Re: War of the Rebellion as a game name

[TheDoctorKing]

How about "America's Unfinished Revolution"? The term was used by Eric Foner as the subtitle to his book on Reconstruction, but in fact given the enormous emotions that this war still evokes in Americans, I think it is still appropriate.

Has anyone read "Confederates in the Attic" by Horowitz? A fascinating book on the continuing importance of the Civil War in American memory, especially in the south.

[Le Ricain]

How about "America's Unfinished Revolution"? The term was used by Eric Foner as the subtitle to his book on Reconstruction, but in fact given the enormous emotions that this war still evokes in Americans, I think it is still appropriate.

Has anyone read "Confederates in the Attic" by Horowitz? A fascinating book on the continuing importance of the Civil War in American memory, especially in the south.

I found "Confederates in the Attic" to be an extremely interesting read. Most unusual was the discovery by the state of Alabama in the 1990's that they had a Confederate veteran widow alive and well in their midst. Most people's connection to the war is limited to Great-Grandfather at best. She had a son by the veteran.

[TheDoctorKing]

I thought she was very cute. A young woman with a child and limited means to care for herself, who marries an older man who has just qualified for a Confederate pension. Then, after he dies, she re-marries, sacrificing the pension, lives a long life with her second husband, and then gets the pension reinstated in old age in the 1970s. And she lived into the 1990s. I thought an especially ironic element was the questionable nature of the man's service - he may have deserted from his unit and returned home after a short period of service, but nonetheless he managed to get the government to give him the pension decades later.

And can you imagine any other country where a veteran of a defeated rebel army would receive a pension?

[Le Ricain]

I thought she was very cute. A young woman with a child and limited means to care for herself, who marries an older man who has just qualified for a Confederate pension. Then, after he dies, she re-marries, sacrificing the pension, lives a long life with her second husband, and then gets the pension reinstated in old age in the 1970s. And she lived into the 1990s. I thought an especially ironic element was the questionable nature of the man's service - he may have deserted from his unit and returned home after a short period of service, but nonetheless he managed to get the government to give him the pension decades later.

And can you imagine any other country where a veteran of a defeated rebel army would receive a pension?

I remember reading that the family of the widow sued the author claiming that there were actually three men in the regiment with the same name as the veteran and that the deserter and the veteran were not the same person. However, I never learned how the case turned out.

[Le Ricain]

The last Union widow was Gertrude Grubb Janeway. She married John Janeway, a veteran of the 14th Illinois Cavalry, in 1927 when she was 18 and he was 81. Janeway died in 1937 and Gertrude received the widow's pension of $70 every two months continuously until her death in 2003.





The picture above is her wedding photo.

[Generalisimo]

OH MY GOD!!

[Le Ricain]

OH MY GOD!!

The story referenced in the book that was mentioned by TheDoctorKing is even stranger than the Janeway story.

Alberta Martin married William J Martin in 1927. Alberta was 21 years old and William was 81. William had been a veteran of the 4th Alabama Regiment. Ten months later Alberta gives birth to Willie Martin. William Martin by this time was 82. William dies in 1931. There is some confusion over whether or not Alberta qualified for a widow's pension or if she even knew anything about it. In order to save the farm she marries Charlie Martin, William's grandson from a previous marriage. She and her step-grandson are married until Charlie's death in 1983 - almost 50 years. In 1996 Alberta is 'discovered' by the newspapers and the state of Alabama reinstates her pension with back pay. Alberta died in 2004.

One of the main attractions of these older men to their wives was the pension which was important in the cash poor regions of rural America.