Last surviving Confederate veterans

In Lee's Last Retreat: The Flight to Appomattox,[1] historian William Marvel identified Private Pleasant Riggs Crump, of Talladega County, Alabama, who died December 31, 1951, as the last confirmed surviving veteran of the Confederate States Army.

[2] Citing English professor and biographical researcher Dr. Jay S. Hoar,[3] Marvel states that after Crump's death a dozen other men claimed to have been Confederate soldiers, but military, pension, and especially census records prove they were impostors.

[18][19] In his 1991 article in Blue and Gray magazine entitled The Great Imposters, William Marvel gave further details, including census records from before his 1932 Confederate pension application, showing Williams's birth as having occurred between October 1854 and April 1855 in Itawamba County, Mississippi.

[22] When Williams's status was disproved, attention turned to the alleged second longest surviving Confederate veteran, John B. Salling of Slant in Scott County, Virginia.

"[24] The motive for fabrications of Confederate Army service almost always was to support a claim for a veteran's pension during the hard times of the Great Depression.