Confederate veterans recognized as Americans
Confederate soldiers are also U.S. veterans. The U.S. government recognized Confederate veterans as equivalent to Union vets via the Congressional Act of 1900, signed June 6, 1903, the Congressional Act of 1906, by the 17th Congress in February 1929 and U.S. Public Law 85-425, Section 410, of May 1958.
These famous Americans were also descendants of Confederate States of America veterans:
•Marine Gen. John A Lejeune’s father was Confederate States Army Capt. Ovide Lejeune.
•Marine Lt. Gen. Lewis “Chesty” Puller’s grandfather was CSA Maj. John Puller, killed in 1953.
•Army Lt. Gen. George S. Patton III’s grandfather was CSA Col. George Patton, killed in 1864.
•The father of Army Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., killed in Okinawa in 1945 as commander of the U.S. 10th Army, was CSA Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner.
•U.S. Air Corps Brigadier Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest III was shot down and killed over Germany in 1942; his great grandfather was CSA Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest.
•President Theodore Roosevelt’s uncle was CSA Chief Foreign Agent, Capt. James D. Bullock, Confederate States Navy.
•President Woodrow Wilson’s father,Rev. J.R. Wilson, was CSA chaplain.
•President Harry S. Truman, who was a Sons of Confederate Veterans member, is a descendant of William Young, a trooper in the Missouri Partisan Rangers.
•CSA generals Joe Wheeler, Fitzhugh Lee, Thomas Rosser, Mathew C. Butler and Col. William Oates all served our nation after the war as generals in the Spanish-America War in 1898.
More than 70 million Americans, many of whom served honorably in our U.S. armed forces, are descended from these men.
After the war, Union and Confederate soldiers, sailors and marines came together in a national spirit of unity and reconciliation. Why can’t the rest of us?
Let’s honor all American veterans – their monuments, their symbols and their memories – as well as their flags.
There are no barriers to our human progress except those we erect ourselves.