When he died in 1959 in Houston, Texas, at the reported age of 117, U.S. Grant III, chairman of the Civil War Centennial, said the death was an occasion for national mourning.

[4] However, in September 1959, Scripps-Howard journalist Lowell K. Bridwell revealed that he could not find "one single scrap" of substantiating evidence to back up Williams's age or claims of military service, or anyone else's for that matter.

[8] It also was reported that the National Archives listed no Walter G. Williams as having served in the Confederate Army from either his home state of Mississippi or from Texas, where his family later settled.

[15] The "Soldiers and Sailors of the Confederacy" monument by Donald De Lue at the Gettysburg battlefield site bears an inscription about Williams on the reverse of the base.

The inscription reads, "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.