Marrying an Old Guy Was Way to Financial Security

I told my students about young girls marrying old Civil War veterans even when they were in their teens and early twenties and the vets in their sixties and the girls in the class issued forth a big "Yuck!!!"

I myself really wasn't aware of this until I read about the last Confederate widows dying around 2000.

These old men had financial security for poor girls in the form of pensions for their service.  And, quite a few of these old men became daddies at an advanced age.

This is why we now have the death of the last Real Son of a Confederate as well as all those Confederate Real Daughters and Union Real Sons.

--Old Secesh