This former soldier still linked the 20th century to the American Civil War

In Gettysburg, among the monuments related to the American Civil War, a statue depicts Albert Woolson seated. It was dedicated in September 1956. The National Park Service identifies him as the last surviving member of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans.

This precision counts: the stories about the “last veteran” often mix armies, associations and unequally established declarations of service. The file presented here concerns Woolson and an explicitly documented quality, rather than a universal title awarded from an isolated date.

The statue brings together two eras that imagination easily separates: the conflict of 1861–1865 and the mid-20th century. It is not a sudden old event that has become recent, but the long duration of a life and a collective memory. The seated man recalls that the end of a war does not immediately close the time of those who have passed through it.