Did Any Civil War Veterans Serve in World War I?

[The Iron Brigade]

Did any Civil War veterans serve in World War I? The answer is yes.

 

https://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/forum/1000-movie-tv-reviews/&do=add#

[The Iron Brigade]

Here is another such veteran.

 

https://sofrep.com/news/peter-conover-hains-the-only-known-veteran-of-the-civil-war-and-wwi/

 

[aerialbridge]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_D._Taussig

[The Iron Brigade]

Thank you for your post aerialbridge!

[aerialbridge]

You're welcome  and great topic!

[Backtheattack]

Thank`s for the information!

[ScottG]

Here is another, an enlisted man.     Scott

 

https://www.military.com/history/civil-war-veteran-who-lied-about-his-age-fight-world-war-i.html

[Andrew]

Scott, the article on Boucher (a British subject from the Canadas who joined the Union Army) is very interesting. I say 'the Canadas' because the Dominion of Canada was not formed until 1867 (partly as a consequence of the American Civil War).

 

The Boucher article also states that 620,000 Canadians lined up to serve in the Great War, but that is not quite true. Yes, there were about 620,000 enlistments in the CEF during the war. Some of these were repeat enlistments (ie, the same man enlisted more than once, sometimes under more than one surname).

 

The problem is that it was/is difficult to define exactly who was a 'Canadian' during 1914-18, given that there was no such thing as Canadian citizenship at that time. 

 

A huge percentage of the 'Canadians' who enlisted in Canada were actually British-born men. And at least 1 in 10, but probably more, were from the United States. 

If we consider the population of Canadian-born men of military service age during the Great War, the ratio of men who volunteered was about 1 in 5. If we look at British-born men, residing in Canada of military service age who volunteered, the ratio was about 3 in 4. In other words, most Canadian-born men found some reason not to get involved. 

Of 620,000, there were approximately 100,000 conscripts.

 

With all of this said, I had no idea that any CEF member had fought in the American Civil War.

[iron bender]

Excellent information Andrew. Thanks for sharing