The North's Last Boys in Blue (Volume One)

By Jay S. Hoar
Illustrated, charts, graphs, 566 pp., 2006. Higginson Book Co., Salem, Mass. Order from the author, 248 Temple Rd., Temple, ME, $75 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Michael A. Cavanaugh
Michael A. Cavanaugh is the former editor and publisher of the Civil War Book Exchange. He has authored and co-authored five books on the war and is writing a biography on Maj. Gen. William Mahone, CSA.

Review:
Professor Jay Hoar has been researching the last Union and Confederate veterans for more than 35 years. His interest, however, began well before that. He met his first Civil War veteran when he was 16 years of age.

He has written several books on the last surviving veterans - North and South - plus numerous articles. He is, without a doubt, the foremost authority on the last surviving veterans of the Civil War.

The North's Last Boys in Blue (Volume One) is a massive volume. It contains over 100 biographies of veterans who survived into the 1940s up to 1946. Some bios are a short paragraph, but most are a full page or more. There are lots of great stories.

For example; Chief James Many-Day Whitecloud of the 14th Kansas Cavalry. He was one of the last four surviving Native Americans who served in the Union army and lived to 92. James Shipp Edwards, with the 7th U.S. Cavalry at the Little Big Horn, helped bury Custer's men, lived to the age of 98.

David Wood was age 10 at enlistment with the 6th Missouri Cavalry and lived to 93. Civil War nurses are also covered in Professor Hoar's research. Emma Louise Negal cared for the wounded on both sides in Winchester, Va., as a mere teen. She is buried in Bethlehem, Pa., and lived to be 96.

Isaiah Fassett, a slave released by his owner who immediately enlisted in the 9th U.S.C.T., lived to be 102! There are scores of interesting stories like these in The North's Last Boys in Blue.

Maybe the most valuable part of this book is the source material Professor Hoar used in his research. He notes 14,000 letters of inquiry alone that were sent out over the years. Much of it is primary material collected from family members, state and local historical societies and obscure newspaper accounts. Hundreds of newspapers were scoured for obituary information.

The pension records he covered were also a rich source of information. Many of the accounts were written by the veterans themselves. There is surely some embellishment in some as memories faded over the many years. That would be expected.

This work will be a boon to Civil War researchers and genealogists. The entries are well-footnoted and well-illustrated with a detailed index.

The material covered in Hoar's work goes well beyond the veterans' biographical sketches. To summarize some of the many entries there is a section on the 1938 Gettysburg Reunion. There is also extensive coverage on the Grand Army of the Republic with state-by-state information on parades, encampments and the like.

Early National Commanders-in-Chief of the GAR include such familiar names as Ambrose Burnside, John Hartranft and John Logan. The Epilogue contains a state-by-state listing of the last surviving veterans. There is also a listing of the last 100 Northern veterans.

The book offers much much more, but limited space does not permit detailing the wealth of information in this review.

The North's Last Boys in Blue is a virtual encyclopedia of the last Civil War Union veterans. There is not much that could be written that's not in this volume. And this is not the end. Professor Hoar has completed a manuscript of Volume Two that will cover the years 1947 into the 1950s. I'm sure that this will be as extensive and well researched as Volume One.