The South’s Last Boys in Gray: Last Living Chapter of the American Civil War, Vol. III
Students of the American Civil War are familiar with the apocryphal allegation that since Appomattox society has “birthed a book a day” on the “late unpleasantness.” But how refreshing the reading becomes when a truly unique War Between the States study emerges, a lifetime’s labor of diligent research, passion for answers and dedication to detail, published on a subject no other author has explored. Jay S. Hoar met the last surviving veteran of Gettysburg in 1949. Twenty years later Professor Hoar determined to chronicle the lives of the last living veterans of the Blue and Gray. He rewarded readers in 1986 with The South’s Last Boys in Gray and then in 2007 with the companion study, The North’s Last Boys in Blue. From inquiring letters to the editors of local papers and treks to isolated, rural burying grounds to personal contacts with individuals ranging from the Real Daughters and Sons of Civil War veterans and celebrities such as silent film star Mary Pickford, Hoar has bequeathed to the rest of us, as he would style it, “The Last Living Chapter of the American Civil War.” Indeed, this 2010 updated edition of The South’s Last Boys in Gray is, by his own quiet admission, his last contribution to the subject. It is his magnum opus. At first glance this enormous book, measuring 8 x 11 inches and fully two inches thick, looks quite daunting. Yet inside reside the stories of those Old Rebs — complemented in this edition by more than 20 additional individuals. Besides anecdotal evidence, Hoar draws upon soldiers’ diaries, letters and memoirs; interviews and correspondence from surviving children, friends and acquaintances, and family Bibles, yellowed newspaper accounts, reunion records, pension files and census tallies. In addition to the individual narratives of the last of the Gray, where else might one find an extensive listing of the last surviving Old Rebs by individual state, the last surviving commissioned Confederate officers and the final surviving slaves? The volume is laced with period and modern family portraits, in many cases hand-captioned by Hoar. In his determination to “get it right,” he has even inked additional reference page numbers into the text and corrected the long erroneous caption accompanying the famous photograph of R.E. Lee, George Peabody, W.W. Corcoran and eight ex-Confederate generals gathered at White Sulphur Springs in the summer of 1869. And for memorabilia collectors, Hoar graces the frontispiece of every volume with an authentic, uncancelled 3-cent U.S. postage stamp commemorating the Final Reunion of the United Confederate Veterans. In this reviewer’s opinion, this unique volume demonstrates an elegiac research style rarely seen in historical studies. Reviewer: Gregg S. Clemmer Gregg S. Clemmer is a graduate of Virginia Tech with a master of arts in military history from Norwich University. His four books include Old Alleghany: The Life and Wars of General Ed Johnson, which won the 2005 Douglas Southall Freeman Book Prize.
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Illustrated, 793 pp, index, footnotes, appendices, 2010, Bo-ink-um Press,