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Archiver > GAWILKIN > 2001-04 > 0987078358


From: Robert Calhoun <>
Subject: [GAWILKIN-L] William J. Bush 1845 - 1952
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 06:25:58 -0600


Posted on: Wilkinson Co. Ga Query Forum
Reply Here: http://genconnect.rootsweb.com/gc/USA/Ga/Wilkinson/10991

Surname: BUSH
-------------------------

THE MONTGOMERY MONITOR
Mount Vernon, Montgomery County, Georgia
Thursday November 13, 1952

Last Georgia Civil War Veteran Dead

Fitzgerald, Ga., Nov. 11 Death came today to " General " William Jordan
Bush, 107, the last survivor of the 125,000 Georgians who followed Gen.
Robert E. Lee and a lost cause in the War Between the States.

Bush, who was born July 10, 1845 on the Bush Plantation in Wilkinson County,
Ga., enlisted in Company B of the 14th Georgia regiment the day before
his 16th birthday.

At 20, he was a veteran of many Civil War battles, including Atlanta, Cross
Key and Ducans Old Field.

His death today on the 34th anniversary of the end of another great war,
followed an illness of about two weeks. However, the veteran, spry well
into his 106th year, had been in failing health in recent months.

Now only eight Confederate Veterans are still living.

Funeral arrangements for Bush are incomplete. But W. W. Humphries, Fitzerald
American Legion Commander, said the entire state will be asked to join
in the funeral rights, and fly flags at half-staff.

Bush, who outlived all six of his children by his first marriage is survived
by his second wife, Mrs. Effie Sharp Bush, a school teacher he married
in Murphy, Ga., in 1922. He is also survived by 11 grand-children and 23
great grand-children.

The spry, cigar-smoking veteran with his shock of silver hair and one good
eye was a familiar figure at many of the 62 reunions of the United Confederate
Veterans.

He took his first plane ride to attend the final official reunion in Richmond,
Va., in 1951. He and William Townsend of Olla, La., also 106, were the
only veterans at the unofficial reunion in Jackson, Miss., last June.

A staunch Democrat, a Baptist and a Mason, he " lived by the law and God.
" He could " see well and hear well " and followed current events closely
through his radio and newspaper.

Rebels still alive are John Salling, 106, Slant, Va.; Arnold Murray, 105,
Orangeburg, S. C.; W. D. Townsend, 106, Olla, La. ; Walter W. Williams,
109, Franklin, Tex.; Thomas E. Riddle, 104, Austin, Tex., and William A.
Lundy, 101, of Laurel Hill, Fla.

Robert Calhoun


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