To the end, Frances Woolson Campbell was a proud daughter.
She was honored that her father was the last surviving veteran of the Union Army.
In 1956, when Albert Woolson died in Duluth at age 109, more than 1,000 people attended his funeral at the National Guard Armory. People lined the street to watch the huge funeral procession. Life magazine was there, and President Eisenhower issued a statement.
Woolson's death marked the end of an era.
But his celebrity followed his three daughters in Duluth the rest of their lives. Cards continued to arrive on their father's birthday, mailings continued to come from the auxiliaries of the Grand Army of the Republic and other Civil War groups. There were ceremonies to attend and visits from Civil War buffs and battle reenactors.
ADVERTISEMENT
Campbell, the last to survive of Woolson's eight children, died in October at age 99 in Duluth. Her family chose to observe her passing privately before publicly announcing her death in late December.
But during her life, Campbell embraced the fame.
Albert Woolson was 17 in 1864 when he enlisted in the Union Army after his father was injured at the Battle of Shiloh. The younger Woolson marched off to war as a drummer and bugler, just like his father, but for Minnesota's Company C heavy artillery regiment. His year in the army was largely spent near battlefields in Tennessee.
"The drummer was a very important person," noted Durbin Keeney, regional director of Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans. "It was the way of communicating to the battery [cannon unit]."
After the war, Woolson became a carpenter like his father. He married in 1868 and had four children. His wife died in 1901, and he remarried three years later. In his 60s, he had four daughters with his second wife.
"The longer he lived, the more significant he became," Keeney said of Woolson.
Campbell was his second-youngest child. She married Robert Campbell of Duluth and worked for many years as a legal secretary for the Duluth City Attorney's Office. As the years passed, Campbell outlived her husband and siblings.
"She got cards from all over the world from people and groups who wanted to honor her because she was [Woolson's] daughter," said Frances Hom of Duluth, her niece and namesake. "She would tell them the battles he fought in, how his dad got wounded, and how sons would take the place of the father."
ADVERTISEMENT
Campbell would read the newsletters she got from the various auxiliary posts from cover to cover. She'd get a kick out of the cards.
"She was interested, always," said Hom, who took care of Campbell in her final years.
When Albert Woolson's bronze statue, called "The Last Survivor," was moved from Canal Park to the Depot in 2004, Campbell was there for the rededication. A replica of the statue stands at the Gettysburg Battlefield National Historical Park in Pennsylvania.
"She was a hoot," recalls Keeney, who was instrumental in getting the statue moved away from the indignity of gull droppings. "She was just as sharp as a bell. She could remember everything."
"It's sad to lose her," he continued. "She was a wonderful person and a great wit, with an incredible memory of her father and of that time."
Several years ago, the Woolson family donated his Union Army uniform, medals, pictures and other memorabilia to the Veterans Memorial Hall at the Depot. They're in storage but will be prominently displayed in "Generations of Service," an upcoming exhibit presenting the stories of Northeastern Minnesota veterans, starting with the Civil War.
