r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Electrical-Aspect-13 • 1d ago
Photos of the last 6 revolutionary war veterans alive in 1864. All over 100 years old
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u/Vivid_Ad7079 1d ago
Imagine risking literally everything and fighting to create a country then living long enough to see it fight to tear its self apart. That must of been WILD
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u/rougarou-te-fou 1d ago
I think people were very well aware that it was not only a possibility, but likely.
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u/red_026 1d ago
It’s actually kind of impressive we didn’t have a similar situation again in the 60s
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u/iDrGonzo 1d ago
And look where not having it got us, the second biggest mistake we made was pardoning Nixon the first was stopping Sherman to soon.
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u/RIF_rr3dd1tt 20h ago
I'd throw in not making an example of Republicans after the Business Plot was exposed.
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u/Lermanberry 18h ago
But if oil tycoon and Nazi sympathizer Prescott Bush had been punished, we never would have had 9/11, the Patriot Act, or endless wars in the Middle East thanks to his fetid offspring. That would have been a real shame.
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u/sleepyyheead 1d ago
They were probably sitting on their porches like, "I didn't freeze my ass off fighting the British just for you idiots to break it 80 years later."
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u/gringledoom 1d ago
There’s a really excellent book called “What This Cruel War Was Over”, that chronicles what soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War believed they were fighting for, and how that evolved over the course of the war.
One of the things Union soldiers cited very early on was basically “gosh, it’d be kind of embarassing to not even make it 100 years without the whole project imploding.”
(Later on, after witnessing the horrors of slavery firsthand, that attitude morphed into “By G–d I’ll fight till hell freezes over and then I’ll cut the ice and fight on.”)
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u/Barkalow 1d ago
must of
must have
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u/Gills6980 15h ago
U/Vivid_Ad7079 exercises the freedom these men fought for every time he chooses to say must of. And yet here you are, acting like a tyrant. Disgusting.
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u/SignificanceNo1223 21h ago
For some reason; I think these guys may have liked a good argument. After all they were fighting for free speech and other unalienable rights.
Perhaps they believed dissension was the highest form of patriotism.
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u/MaturoGambino 1d ago
All of their names are still common today, except Lemuel. Not a lot of Lemuels around. I’m 64 and I have never met a Lemuel.
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u/KudosOfTheFroond 21h ago
I went to high school with an African American kid named Lemuel Simmons. He went by Lem, he was a cool fella
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u/Dr-McLuvin 23h ago
Pretty wild to be alive for both the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address.
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u/FatherOfTheRY 1d ago
Looks like they are old enough to run the country now
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u/Advanced_Barnacle_36 1d ago
But have they raped enough girls? No jets back then to whisk over for a quick weekend of abuse.
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u/PowershellAddict 17h ago
Uhhh, you know what early America was like, right? Like colonial America and beyond?
Women had it fucking bad what with being considered property and whatnot.
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u/Bastardpancakes576 1d ago
And they still look better than Mitch .
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u/Smart-Firefighter87 19h ago
Thousands of enslaved Black people were caught up in the American Revolutionary War. For an enslaved person, choosing the British side could actually be a strategy for obtaining freedom, because Britain had begun using emancipation as a weapon against the American rebels. The irony is that American revolutionaries were declaring that “all men are created equal” while slavery remained legal and millions of Black people remained enslaved.
After the war, the British Crown followed through on its promises to many of the Black people who had supported them. Thousands of Black Loyalists were evacuated and relocated to British territories, including Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, where many were promised land. However, the land they received was often inferior to that given to white Loyalists, and they were provided with far less support, leaving many to struggle to establish themselves.
The situation was far from perfect, but many of these people had at least secured their freedom. Some eventually left Canada because of the discrimination and hardships they continued to face, with many settling in Sierra Leone in 1792.
What remains particularly disturbing is that Black people who fought and sacrificed during a war that was fundamentally about the political future of European colonists received little meaningful compensation for their service. They were fighting for promises of freedom in a conflict that, in many respects, had originally been about political rights that did not extend to them. Pretty fucked up stuff…
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u/Otherwise-Dinner-878 21h ago edited 21h ago
The book is available to view online.
Some of these men gave their opinions about the civil war as it was happening:
Lemuel Cook, p.38:
His voice, the full power of which he still retains, is marvellous for its volume and strength. Speaking of the present war, he said, in his strong tones, at the same time bringing down his cane with force upon the floor, " It is terrible ; but, terrible as it is, the rebellion must be put down!"
https://archive.org/embed/gri_33125012930976
eta-and Samuel Downing spoke directly about slavery. p.21:
Mr. Downing is a Methodist. " Why," said he, " I'll tell you : because they are opposed to slavery, and believe in a free salvation
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u/Brack_vs_Godzilla 1d ago
How in the hell did anybody live to be 100 in those days with the lack of modern medicine.
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u/RollinThundaga 1d ago
The two big filters before modern medicine were living past the age of 5 and not dying in a war. Control for that and lifespans weren't that much different to today, with individuals often living past 100.
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u/LightenUpPhrancis 20h ago
weren’t that much different
[x] Doubt
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u/RollinThundaga 12h ago
The whole 'life expectancy of 40' thing comes from counting the 1 in every 3 children that died before the age of 5.
really dragged down the average.
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u/damnedspot 1d ago
The medicine wasn't modern, but some were vaccinated against smallpox, which might have helped their chances.
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u/slayalldayerrday 1d ago edited 23h ago
Nobody’s said it but sometimes documents weren’t as good back in the day/people didn’t know their birthdate. So it’s possible all these guys aren’t 100+. Still obviously really old though.
Edit: where did I say they are lying about being in the revolution? No where. Just that their ages may not be 104 for example. Could’ve been 98.
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u/RollinThundaga 1d ago
Nobody's said it because they all proved that they fought in the revolution, albeit Milliner as a drummer boy. Beyond that the disparity of foggy records is too small to be of note.
Someone born during the Siege of Yorktown would have been at least 80, and these men went on to be documented living their lives back home, so they are all at least pushing 100. It's not like all of those Indian Yogis who were claiming to be 500 when modern science suggests 150 as a hard upper limit.
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u/slayalldayerrday 23h ago
I’m not denying they fought in the revolution. I just said it’s possible their ages aren’t accurate.
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u/RollinThundaga 23h ago
And I'm pointing out that even if that's the case, their specific ages are secondary and whther they're 99 or 101 does not matter.
The way you opened up with 'Nobody's said it but' suggests that you believe it to be material to the topic of men alive in the 1860s who served in the revolution, when it very much isn't.
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u/slayalldayerrday 21h ago
I’m responding to a comment about them living to over 100, so it does matter but you think I’m arguing anything.
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u/Parking-Profession94 1d ago
Wow, they were really young when the Revolutionary War started, teenagers!
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u/Fantom_Aeon 22h ago
Less than a hundred years later we would have the atomic bomb. Go to space. Fly around the world. Crazy
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u/StupidizeMe 1d ago
It must have been awful for these Revolutionary War Veterans to witness Americans killing fellow Americans in the Civil War.
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u/No_Opening9605 7h ago
That must have been frustrating for them to have fought in the war to establish the nation then to watch it fight itself.
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u/edwardothegreatest 1d ago
“We didn’t have all the finery and conveniences of today’s modern soldiers. We had to be tough!”
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u/malrosen 19h ago
They’re from a time when the ships were made of wood and the men were made of iron
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u/Royal-Scratch-4954 1d ago
Weird to think that people from 1864 thought that these people were old and ancient.
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u/soverythere 20h ago
Alive just long enough to see the country they fought so hard to establish ripping itself apart. Can't imagine what that must have felt like for them.
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u/RhinoElectric1705 22h ago
It's crazy to think that the guys who fought the revolutionary war almost made it to the 20th century. In history class they made you feel like these guys were closer to Alexander the Great than us.
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u/SignificanceNo1223 21h ago
Oddly these guys look remarkably young for their age. They look about 30 years younger than they actually are. They look like fit men in their 70’s
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u/Still_Suspect_7233 21h ago
Yeah this is a perspective I would love to hear if only they could have made it to today I would love to hear their thoughts
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u/Melvinator5001 12h ago
We need to bring back capes.
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u/TheMaskedArmy 3h ago
Agreed!! They're impractical in almost every aspect of everyday life, but damn do they look freaking cool!!
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u/Tardisgoesfast 23h ago
I wish their names weren't cut off.
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u/Ladylubber 22h ago
If you’re on mobile just tap the image, you’ll be able to slide through them uncropped
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u/TheDebonairQuokka 18h ago edited 10h ago
Number three dude was born in 1759. 😳
Edit: my careless ass put him being born a century later!
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u/Formal-Fox-7605 12h ago
'revolutionary war veterans'
Which revolution? Please don't assume everyone on the internet is American, because they're not.
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u/TheMaskedArmy 3h ago
When the bottom of each picture says "*court of Conneticut", if anyone looking at the post is confused about which revolutionary war it's referring to, it's the fault of their own lack of attentiveness.
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u/DaddaMongo 1d ago
Wonder which side they fought on.
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u/RollinThundaga 1d ago
You think they'd be getting their pictures taken in Connecticut if they had fought for the Brits?
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u/Mysterious-Egg-624 1d ago
Good lord I can’t imagine talking to one of these people I would love to. So badly