Posted on 05/31/2004 1:03:21 PM PDT by WinOne4TheGipper
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Alberta Martin, the last widow of a Civil War veteran, died on Memorial Day, ending an unlikely ascent from sharecropper's daughter to the belle of 21st century Confederate history buffs who paraded her across the South. She was 97.
Martin died at a nursing home in Enterprise of complications from a heart attack she suffered May 7, said her caretaker, Dr. Kenneth Chancey. She died nearly 140 years after the Civil War ended.
Her May-December marriage in the 1920s to Civil War veteran William Jasper Martin and her longevity made her a celebrated final link to the old Confederacy.
After living in obscurity and poverty for most of her life, in her final years the Sons of Confederate Veterans (news - web sites) took her to conventions and rallies, often with a small Confederate battle flag waving in her hand and her clothes the colors of the rebel banner.
"I don't see nothing wrong with the flag flying," she said frequently.
Chancey said she loved the attention. "It's like being matriarch of a large family," he said.
"She was a link to the past," Chancey said Monday. "People would get emotional, holding her hand, crying and thinking about their family that suffered greatly in the past."
Wayne Flynt, a Southern history expert at Auburn University, said the historical distinctiveness of the South, which is so tied to the Civil War, has been disappearing, but Martin provided people with one last chance to see that history in real life.
"She became a symbol like the Confederate battle flag," he said.
The last widow of a Union veteran from the Civil War, Gertrude Janeway, died in January 2003 at her home in Tennessee. She was 93 and had married veteran John Janeway when she was 18.
In 1997, Martin and Daisy Anderson, whose husband was a slave who ran away and joined the Union Army, were recognized at a ceremony at Gettysburg, Pa. Anderson, who lived in Denver, died in 1998 at age 97. Janeway wasn't invited to the Gettysburg event because, at the time, no one outside her family knew her whereabouts.
Alberta Stewart Martin was not from the "Gone With the Wind" South of white-columned mansions and hoop skirts. She was born Alberta Stewart to sharecroppers on Dec. 4, 1906, in Danley's Crossroads, a tiny settlement built around a sawmill 70 miles south of Montgomery.
Her mother died when she was 11. At 18, she met a cab driver named Howard Farrow, and they had a son before Farrow died in a car accident in 1926.
Stewart, her father and her son moved to Opp. Just up the road lived William Jasper Martin, a widower born in Georgia in 1845 who had a $50-a-month Confederate veteran's pension.
The 81-year-old man struck up a few conversations with the 21-year-old neighbor and a marriage of convenience was born.
"I had this little boy and I needed some help to raise him," Alberta Martin recalled in a 1998 interview.
They were married on Dec. 10, 1927, and 10 months later had a son, William.
She said her husband never talked much about the war, except the harsh times at Petersburg, Va.
"He'd say it was rough, how the trenches were full of water. They were so hungry in Virginia that during the time they were fighting, they had to grab food as they went along. They came across a potato patch and made up some mashed potatoes," she said.
Asked if she loved her husband, Martin said: "That's a hard question to answer. I cared enough about him to live with him. You know the difference between a young man and an old man."
William Jasper Martin died on July 8, 1931. Two months later, Alberta Martin married her late husband's grandson, Charlie Martin. He died in 1983.
She became the focus of a dustup over the depiction of her and her late Confederate husband in the 1998 book "Confederates in the Attic." Among other things, the book by Tony Horwitz described William Jasper Martin as a deserter.
A group that defends Southern heritage disagreed, contending there were at least two William Martins who served in Company K of the 4th Alabama Infantry Regiment and that Horwitz got the wrong one. Horwitz said his research was carefully checked and the book was accurate.
The state government considered Martin's record clean enough to award him a Confederate pension in 1921 and to give Alberta Martin Confederate widow's benefits in 1996.
Martin's older son, Harold Farrow of North Little Rock, Ark., died last June. Her younger son, Willie Martin, lives in Elba.
Alberta Martin is to be interred at New Ebenezer Baptist Church six miles west of Elba, in an 1860s-style ceremony following her funeral June 12.
My Dad's great-grandfather lived to be 99, and my Dad vividly remembers listening to his stories about visiting Lincoln's funeral train when it came through Philadelphia. My great-great-grandfather was a teenager at the time, and it was his father who took him downtown.
It just makes me shake my head to think that my Dad, who is 76 (and by the way golfed an 86 a few weeks ago), spoke personally with a witness to Lincoln.
One of my own g-g-g-grandfathers was wounded at the battle of Petersburg.
My g-grandfather (48th Pa. Vol. Inf.) was shot in the arm and chest the first night at Petersburg. He spent many months recovering, and rejoined his unit at Fort Hell in March 1865, just in time to be overrun by the last Rebel charge of the war.
My dad still tells of the deep, purple scar running up his grandfather's forearm.
My ancestor was, unbelievable to say this, but he was 53 years old at the time of this battle! Seems ancient for a fighting man in those days.
He had immigrated from Europe about 12 years earlier, and was drafted into the Wisconsin infantry, and wound up at Petersburg, where he was wounded in April of '65. Gunshot wound somewhere, not sure now where, and from his pension records it also shows that he had dysentery the rest of his long life, presumably from his service in the war, since he drew a pension of I believe it was $4 per month because of it.
It was an awful battle (but which of them is not?) and I keep meaning to look for the book that came out a number of years ago, which dealt with the battle of Petersburg, but just have never gotten around to it.
When I was a kid, my parents had a double album called "Songs of the Blue and the Gray," IIRC.
I remember the album with the Union songs had a blue label, and the album with Confederate songs had a gray label.
Maybe that was the same album you have. It had to have come out in the early 1960s, at the latest.
Deo Vindice!
There was a front page article in one of last week's Wall Street Journal's on this. I believe there are around 84 Union children and about 204 Confederate children still alive.
at least one vote for skerry
Consider yourself pinged.
Blacks down here will vote hard Dem no doubt and since they are a bigger % here than anywhere else that skews the pop vote a bit and helps Dems who look moderate in tight races.
However, Clinton only won a majority of the vote in Louisiana and Arkansas in 96. He carried TN and FL by a plurality. VA, GA, NC, SC, AL, MS, and TX all went Dole.
In 1992, the Toon carried GA, AR, KY, and LA.
LA is heavily Dem and skewed by local allegiances in New Orleans and Evangeline country.
Of course Bush the Younger drubbed Gore in all of the South....and W is really Yankee despite his accent. he has no heritage connection here but his wife does I assume....just a fact, I am quite fond of W.
I would venture that today under these circumstances that the old yellow dogs are on the wane and despite some urban boomer, gen x and y liberals and the usual black vote that the South is solid for Pubbies nowadays regardless of who's who.
Edwards could get some votes from women because of his cuteyness but it's even doubtful he could have gotten reelected in NC.
The South is the most socially conservative part of the nation....has been since antebellum days I'd argue and hence folks down here that think that way know the options are few. It used to be the socially conservative wing of the Dems (not fiscally conservative I might add) and now it's mostly Pubbies.
Guess who gets most of that credit directly?
Trent Lott and ol Strom Thurmond ....both pariahs by conventional wisdom.
We respect healthy eccentricity down here. It's my life's goal. How am I doing?
*I appreciate like minded Yankees it should be noted.
One could argue that.
I would say Texas and Florida recovered much earlier but they were hardly damaged.
South? I thought his name was William?
I think you're doing quite well, if I may add. :-)
BTW, my high school principal once pulled me aside and said, "[Bourbon], do you know you are firmly on the path to middle-aged eccentricity?" "Yes," I replied. "Okay," he responded, "So long as you're fine with that."
[Note: My H.S. principal was a locally-famous eccentric himself. He once told me there were only 5 things he cared about in life: 1) his wife, 2) Melville novels, 3) Westerns, 4) baseball, and 5) his sailboat. I loved the fact that his job wasn't on that list.]
Destro,
Here's my read: My uncle served for the South in the Civil War. He was in his 60's when he married my Dad's sister who was the second oldest of 11 children, and in her teens, while my Dad was the second youngest of the 11. They and their descendants lived in the mountains of VA. They are fiercely loyal to family. The family most likely migrated there from Scotland to settle and to farm in mountain pastures resembling those in Scotland. It is, in my opinion, the fierce family loyalty which makes them cling to their Southern roots. Not so much South vs North idealogy, but rather that the 'North' disrupted the comfortable and pastoral lives of those in the South, which required them to defend their honor. As you know, Southern honor to family and to home runs 'deep.' In their opinion, the 'North' just 'doesn't get it' and does not understand their desire to remain farming people with simple lifestyles with rural people there not generally interested in following national politics or events, then or now. They live in a world quite removed from the one you and I may experience. The culture there is completely different than any I can describe elsewhere. However, if Sherman burned their farmlands enroute to his march to the sea, I have a feeling I can understand the deep-seeded resentment....
It's my fault.
I watched Gone with the Wind last night!
Southern...you kind of are on the right track.
But, other countries have deep divisions and do not have patriotic people after Civil Wars (Scots hate the English etc.)
Why the difference here?
The difference is social cleavages. Social cleavages is poly sci terms for divisions along different class lines, religions, occupations etc.
There are essentially two major types: cross-cutting and cumulative. When a country has cross-cutting cleavages, social division occurs on several axes, not just one major axis or area (say, religion). There are a lot of different combinations of who a person can be in a nation with cross-cutting cleavages (a rich, Catholic, urban Democrat, a poor, urban, Protestant Republican)....and that only touches on some of the divisions. Religion, area of residence (which tends to play a definite role in who you will become), socio-economic status, political affiliation...these only touch a few areas of division. We also have race, educational status, etc.
In a modern pluralistic society like the United States, there tends to be enough areas where "cleavages"/divisions can develop that things stay decently held together despite the large differences that people have.
Cross-cutting cleavages also produce a more patriotic citizenry among the folks pissed off at the majority.
This is not always the case, of course. Europe has a history of religion dominating the spectrum. France has a long history of a clerical/anti-clerical split (anti or pro Catholic church position) that largely influences elections and sets up political parties (it so influenced things that other characteristics also aligned, such as pro-clerical being conservative and anti-clercal being liberal). This has been the dominant influence, though it is obviously beginning to be a lot less now.
Cumulative cleavages often result in much more strife and do not produce stability. They have a lot less areas of division to the point that only a few things matter. Take the Serbs and Croats or Irish (or France above in the old days...not today really) where religion is the division that matters and everybody fits a certain mold. In Africa, tribe means everything (though luckily this is also becoming less and less true). In Africa, differences in religion or social status do not cross tribal lines, so ultimately, your tribal membership is literally everything. South Africa during apartheid is also a case.....race meant everything. Even today, if you are black, you vote ANC. It makes the racial division in American politics look calm. Cumulative cleavages promote a lot more fighting and tend to keep down the patriotism of the groups that feel disadvantaged.
So, Southern, yes, you are right that the south is patriotic. But, that is not really the reason why you are different from how the Scots feel regarding Britain.
The underlying reason...the reason that causes your patriotism....is that there are now enough similarities between north and south, urban and rural (though starting to become more divided obviously here) that you feel comfortable embracing America instead of pushing for another CSA. There are some pretty cool people that do push for a new CSA (hey, if it happens, I will join them). But, Confederate heritage is no longer something that causes strife and division for most southerners. It is something they take pride in, but they would not want to leave America to form a new country. The social cleavages simply are varied enough, with enough different possible combinations, that the society holds together.
America is lucky in this regard. A big enough group of the French Canadians feel their French identity and language is everything to the point that it becomes a fairly significant issue in Quebec.
Before I forget, I do want to address wardaddy's post. Yes, the south is pretty darn homogeneous...but it is my contention that there are enough cleavages and connections/similarities to the north that this is why it does not have a situation of cumulative cleavages.
One wonders how America is though today. It does appear that there is increasing division as region is becoming a lot more important (urban vs. rural, flyover country vs. east and west coast). While I have not bothered to do a study on this, it seems that things did not used to be as divided based upon region. Things are not as bad with regards to occupation anymore, with union membership no longer meaning as much (though it still tends to produce Dems). The deep division based on rural region may have other roots....the social cleavages SEEM to be increasingly aligned in such a way that very strong positions on either side are occurring (if you are conservative theologically, rural, middle class, etc. you will be GOP, for instance). In the olden days, it seems like you could not necessarily assume such a formula (with Progressive influence in the Plains, for example). The third parties are still small, which is good and promotes political stability. But, the increasing divisions may not be good. I don't know though...this last paragraph is just speculation.
Sorry for going on......just studied this last semester and wanted to blab about it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.