Arnold Murray Last Surviving Confederate in the Carolinas?

By Garry Victor Hill

Summaryt: His Confederate Service is very possible.

Date of Birth: given as 10th June 1846 perhaps 1847/1848 and possibly as late as 1854/1855.

Date of Death: 26th November 1952

Age at enlistment: One newspaper in an obituary notice said he was fourteen, another claimed eighteen and another stated he was a teenager. He said he was “a youngster.” He may have been nine or ten.

Rank: Private (claimed)

Unit: 11th South Carolina Infantry. (claimed)

Possibly/Probably also the 4th South Carolina Cavalry from September 1863 until early 1864.

Service: Training and garrison on the coast of South Carolina. (claimed) Possibly also active service in Virginia and the Carolinas campaign

Combat Experience: No combat experience was claimed, but some may have occurred.

Length of service: “Late in the war” until just after Joseph Johnston’s surrender, for Murray this was probably in late April or early May 1865.

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Although many source notes are given much of this account of Arnold Murray’s life is based on the following sources:

‘Arnold Murray’ by Jay S. Hoar The South’s Last Boy’s in Gray Volume III of his trilogy pages 1694-1695

The Associated Press story of May 1951

Three obituaries from November 1952 by local papers and The Charlottesvile Observer

Arnold Murray Memorial Wall Fold 3 This contains several newspaper stories from the early 1950s and other information.

Irvin Shuler, Memorial Service Arnold Murray This booklet was put together for the December 2nd 2002 50th Anniversary Commemorative Service for the 1952 funeral Arnold Murray.

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Evidence of Service apart from his own accounts; After this book went into the first printing website statements by descendants mentioned evidence, which when assessed and credited, would verify Arnold Murray. This evidence includes enlistment documentation, letters written home while serving in the army and a Confederate medal. At this point in time these matters are being investigated by this writer and hopefully full verification will be in a later edition.

Two enlistments with his surname and different middle initials were in the 11th South Carolina Volunteers. Just the name “Arnold Murray” located in Charleston appears on two Confederate military documents in connection with a petition to transfer from the 4th South Carolina Cavalry into the 11th South Carolina Infantry. He knew the name of his commanding officers and where and when his unit was located.[1] He also had a photograph of his young self in Confederate uniform. In the 1930 census, he identified himself as a Confederate by writing yes to being a veteran and “civ” for the narrow column which asked in what conflict. He is listed as a Confederate veteran in a family bible, but this might be a 1980s comment. His death certificate lists him as a Confederate veteran. On May 28th 1913 he was in a group photo while attending a large Confederate Veteran’s Reunion in Tennessee, the last place where any faker with a grain of sense would go. He kept his Confederate uniform.[2] He was accepted as genuine by the state government’s pensions department.

This initially looks like a strong case, but military records show a perhaps muddled, and definitely ambiguous account. Even more muddled, mistaken ambiguous and at times ridiculously impossible census records may also, despite their many errors, still have a point against Confederate verification. At this point these factors reduce his status from verified to possible. However those who doubt the reliability of censuses also have a strong case when census documents concerning the Murray family are examined.

The reasons for being listed as debunked: Even among those who would seem to be his most ardent supporters, the Orangeburg Daughters of the Confederacy, there were some sceptics about his claims and archivists could find no record of his service.[3] He left the Civil War question in the 1910 census blank. Three early censuses are a major reason for doubt and so should be examined in depth. Strong if confused and evidence against verification concerns two soldiers with names A. Murray in the 11th South Carolina. The man who is often credited as being him, A.D. Murray of Company H cannot possibly be him. Details of the second enlistment for an A.B. Murray shows evidence for and against this being him, as large parts of this record are very different to Murray’s accounts, but others match. Arnold’s receiving a Confederate pension gives a motive for possible falsification. [4]

The debate: The Murray family suffered at the hands of the census takers more than most, beginning before Arnold’s birth and continuing into his nineties. Although records give his mother’s exact full name and her maiden name next to the full name of her husband in two records, she was listed as born in 1825 in one and in 1829 in another.[5] Apparently an illiterate man, in one census Arnold Murray misspelt his name Murry - or the census taker did. Either way in a house full of Murrays, the census collector did not pick up the error. Another stunning ambiguity was that somebody listed Arnold as head of the household and then listed a very large number as a son or daughter, by implication even the nine year old was his when he was ninety-four! Clearer 1950s accounts describe two daughters and a son and many grandchildren in the one household.[6]

More seriously, in 2010 a descendant of Arnold Murray’s brother went into the 1870 census lists and found her ancestors. She found both of Arnold Murray’s parents, and four of his siblings, giving full names which match those all correctly named in Ancestry.com. This website lists such sources as assorted censuses, obituaries, grave stones, family photos and voter registration lists.[7] Arnold appears there with his parents George and Elizabeth and his siblings. He is listed as sixteen years old on his last birthday. The badly written month seems to be July. If he was born in June, even allowing that the census month took place a month earlier, that means he could have at the most, been aged twelve when the war ended, and probably was as young as ten – if this document is reliable. This assumes that the census taker filled out the forms correctly. They are in his cramped to almost illegible handwriting. The 1880 census essentially repeats this idea, listing him as twenty-five last birthday, also meaning he was probably born in mid-1854. The 1900 census stays in line with this date. One document does list his birth year as about 1854. Initially this looks damning to his credibility. However the 1870s and 1880s censuses prove unreliable and contradict all censuses after and including that of 1910. The censuses officials and their believers stated that their own 1910 census for him did not exist, but it does. This mistake gives some idea of the unreliability of the censuses.

Every ten years the federal census supposedly counts every American. A researcher points out that he does not appear in the 1850 census, therefore he could not have been born before 1850.[8] While such negatives are usually flimsy as evidence, this time a valid point initially appears to have been made: despite Home Alone, forgetting a toddler must be difficult. The record here shows his parents and two of his brothers. James is born in 1846 in the family tree and in one document, but appears as apparently aged sixteen in the 1850 census, meaning his birthdate should be 1843 or 1844. The younger brother Arthur was born in 1849 - and then no other sibling appears. Like the 1870 and 1880 censuses, this also initially looks like a solid case - until the family censuses on both sides of the family are examined more closely.

The contradictions in this census marks just the start of the problems. Their father George Murray is listed as aged forty-eight here, meaning he was born in 1801 or 1802, but several other census documents put his birth year as 1825. Given his Civil War service as an infantryman the later date seems more likely. His wife is listed as aged thirty-eight, therefore she was born in 1811 or 1812, but other documents, while disagreeing with each other, as already mentioned, put her birth year well into the 1820s. The younger son Arthur, is listed correctly as being one year old in 1850 and his sister is fourteen. However if George, Elizabeth and James, three out of five all have their ages wrong by over a decade or two, can we trust their statement about Arnold’s birth year being wrong by around seven to nine years? Perhaps we could, if this was the last of the errors so far, but it is not. A great deal of other obvious evidence emerges against the census statements.

In the 1860 census only one man named George A. Murray in South Carolina is present. His birth year here is around 1805, while Arnold’s father was probably born in 1825. His Charleston parish address and his occupation are the same as in other censuses. His wife is Elizabeth, but her birth year is around a decade earlier than Arnold’s mother’s and no James, Arthur, or Arnold appear. Instead there are ten different children listed. Only one, Mary has a name the same as those listed in the 1870 census for the Murrays and her birthdate is very different. These children have birthdates ranging from 1836/1837 to 1849/1850. In the 1860 census at least three of these names are misspelled, when compared to what they were a decade before. Unless the census taker mixed up the parents putting Arnold’s parents at the top of a list of other children (totally possible from the levels of competency suggested so far) this must be another family. This probability must be so when transcriptions from their family bible are compared. Amazingly two men named George Murray, both with the initial A and with wives named Elizabeth, just might have lived in the same parish in Charleston. Cousins? Not even in the muddled world of the censuses can parents have ten children suddenly appearing to replace another vanished group. Or can they?

In a 1981 transcription of their family marriages listed in the family Bible birthdates refers to a missing Rachel from the list and then the names of two sets of children are listed. A list of marriages involving several of these ten children including a marriage among the two families, involving Arnold, conclusive proof that they are two different families. These children are listed sequentially, number first, name next, then the letter M for married and the name of the person they married. In the transcription next to Laura, (born 1848/1849 by the 1860 census) is an obvious marriage to the Civil War claimant Arnold Murray, who they list here by his full name. He is described as “Confederate veteran” but it remains unclear if this is modern information (there are several such annotations) or 1870s writing transcribed. The family tree, but not the bible, has her maiden name or middle name as Bunch; was she widowed or adopted? No trace of a Laura Bunch shows up on the South Carolina archives. Marriages among cousins were common, but is this the case here? Or was a mistake made in the transcription, mixing up two Lauras? Given the orderly detail on the list this seems unlikely.[9] Perhaps the error about the name Bunch is in the family tree. This bride would show up as Arnold’s wife in all the censuses they filled out up to her death in 1930.

This transcription can be seen among the Arnold Murray documents at Ancestry.com. Tracing copyright may be difficult as the writers appear to be elderly in 1981.

The Murray family tree also gives her an 1848 birthdate, as does the 1850 and 1860 censuses and her tombstone. The 1910 census gives her a birthdate of about 1843. That of 1920 gives around 1845, but the 1880 census gives Laura’s age as 26. For that to be correct four other censuses and a family tree must all be wrong and wrong by at least six years. Another factor is that women at that time seldom marry men six or seven years younger, perhaps… The 1910 census states they were married thirty-eight years, which means 1871/1872. Arnold marrying between the possible ages of fifteen/sixteen to seventeen/eighteen seems young for marriage, especially for a male, especially as the first child Darcas, apparently named after one of Laura’s siblings, was born in 1876. The 1910 census incidentally puts a line in Arnold’s first initial, making it look like a H and computerised lists recording it as such, creating a whole new non-existent person. This makes it seem that a new man has become household head in their home at Orangeburg County and fathered Arnold’s already growing children. In that census Arnold’s birth year is now recorded as 1842 and he claims literacy, but not Civil War service in that question box. The computerised version lists his age in 1910 as sixty-eight then forty-eight, but the original document seems to be clearly 68. Either age seems unlikely, not matching any other.

Laura Murray has been put through exactly the same process as her husband, having her birth date and age mistakenly recorded by about six years either way, giving her birth as from around 1843 to 1854. While it could be argued that Arnold had a motive in concealing his real age to get the Confederate veteran’s pension, Arnold’s wife had no such motive and the old documents cannot be forged. Yet another case of massive census errors has emerged here and of census documents contradicting each other.

In the same note that said the 1870 census cast doubt on Arnold’s record the researcher mentions that all the census records they have for Arnold Murray show that he was “born in the area of 1854-1855.”[10] This is vague for a census, which usually relies on precise ages or states otherwise. There may be confusion with others. Two Arnold Murrays listed in the later census documents, and an Arnold Murry, all three apparently born or raised in Charleston. Given the census levels of unreliability it is entirely possible that all three different entries are not for three people but for one. The misspelling Murry also appears in later census documents applying to Arnold Murray. He stated that he was born near Holly Hill and Monks Corner before counties were drawn up.[11] He moved to Orangeburg County in the Reconstruction era. This suggests there may be no official records and that he might not know his birth date, he was illiterate. This writer’s computer search and search by letters in likely places around Orangeburg has turned up nothing. Arnold’s in law’s family Bible apparently ran out of space for new entries in genealogies in the early 1840s.[12]

Little reliance can be placed on the 1870 census after comparing it to other censuses or the Murray family tree. This tree remains incomplete, may contain errors and it does not list all the children of Arnold and Laura. No mention of her parents or siblings exists there: as his father’s siblings are recorded they were not first cousins. Of Arnold’s six siblings listed in the census, only one. Anna aged seven, has an age that agrees with the family tree birth year of 1863. Arnold’s younger brother Julius is out by two years, to be expected with the census’s usual last birthday rule, but Mary Ann, referred to as just Mary, gets a census age of twenty- five when she is born in 1852 by the family tree. George is listed as eight when he was five sometime that year. William, turning ten that year, is not even listed. This is not due to an early death; he lived until 1916. The problem of Arnold being unlisted with his parents in the 1850 census finds a match and therefore an answer here. Others unspecified who are apparently not the children of George and Elizabeth are included. They may be adopted, visiting relatives or house servants but the census does not specify.

The 1930 census demonstrates again how unreliable the census collectors were. Arnold (described as “farther”) is sandwiched between his sons Lee (name misspelled) and Lewis. With the description “brother” below Arnold’s name it reads as if his son Lewis was his brother.

What does put Arnold Murray’s credibility into question more than the erroneous and ridiculously confused censuses is his claim that he was born on 10th June 1846. Whoever supplied the information in the 1870/1880 censuses gave him a much later birth year that cannot be explained by the frequent two year problem of requesting the age as of last birthday. In the Arnold family tree they accept Arnold’s 1846 birthdate and place it next to his brother James, 1846-1860. The options are that they were twins, somebody got James’s birth year wrong (most likely given his 1850 census age) or Arnold cannot have been born in 1846.

It would be easy to say that the 1854/55 birthdate is so what? He must have been a child soldier, but if this claim that he was born in 1854/1855 is true, what do we make of the photograph which shows a young man who looks like he is a teenager?

It is possible but very unlikely to be the photograph of a boy of aged around ten, even if at the war’s end, South Carolina Confederates took them this young for infantry – and like other Confederates we know of, they probably did. “Big for his age” applies to William Townsend and may apply here, but to give some idea of the odds consider some personal observations. I went to an all-male school of over a thousand students and have taught High School and some primary for over twenty-five years, that makes for contact with thousands of adolescent boys and the “big for his age” “mature looking for his age” is fairly unusual. As a rough and generous estimate it applies to around four hundred out of several thousand I have taught or gone to school with. I did teach one such boy recently, turning twelve recently, he was continually taken for around sixteen or seventeen. He could, in a Confederate uniform, be a twin of the boy in the photograph. That makes me more receptive to Murray as a true veteran than many. It also gives good grounds for doubting the census.

After putting this late birth date as dubious it should be pointed out that possibly both the census birth year of 1854 and his military service to both be true. As previously mentioned, nearly thirty known Confederate soldiers were verified at eleven or under and Susan R. Hull mentions coming across records of several aged eleven or twelve – and she did not launch a systematic search for them. Arnold Murray did say he enlisted as a youngster.[13] What does make the photo creditable are the obituaries which give separate information that have him enlisting in 1865 and put his age at enlistment as fourteen.

Considering that the alternative must be to give a respected man who told people to always be honest the reputation for fraud and hypocrisy, some caution with contrary, muddled and missing information must be the best option. Such a view is also very probably justified by reality: where Sherman marched Southern youngsters enlisted and officers were desperate for recruits. With three census documents against him, three other census documents go in Murray’s favour as a Civil War participant, those of 1920, 1930 and 1940. The 1910 census gives information for and against. The same supplier of the 1854/1855 probable birthdate quotes a 1920 census giving his age as seventy-two. In the 1930 census he also gives his birth date as about 1848 and in the Life magazine article of 30th May 1949 his age is given as 101. (see the above photo. Life states that they did carefully check all records).[14] These are all plausible dates and they make the Confederate photo plausible; the boy in the photograph looks more like fifteen to twenty than ten to twelve. However only the 1940 census and his death certificate give the precise 1846 date. Was this because pension requirements demanded it so he searched through records?

The birth dates 1854/1855 do not preclude Confederate service on age but do make it much less likely; it means he would have been younger than most of the frontline boy soldiers and teenagers of the Georgia State Militia when his war ended. In The South’s Last Boys in Gray Professor Hoar lists twenty-two known boys aged under twelve serving in the Confederate forces. Of these only one is a musician and most have some fighting role.[15] This writer found four more such fighters mentioned elsewhere. Even this record must be incomplete as it cannot list the many who overstated their age so as to enlist.

The 1913 reunion photo, while still strong evidence for Murray, seems to be not as good as it could have been. The names of the men at the 1913 reunion who were in the photo total eight but only six are in the photo. Their names are on paper scraps that were with the photo; they do not indicate names in order, but he is on the list. Three could be Murray but one of these, the tallest, is very probably Pleasant Crump. Among the six others one is identified as Renes Lee. Two others look stockier than Murray and one of these must almost certainly be Doctor Riddle. Another has a skull shape different to Murray’s. That still leaves two possibilities and one, the man on the end in his Confederate uniform, does look very much like him in Life. Murray’s height was five foot seven and this man looks about that height.[16] If Murray was born in 1854 and so was possibly too young to be the Confederate in the Civil War photo, he appears as too old to be born in 1854/55 for the 1913 image, for all these men look like they are well past sixty. That same shoe now goes on the other foot: those wishing to disprove Murray on age will have a stretch to prove that any of these men are only in their late fifties. This photo provides strong proof for his claim in another way, for to attend such a reunion, and particularly posing in a Confederate uniform for a group photo, can only be very strange, motiveless and foolish behaviour for someone posing as a veteran. At a large national conference such as that he would have been risking meeting men from the large unit he claimed to be in or be picked up as a fraud as soon as recollections or questions started.

The case of Arnold Murray and his family provides examples of how unreliable census records could be. Although the censuses are always used to disparage his claim and label him a fraud the more creditable and therefore more damaging information comes from the military world. This gets little attention.

The 1870 census also reveals an A. D. Murray born in Shelbyville in 1840. Earlier censuses and slave owner schedules also list an A.F. D. Murray as a slave owner in South Carolina: either man might be the man who served in the 11th South Carolina Volunteers, but the Shelbyville resident seems more likely. His census and enlistment ages and his company designation all match. Two men with Arnold’s first initial and surname were known as 11th South Carolina enlistments and A.D. Murray’s original documented record contains details that preclude him from being Arnold Murray. A.D. Murray aged twenty, enlisted in July 1861. He was captured during the Virginia campaigns in June 1864, but stayed on the rolls till August 31st of that year.[17] He survived over a year in the hellish prison camp at Elmira and was freed around the time he took the Oath of Allegiance in July 1865. On age, enlistment date and being removed from the scene at a time Arnold claimed service this cannot be him. What is interesting and would strongly count against Arnold Murray is that this man served in Company H. This company identifying letter and the man’s middle initial often appear as being Arnold’s in secondary writings, so where does the information come from? We read of Arnold D. Murray 1846-1953 who served in Company H 11th South Carolina Volunteers. This company was under the Command of a Captain Raysor. In Roger Hux’s sceptical article he quotes from a 1950 interview were Murray identified this man as his captain.[18] Professor Hoar gives different names for Arnold’s commanders, Captain Owens and Lieutenant Minus.[19] In the 1930 census Arnold is listed as Arnold D. Murray and so far this nomenclature does not appear anywhere else. If it were proven that Arnold Murray insisted in his pension application or in interviews that he was the only A.D. Murray of Company H serving under Captain Raysor, his claims would be extremely dubious, at best.

The record of the second man, A.B. Murray reveals evidence showing that he might be Arnold Murray. He initially enlisted in the 4th South Carolina Cavalry in September 1863 and was transferred at his request to Company B of the 11th South Carolina in February 1864. Although most documents list him by his initials and surname, two other Confederate documents show that he was either Arnold Murray or that he had the same name as Arnold Murray. His transfer into the 11th South Carolina Infantry in early 1864 was while they were training along the coast near Charleston, roughly where and when Arnold Murray said that he served. If this is so it is a quartet of coincidences consisting of both having the same full name, and being in the same locale and organization and enlisting at roughly the same time. That makes for quite a stretch!

A.B. Murray was hospitalised in Richmond that May with a minnie ball in the back and hospitalised again in the same Richmond Hospital for almost all of that December with diarrhoea. He was paroled at Greensboro on May 1st 1865. Clearly his service record appears as very different to Arnold’s account to the extent that they if both accounts are accepted at face value and as substantially complete they are very unlikely to be the same person. Matching information makes for a puzzle.

The 11th South Carolina Field and Staff with companies B,C,F,G,H,I,and K marched from Camp Milton, Florida to Charleston, arriving on April 21st 1864 and were stationed at Sullivan’s Island, where Murray said they were and where he said he served, but they left on May 1st 1864 for the fighting at Petersburg, Virginia.[20] their movements after winter were southwards to oppose the attempt to sieze Wilmington and then they moved against Sherman's advance.[21]

Murray said he joined “in the latter part of the war” in one account and in 1864 in another while a third enlists him in 1865.[22] He also said that he did not fight, but trained, first at James Island and then at Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island.[23] He correctly remembered this as their training base. and both The soldiers there were apparently trainees intended for the regiment, but seem to have served as a defacto garrison.

The enlistment/ transfer documents for A.B. Murray from the cavalry to the 11th South Carolina are reproduced in this segment and while this man’s enlistment differs in many details from what Murray said decades later, there are three similar Confederate military documents that refer to Arnold Murray by that name. One probably refers to a Georgia enlistment as it contains the name Arza - and nothing else. The other two both definitely link him to the man from the 4th S.C. Cavalry. and they place him in Charleston and Black Oak, South Carolina. One bears the word ‘petition’ and they both refer to seeing “the personal papers of a Private M.N. Waring of Company K of the 4th South Carolina.”[24] Was this a friend who wrote and read for the illiterate Murray? These facts suggest the personal papers had something to do with the transfer because he no longer had a horse. A.B. Murray’s reproduced petitioning letter was written by an officer.

One factor does count against A.B. Murray being Arnold Murray and that is the use of the middle initial, he apparently never had one or at least did not use it. A clue for why this might be so emerges from the pictured forms. While the words Arnold Murray appears in the forms where space seems ample, A.D Murray and A.B. Murray - almost always appear in large handwriting on the smaller cramped documents, where not enough space appears as obvious. Even A.D. abbreviates all that man’s initials. With two men having the same surname and initial in the same organisation, some form of differentiation was necessary.[25] Was this the explanation? Interestingly the medical report for May 15th which deals with his Minnie ball wounding, just lists “A. Murray.”

This enlistment opens up four possibilities, the first is that there were three men with the surname Murray and the initial A, two previously mentioned were enlisted; Arnold was not. He may have not been there long enough for the time lapse in enlistments to take place, especially after the surrender at Appomattox. An enlisting clerk may have not wanted the confusion of another A.Murray. Fifty, sixty or more years later Arnold may have just agreed with an official who finding the name of A.D. Murray assumed this was the same man

The next possibility is distasteful, reluctantly considered and without supporting evidence apart from early muddled censuses, the Company H identification and possibly the middle initial D. Did Arnold Murray, wanting the pension in old age, find or know of a soldier with the same name, knew of his details and steal his identity? Apart from the massive coincidence of two men with the same name being in the same area and one of them conveniently being an enlisted soldier, other probabilities go against it.

Everything about the man’s character that this writer has read, both from his own words and the opinions of those who knew him, suggests that he was an honest, respected man would not have done this. Second no strong motive for money emerges. Arnold Murray lived a life of ample self-sufficiency that met his simple tastes and had relatives to care for him. Third, any fraud taking over A.B. Murray’s identity would not have boxed himself in with information about not killing anybody and only doing training in South Carolina, especially when A.B. Murray was a long term three year enlistment in a well-known and hard fighting unit that served in the Virginian and Carolinas campaigns. If sensible he would have avoided interviews altogether or talked vaguely or researched the history of the man or the unit at least and mentioned that he had been fighting in Virginia and the Carolinas. The problem that applies to any identity theft before the computer age soon emerges: the likely risk of detection. Arnold Murray attended at least one veteran’s reunion where somebody from the large 11th South Carolina could have said that he was not A.B. Murray. Whoever he was, the man listed by those initials survived the war and if his identity was stolen, the thief would have had to know he was dead and had no surviving relatives or friends to expose him. Pension fraud could easily lead to jail and definitely lead to ostracism, fines and disgrace. The fact that no A.B. Murray in South Carolina emerges in postwar Confederate pension records (albeit incomplete records) censuses (albeit muddled and incomplete) or apparently anywhere else suggests, but does not prove, that Arnold Murray was A.B. Murray. Coming from the other side even conjectural evidence to prove that they were two different men seems non-existent, apart from the second initial, which also seems weak evidence.

Another possibility emerging could be that Arnold Murray’s military service was at least in parts very different to what he did state. Going by the regiment’s history, and this documentation, he probably was training where and when he stated. If he was born in 1846 the photo of him as a Civil War soldier does make sense – and so does a late 1863 enlistment and his statement about wanting to enlist so as to go North to Virginia to fight like his father and older brother were.[26] He was probably telling the truth about not killing anyone. No evidence emerges that he was lying. By the time of his cavalry enlistment between September 1863 and February 1864 the cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia where involved in few big battles, being used more for raiding, screening, scouting, foraging and escorting.[27] If his cavalry enlistment was at Green Pond South Carolina in September 1863 and the fighting season ended with the first frosts in late autumn there would have been little time left for campaigning – if he even made it to Virginia as a cavalryman. As an infantryman he did get there, but initially not for long. The 11th South Carolina left Charleston for days of travel to Virginia starting on May 1st and he was hospitalised with the Minnie ball in the back on May 15th and then sent to a Columbia, South Carolina hospital. It is unclear for how long he stayed there, but by December 2nd he was back in Richmond, in the same hospital. When he said that he did not fight, did he mean that stints in the unattacked trenches at Petersburg did not involve actual fighting, at least for him? His unit was involved in heavy fighting at Avesboro and Bentonville in early 1865, but was he there? His involvement at the surrender of his unit at Greensboro suggest that this was so.

Why would the man who told people to always tell the truth not tell everything about his war experiences? Veterans who dislike talking about war’s more horrible experiences seem more common than happy warriors. In his last years the Murray family had to cope with the battlefield death of his namesake and grandson in Korea. Discussing battlefields with interviewers would have been painful, tasteless and best avoided. Being shot in the back, enduring the dreary horrors of the Petersburg siege and enduring hospitalisation for a month with diarrhoea, were hardly the tales of military glory that interviewers wanted to hear.

While this remains conjectural, the alternative for those who insist that Arnold Murray was born in 1854 have to believe in the previously mentioned quartet of coincidences or explain why a nine year old’s name appears on military documents. This cannot be creative identity theft through forgery by Arnold Murray. The documents are very old and one of the very few things the census takers got repeatedly right was his first name, and they got that right about forty to sixty years before he applied for the pension.

While evidence still remains inconclusive for full verification enough evidence exists to lift him above the status of debunked. His listing as very possible has a basis on the evidence summarised below.

The census documents that supposedly disprove him on age are too full of errors, ambiguities, omissions, contradictions and dubious statements to prove or disprove anything. He had the two photographs, one from the Civil War, one from the 1913 reunion. He kept his Confederate uniform. He knew the names of his immediate commanding officers and where and when the unit trained. He made the 1930 affirmation. In the censuses of 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940 he gave ages consistent with Civil War service, Life magazine’s stated age did the same and matched the later censuses. The awarded pension means someone verified his claims. The 1952 death certificate stated his veteran’s status. The description of “Confederate Veteran” is in the in-laws family Bible. The enlistment documents for an A.B. Murray are ambiguous, but his full name on related Confederate military documents are not.

An apparent disagreement arises between censuses and Professor Hoar’s research, based in family accounts in the Reconstruction Era. In the 1870 and 1880 censuses he was a Charleston labourer. In Professor Hoar’s account he returned to Monk’s corner partly by rail and partly by foot after the war and lived there a few years. He may have worked as a Charleston labourer in the summer months between spring planting and autumn harvesting: this was also census time. He married Laura a few years after the war’s end and in Arnold’s vague words “We kept gwine up country till finally we got to Orangeburg.” [28]

Once on a farm nine miles from Orangeburg they lived a life of peaceful self-sufficiency, growing or hunting and fishing for the family’s own food and keeping pigs and cows. There was the peace of the forests, the abundant birdlife and the view from the rocker on the porch. This peaceful life was marred thrice. Arnold and Laura outlived some of their children, then Laura died in 1930. War returned to Arnold’s life when his grandson was killed in the Korean War. Like so many of these aged veterans, he enjoyed good health until his last few months, still walking regularly until just before heart failure started. On his hundredth birthday he went hunting and proved himself a crack shot.[29] Unfortunately the grandson who witnessed this does not mention the date of that event. However the fact that he celebrated a hundredth birthday at least two years before the census stated he turned a hundred in 1954 says something.

Disproving Arnold Murray’s service must start with finding better evidence than the extraordinarily confusing and egregiously wrong censuses. Disproving the favourable evidence will be essential – and extremely difficult. For verification any further statements or recollections made by Arnold Murray, the full names and lives of Privates A.D. and A.B. Murray (if he had a separate existence) and Murray’s birth or baptismal certificate, his original pension application and the history of his unit are crucial. Further research producing strong evidence such as that referred to but not reproduced in 2014 on a website will be needed to counter the negatives if he will ever be verified – or disproved.

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This is an abridged excerpt from America’s Last Civil War Participants: An Investigation by Garry Victor Hill. The full and illustrated text can be found for free at my website garryvictorhill.com.au/ Hopefully this will also be an e-book. Twenty eight other claimed Civil War survivors alive after 1951 are also assessed.

[1] Roger K. Hux, p11. This information comes from a 1950 interview with Arnold Murray by James A. Rogers.; Hoar also mentions Arnold knowing his officers but gives different names Vol. III p1694

[2] This is apparent from a group photo with names on the back in a computer catalogue specialising in Confederate antiques. Among the others are Pleasant Crump and a Thomas E. Riddle of Texas who is more likely to be a doctor of that name than Thomas Evans Riddle. TennRebGirl.com 3/4/2014.

[3] Hux p10.

[4] Unsigned Article, Arnold Murray 1846-1952. Wednesday July 18th 2007. p2.

[5] See ancestry .com Elizabeth Olive Murray (nee Groom) Wife of George Edward Allen Murray. Compare the first entry of the printout page 1 with the one on page 4.

[6] Unsigned Article, Arnold Murray 1846-1952. Wednesday July 18th 2007. http://sclohistorian.blogspot.comau/2007/07arnold-murray-1846-1952.html

[7] Louise Murray-Pino, “Re: Arnold Murray, the Last Confederate Veteran of the Carolinas died in 1952.” January 3rd 2010. Genforum /Genealogy.com. In reply to JC Block. http://genforum.genealogy.comsc/messages/23787.html; Ancestry.com

[8] JD Block posting in reply to Nancie O’Sullivan “Arnold Murray Confederate Veteran Living in 1950.” http:/genforum.genealogy.com/sc/orangeburg/messages/415.html dated August 5th 2005.

[9] In 1981 Members of the Murray family Minnie Murray and Tressie, wrote out by hand family ancestry from their 1829 family Bible. Arnold’s marriage and his Confederate service are mentioned, but not his date of birth. See “Murray Family Info from Tressie Murray” http://trees. Ancestry.com/tree/12744280/photo/v DErOj U51KDdyo71 Vxxn FhOjV!8Bw…S

[10] Arnold Murray 1846-1952 Postnote.

[11] Unsigned report “S.C. Mourns Last Rebel Soldier.” Charlotte Observer. Nov 27th 1952.

[12] The last new individual entries stop in 1841 but some extra information is added for those already there.

[13] Unsigned article, Charlotte Observer November 27th 1952. Associated Press May 1951 story.

[14] John Osborne, Life May 30th 1949. p9.

[15] Hoar, Vol. III pp1733-1734.

[17] Confederate Abstract from the South Carolina Department of Archives & History. 22nd April 2014. Documents checked in Fold 3 contain this information and the other facts mentioned here containing his war service. This can be found by following these steps I open Civil War records. 2 Open Confederate Records 3 Type Arnold Murray in the search bar.

[18] Hux p11 The interview was conducted by James A. Rogers for the Florence Evening News.

[19]Hoar, previous citation;

[20] John P. Deeben, Archives I Reference Section e-mail 3rd October 2014. His source is Compiled Records Showing Service of Military Units in Confederate Organizations. South Carolina National Archives Microfilm Publication M861.

[21] Steve Batson, '11th South Carolina Infantry'. South Carolina in the Civil War. A Website.

[22] The different enlistment dates come from the different obituaries

[23] Hoar, Vol. III p1694

[24]

[25] A few years ago I had two students named Corey Campbell in the same form. One had to be given an initial he had not used regularly before to stop assorted forms of chaos in the official documents and day to day practicalities.

[26] Associated Press May 1951 Story

[27] George Augustus Sala, “On a New Kind of War.’(1865) Reproduced by Sears, pp208-209.; Catton pp358-359.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Ibid.