PVT 46 Missouri Infantry∼Jefferson City Post Tribune
Contributed by Barbara


Description: Fibbed to Get in Army; Death Takes 105-Year-Old Civil War Vet Claimed by 2 States
Date: March 19 1951

Newspaper published in: Jefferson City Missouri

Source: Microfilm

Page/Column: Page 3

John Hutchinson, Oklahoma and Missouri's last Civil War veteran of the Union army, is dead at the age of 105.

Hutchinson broke his hip Jan. 12 in a fall here at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Doshier Holdaway. He died yesterday, 11 days after returning from an Oklahoma city hospital.

Both states claim the war veteran, who joined the Union army from Ozark county, Missouri, in 1864, and has lived first in one state then the other the past 50 years.

His advice to folks who want to live to be a hundred:

"Don't ever worry, and lead a peaceful life."

But his life was far from quiet, especially after the age of 18 when he fibbed that he was 19 to get into the fighting.

The killing of his uncle by three Confederate soldiers in the field near his home made him eager for battle, Hutchinson explained.

The battles he describes as "just little scraps."

"They put 2,000 of us down on the Arkansas line to put down the guerillas." he recalled. "They were all the way from little squads up to groups of 200. They camped in those White river hills - and believe me they raised plenty of cain."

The hardy oldster outlived his wife and four of his 11 children. But seven children survive along with 185 other descendents. They include 94 grandchildren, 64 great-grandchildren, 27 great-great-grandchildren, and several great-great-great-grandchildren.

Immediate survivors include four daughters, Mrs. Holdaway; Mrs. Gertrude Chandler, Bristow, Okla.; Mrs. Dora McCullough, Orcutt, Calif., Mrs. Cora Dunn, Bakersfield, Calif.; Three sons Virgil Hutchinson, Newpart, Ark.; and Fred and Homer Hutchinson, Ava, Okla.

Born in Grange county, Tennessee, March 14, 1846, Hutchinson returned to Ozark county after the war, moving to Ava, Mo., a few years later. His wife died in 1915.

On coming to Oklahoma in 1917, the war veteran settled near Davenport for a while serving as school custodian there.

In 1926 he returned to Ava, but in 1943 came back to Stroud to live with his daughter, Mrs. Holdaway, at whose home he died. He received a $150 monthly pension.

The Missouri state senate's eulogy on March 14 - his 105th birthday - found Hutchinson seriously ill. "It is a miracle he is still alive." a doctor said.

The last few years of his life Hutchinson spent in corresponding with other civil war veterans.

He smoked a pipe for 60 years, finally "gave up chewing" 20 years ago, read newspapers until 1949, and got around on his cane without assistance until the hip injury.

Remarking on the public dread of modern war weapons, Hutchinson said "we had just as much trouble with cannon and muskets."

"The trouble with those single ball muskets - a man was just as well off in front of them as behind them. You never knew which way they were going to shoot."

His homespun philosophy about war:

"War today is not any worse or better than it was back in 1864. It's all bad. You wade in mud and water up to your neck, and then after it's over you don't know why you went."

Arrangements are pending for funeral and burial in Ava.