Was Wilcox County man the 'world's oldest living Confederate veteran'?

Battle of Malvern Hill.

An extremely old Wilcox County man made national headlines in 1899 when it was reported that he was likely the oldest living Confederate veteran in the entire world.

News that 108-year-old Seymour Garner of Wilcox County was likely the world’s oldest living Confederate veteran was reported in newspapers across the country in 1899, including newspapers in Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, South Dakota, North Dakota, Ohio, Tennessee, Utah and elsewhere.

For example, in the Nov. 9, 1899 edition of The Manitowoc Pilot newspaper in Wisconsin, it was reported that “Seymour Garner of Wilcox County, Alabama is 108 years old and claims to be the oldest Confederate veteran.” Around that same time, The Anderson Intelligencer of Anderson Court House, S.C. reported that “perhaps the oldest Confederate soldier in the world is Seymour Garner, who lives in Wilcox County, Ala. Though 108 years old, he is still alert and remarkably well-preserved.”

According to old Civil War records, Seymour S. Garner was a native of Alabama, who worked much of his life as a farmer. He enlisted early in the war on July 6, 1861 and served as a private in Co. A of the 13^th Alabama Infantry Regiment. Records also reflect that he was “severely wounded” at the Battle of Malvern Hill on July 1, 1862 and was discharged due to those wounds. A couple of years after the war ended, Garner married Nancy Thornley on April 5, 1867.

I have to admit that when I first read the old 1899 news items about Garner’s age, I had my doubts about their accuracy. If you take them at face value, Garner would have to have had been born around 1791 to have been 108 years old in 1899. If that’s true, then Garner would have been around 70 years old in 1861, the year that the Civil War began.

He would have been around 71 years old when wounded in battle and around 76 when he married Nancy Thornley. The fact that Garner married Thornley at such an advanced age was a type of marriage that was not unheard of in the years after the Civil War. Many women lost husbands in the war and were looking to remarry. Also, many young women married older veterans in hopes of receiving his war pension.

Garner did file for a pension on May 16, 1895 and that document reflects that he was 95 years old at that time. This is the first real clue that I found that indicated that Garner may not have been 108 years old in 1899. If the pension record is correct, he would have been around 99 years old in 1899 – still very old, but not 108 years old.

In an attempt to settle the question over Garner’s real age, I looked for records related to his death and burial. More than likely, his tombstone would probably give his correct date of birth and date of death. However, despite my best efforts, I was unable to find Garner’s grave or the grave of his wife.

In the end, I’d like to hear from anyone in the reading audience with more information about Garner and his Civil War exploits. If anyone out there knows the date that he died, that’ll help me find his obituary, which should help clear up some of the questions about his no-doubt interesting life. Who knows, maybe he truly was the world’s oldest living Confederate in 1899.