He became the company’s top drummer by “knocking the block” off the other drummer, Woolson said in 1953. “I have met Gen. Grant (Ulysses S. Grant) personally, and I think he was the greatest general we had in the Civil War. “As Civil War veterans aged out and died, Woolson became a national figure,” the Duluth News Tribune reported. The only other Civil War veteran by the time Woolson was 106 years old was James A. Woolson became the last known Civil War veteran alive in the United States, according to numerous newspaper accounts.