Talk:Last surviving Confederate veterans

Thomas E. Riddle
An edit today states that evidence has been found that Thomas E. Riddle, who made a dubious claim that he served in a Tennessee regiment, served in two Virginia regiments. I could not find the citations, which are incomplete. So they are unverifiable. A History of Rockingham County, Virginia By John Walter Wayland, p. 456 lists a "Thomas Riddle" as a member of Company I, 33rd Virginia Volunteer Infantry, along with John B. Sheets who wrote a diary for which the edit includes an incomplete citation. This is not enough to show that this was the same Thomas Riddle who claimed to serve in a Tennessee regiment.

Grayback Mountaineers by Harlan H. Hinkle shows that the 22nd Virginia Volunteer Infantry was formed in what is now West Virginia, in Kanawha County. It seems doubtful, though perhaps not impossible, that if a Riddle served in this unit (and that name does not appear in the West Virginia Confederate personnel list in the book), the same man would later serve in a Rockingham County company. (As clarification, Company K of the 22nd Virginia apparently had some men from Rockbridge County.)

If the listed veteran is the same Thomas E. Riddle shown in the 1910 census records in Texas (born in Tennessee), where the supposed veteran later resided, he was not old enough to have served in the war. His memory of having held Lee's horse and having fought at Gettysburg was obviously bad as he described the battle as if it were a mere skirmish. He also claimed to be the older half-brother and heir to a person who had owned the race horse, Man O' War.

I think the addition should be reverted until a verifiable source which shows the Virginia man, or men, to be the same as the Tennessee/Texas man, not just men with the same name, is produced. Donner60 (talk) 22:49, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Original research; speculation
This article now has been amended by original research, speculation and dubious inferences and conclusions to state that the last twelve veterans on this list were at worst dubious and with varying other degrees possible veterans. Bits and pieces of information, not definitely related to the men on the list - or not proving their case because inference and speculation have to be added - have been used to reach these conclusions. I do not state this to criticize or in any way impugn the good faith and work the editor has put into these conclusions. The problem with them is that historians have reached opposite conclusions, Wikipedia requires reliable, verifiable secondary sources or mere statement of facts from primary sources. When one starts making interpretations or drawing inferences from these sources, the line is crossed from the encyclopedic established facts into original research that can not be supported.

Historian William Marvel has shown that the last twelve men on the list were all imposters. Jay Hoar and others reached the same conclusions. Marvel, William. Lee's Last Retreat: The Flight to Appomattox. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. ISBN 978-0-8078-5703-8. via Questia - subscription required. But may be available through on-line preview.

At page 198: "As Freeman spoke there remained but one man who had witnessed the surrender there eighty-five years before: Private Pleasant Riggs Crump, of Talladega County, Alabama, then in his one-hundred-and-third year. When Crump died on the closing day of 1951, he was the last of all those many thousands who had served in Lee's army: though no one noticed at the time, he was the last Confederate veteran in the world. 50"

At page 280: "After Crump's death a dozen other men claimed to have been Confederate soldiers (see Hoar, The South's Last Boys in Gray, 463–516), but military, pension, and especially census records prove them all to have been fakes (Marvel, “The Great Impostors,” 32–33). Hoar (60) lists two other alleged Appomattox survivors who were alive in April of 1950, but neither is named on the parole lists and at least one of them—if not both—also appears to have fabricated his Confederate service altogether."

Marvel also covered this two years earlier in Marvel, William. A Place Called Appomattox. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0-8078-2568-6. via Questia - subscription required.

Page 460: "Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Alabama, M-311, RG 109, NA; Hoar, South's Last Boys in Gray, 463–66. Though a dozen others made false claims of having been Confederate soldiers after he died, Pleasant Riggs Crump of the 10th Alabama was the last surviving Confederate soldier when he died on December 31, 1951. See Marvel, “Great Impostors,” 33."

See also: Keyes, Ralph The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2004. ISBN 978-0-312-30648-9.

Page 72: "A writer who investigated the last surviving "Civil War veterans" found that most were phonies, including all twelve of those who said they'd fought for the old South. These were counterfeit Confederates. Few were even old enough to have taken part in the War Between the States."

Until the article is reverted to the text before the original research - or simply shows all 12 of those listed after Pleasant Crump as debunked - it will remain based on the original research (not primary source statements of fact, but inferences and conclusions, some quite speculative, drawn from those sources) and contrary to the conclusions of reliable, verifiable secondary sources.

I quite dislike this conclusion due to the apparent work put into this in what appears to be quite genuine good faith. Previous notes in edit summaries and in the above section perhaps were not direct enough and did not point out the no original research policy specifically enough but the original research and speculative nature of the Riddle conclusion in particular is noted above. It notes that this work was based on speculation and not reliable sources so it was producing dubious results. Regardless of this history, the unfortunate conclusion that I draw is that I don't think these changes can be left in place in line with the conclusions in secondary sources and Wikipedia guidelines. Donner60 (talk) 09:34, 19 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I regret my lack of expertise on this subject, which is just an interest for me. I have watched the recent changes with interest; but must come to the same conclusion as Donner60, that in spite of all the work put in to edits, they do appear to be "original research". I think the only conclusion is to return the article to the pre-existing form.  Perhaps other editors could comment before any final decision is made?  David J Johnson (talk) 12:36, 19 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I had hoped for some additional comment - and maybe some more will be made in the next few days. I also will inform the writer directly whether or not more comment is made before I make any changes to the article. It seems to me that talk page comments rarely generate much discussion as few editors seem to look at them unless they are working on the article, or intend to, or are very interested in the subject. I must admit that I do not regularly check talk pages unless they pop up on my watchlist because I have the article itself on the list. Donner60 (talk) 08:39, 21 April 2014 (UTC)


 * No one has commented in over a month. Additional rife speculation, some of it very obvious guess work about clearly well underaged claimants, continues to be added. Marvel debunked every one of these claimants. Yet we now have an article in which the tying together of people of the same or similar name who are not definitively shown to be the same persons are shown as possible, even verified. Sure, some kid could have rode with his older brothers. Maybe not, especially when it is just a guess. That's the problem: original research together with mere speculative correlation of names. A lot of work has been put into this. Maybe there is a hit on something the authors who have commented on this may have missed but it is not obvious. I hesitate to revert the whole original research, even though I think it is justified, because I have only Marvel's later conclusions in later books, not his take on every claimant individually. I guess I should not be surprised that no one other than David J. Johnson has taken notice of this. Most talk pages don't get many viewers. I think this may need to be taken to another page to get more views but I still don't think we can escape the conclusion that the article now contains unencyclopedic speculation. An interesting magazine article or hypothesis, maybe; encyclopedic, does not seem to be. Thoughts, anyone? Donner60 (talk) 07:01, 28 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Hello Donner60: Like yourself, I would have hoped that there would have been additional comments. Whilst I am not a expert, only interested, in the subject; I am forced to conclude that these "edits" from various different - but associated IP addresses - are original research and should be deleted. In my view the article should revert to the original before the IP edits.   However, I do think that either an administrator or arbitration should be involved before a final decision is made. Best regards, David, David J Johnson (talk) 14:50, 28 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for looking in on this again. I think I will look for an administrator or two who are interested in military history and ask for an opinion before going further. Donner60 (talk) 21:55, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

What?!
Suddenly, William Townsend and William J. Bush are listed as "Verified" by Wikipedia. What, what, what in the world has suddenly happened in the last year or so to make this so?! I'm utterly astounded. I keep up with this stuff religiously, yet I've seen, read, and heard nothing anywhere about this. Can anyone cite actual sources? How did this suddenly happen? I can't deny that I am dubious in the extreme. I actually think William J. Bush was PROBABLY a veteran, but there just has never been enough evidence to make that last step into absolute certainty. Where's the silver bullet on these two men? What is the new discovery on each?? 24.125.227.18 (talk) 02:53, 6 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Sorry for the late reply. As you can see by the messages above, User David J. Johnson and I cautioned the user who made the changes and reverted the original changes. He made numerous additional changes based on speculation and original research. He has edited from several IP addresses. I left a lengthy message on the last one spelling out the errors in detail and asking him to consider changes, while expressing respect for his work. I have received no reply and I think the user has made no recent edits. It is my intention to place my reasoning in slightly altered form on this page in the near future and to restore the article to its original form or a slightly revised form. If the original research is returned to the page, I intend to seek dispute resolution of some sort. Perhaps I should have acted more quickly on this but I wanted to give the user a chance to change and thought that the article was getting little enough traffic that a wait would not be too harmful. Donner60 (talk) 21:14, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Contents of this article
Some of the previous revisions were...blatant lies? Hoar does not assert, at all, that Crump was the last veteran. He asserts that William Albert Kiney was, and has evidence to back it up. While the massive paragraph without references is very much speculation, the references that have been removed cite physical documents, and thus are not speculation. They're reliable documents that provide evidence for/against claims. The "debunking" of Kiney that Marvel did involved using a document referring to a completely different individual, as stated by Hoar. --2602:306:8381:7390:6969:8A5F:B334:5A2E (talk) 18:48, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Is there any documentation for Richard William Cumpston?
I have never been able to find any supporting documentation for Richard William Cumpston, and none of the research by Jay Hoar, Garry Victor Hill or Frank Gryzb mentions him. Hill did a thorough search for him and was never able to find out who he was, if he existed, or how he first came to be mentioned in relation to Civil war veterans. This article has his exact date of birth and death, but no newspaper archives, military records or geneological surces I've checked have turned up anything that confirms his military service or even his existence. 184.145.128.10 (talk) 00:05, 5 December 2023 (UTC)