During the summer of 1911, there was a large gathering of Civil War veterans
of Orange County. Over 166 vets were present and enjoyed the festivities. An
article was reprinted in the Spring Valley Herald in the Fall of 1911 that
clearly gave a reason for so many veterans still alive , 46 years after the
end of the war.
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We forget that the civil war was waged for the most part by mere boys. Of
the 2,278,588 who enlisted on the Union side, practically all of them were
boys. The 118,000 of this number who were over twenty-one years of age form
but a fractional part of the enormous total of 2,278,588. A million of this
total were, at enlistment, between eighteen and twenty-one. About three
hundred thousand were eighteen. About six hundred thousand were seventeen,
some one hundred thousand from fourteen to fifteen years old. Three hundred
were thirteen, 225 were twelve, thirty-eight were eleven and there were
twenty-five who were only 10 years of age at the time of enlistment. The
figures on the southern side would probably show a yet earlier age. It is
this fact that keeps the pension roll alive today. If the average soldier
was twenty at enlistment, he would be today but seventy-one years old, and
his wife would be yet younger. - Chicago Post.