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Old Men, Stolen Glory, and the Mystery That Outlived the Civil War
by Richard A. Serrano
In the late 1950s, as America prepared for the Civil War centennial, two very old men lay dying. Albert Woolson, 109 years old, slipped in and out of a coma at a Duluth, Minnesota, hospital, his memories as a Yankee drummer boy slowly dimming. Walter Williams, at 117 blind and deaf and bedridden in his daughter's home in Houston, Texas, no longer could tell of his time as a Confederate forage master. The last of the Blue and the Gray were drifting away; an era was ending.
Unknown to the public, centennial officials, and the White House too, one of these men was indeed a veteran of that horrible conflict and one according to the best evidence nothing but a fraud. One was a soldier. The other had been living a great, big lie.
"Starred Review. Told with clarity and skillfully paced, Serrano's story of two old men and the mythology that grew up around them is intimate, expansive, and thoroughly entertaining." - Publishers Weekly
"This is a fine addition to Civil War collections." - Booklist
"Civil War buffs will find this book enjoyable as it tells a story that is not well known, but readers wanting a more in-depth look at the lives of Civil War veterans should read James Marten's Sing Not War: The Lives of Union and Confederate Veterans in Gilded Age America or similar works." - Library Journal
"Serrano's an adequate writer, and the story could have been a decent long-form magazine article. As a book, however, there is just too much mystery-free filler." - Kirkus
"Richard Serrano tells the fascinating stories of several men who claimed to be the last survivor of Civil War armies. All but one were fakes. As the nation approached the Civil War centennial in the 1950s, the controversies over the last veteran of the war highlighted the continuing debates about a war that never really ended." - James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
"As one of America's greatest journalists, Richard Serrano has a well-established reputation as a master story teller...He skillfully shows just how badly an anxiety-ridden modern America wanted to believe in a simpler time, even when the truth got in the way." - James Risen, author of State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration
"Richard Serrano's book is a beautifully-written account that brings to light a fascinating bit of American history...This is a great story, easy to read and full of wonderful detail, one that sheds light not only on the past but on our shifting memories of it. - James Mann, author of The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War
This information about Last of the Blue and Gray was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Richard A. Serrano, former reporter for the Kansas City Times, is currently a Washington correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. Serrano shared in two Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of the Hyatt sky walks disaster in Kansas City and the King riots in Los Angeles. He is author of One of Ours: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing.
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