service has never been proven, nor even has
his age been verified.
When the war
ended Williams moved to Texas, where he settled on a farm in Eaton, Texas.
When the
rest of the “last Claimants” had died, Williams became celebrated as the “last
Confederate veteran”. Williams died
December 19th 1859 in Houston, Texas at the home of his daughter. The chairman of the Civil War Centennial;
Ulysses S Grant III, said the Williams death was an occasion for national mourning,
which United States President Dwight D Eisenhower had declared. He is buried in the Mount Pleasant Church
Cemetery in New Baden, Robertson, Texas.
His name is listed on the “Soldiers and Sailors of the Confederacy”
monument at the Gettysburg, Pennsylvania Battlefield, with the inscription, “Walter
Washington Williams -- who was recognized by the government of the United
States as the last surviving Confederate veteran died 1959 at the age of 117
years."
