At 1:21 in the above video, note how Lincoln and the men with him take off their hats as the Revolutionary veterans are driven by. This nation owes its existence to Washington and the ragged, hungry troops he led, many of them quite young, who won their lop sided fight against very heavy odds over six years of active war.
Behold those eyes.
A very moving photograph.
A man who lived at the dawning of this Nation… and suffered it’s birth pangs.
In Springfield IL I frequently drive past a small fenced plot with a sign marking the grave of Revolutionary War veteran Philip Crowder (1759-1844). A native of Virginia, he volunteered to serve in place of an older brother who had a wife and children and was present at the surrender of Cornwallis. He was buried in his family’s plot which at the time was several miles west of Springfield, but today is right along a heavily traveled street in a residential/commercial neighborhood. This genealology site lists all Revolutionary War veterans buried in Sangamon County, Illinois; at least some of them were still living when Lincoln came to Springfield:
https://newhorizonsgenealogicalservices.com/illinois-genealogy/sangamon-county/revolutionary-soldiers-buried-sangamon-county-illinois.htm
Meanwhile, in Kentucky there is a marker in memory of Joseph Timberlake, who was a member of General Washington’s personal guard, and who is my husband’s multiple great-grandfather (and the reason his grandmother joined the DAR).
https://www.jpinews.com/2023/07/19/the-old-soldier-of-hammonsville/
What must William Hutchings been thinking in that 1864 photograph at the height of the Civil War where he fought in the Revolutionary War?
A lot of the veterans in the North were interviewed during the Civil War. Most of them had confidence that the Union would be preserved. Interviews of the veterans in the South would have been interesting. A British statesman during the War said it was entirely possible that a few very long lived men who had witnessed the birth of the United States would also see its death. Thank God that did not occur.