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The Last to be Called: Civil War vet honored in Atlantic

The Daily Nonpareil - 4/9/2017

ATLANTIC - As the years marched on, the surviving veterans of the Civil War rejoined their fallen comrades, each post dwindling down to its final members.

At the Sam Rice Post in Atlantic, Adnah David Bullock became the last surviving Union veteran before his death. On Friday, his memory was honored at his grave in Atlantic by the Department of Iowa Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War.

"One by one, they slipped away, no others to be called," said Dan Krock of Cambridge, who was quoting former Grand Army of the Republic Department Commander James Martin. Martin was the last Civil War veteran in Iowa to die in 1949. Bluford Scarlett was the last Confederate veteran to die in Cass County in 1935.

Krock was one of the speakers at the ceremony, which was attended by several members in full Union army uniforms and rifles.

A stiff, cool breeze billowed the flags as Krock recounted the life of Bullock, occasionally stopping to play recordings of era songs like "Tenting on the Old Campground," which was popular with Union soldiers.

"Bullock's story could represent any of the 167 known Civil War veterans buried here in Atlantic, or the 100 others in other cemeteries across the county," Krock said.

Bullock was born April 10, 1846, in Sherburne, New York. Monday would be his 171th birthday. The second of eight children, he and his older brother, Miles, went to live with their grandfather, Simeon Bullock on a farm at age 13. After his mother died weeks after giving birth to her eighth child, his father remarried.

Bullock enlisted in the Army in 1864 as a private in Battery A, 1st New York Light Artillery, employed in Pennsylvania on the borders to prevent raids. He was discharged at the end of the war, June 28, 1865.

He returned home and eventually moved to Waukee and operated a hardware store. He met Ella Fuller, of Palermo, New York, and they married a short four months later. She was 17, he was 27. Their only child, Wayne, was born in 1878.

They moved to Wiota, then Anita. Bullock became a member of the Grand Army of the Republic in 1896 at the Meade Post in Anita.

After 64 years of marriage, Ella died June 15, 1936, at age 82. Afterward, Bullock moved to Atlantic to live with his son and daughter-in-law. Of the 80 men that were once part of the Anita GAR post, he was the last.

He joined the Sam Rice Post 6 in Atlantic, becoming one of four members, before he became the last there, as well.

"The lines had grown thinner, and the tramp of the columns were with ever lessening tread, the gaps in the picket lines grew wider every day," Krock said.

Bullock died in 1941 at age 95. Neighboring his grave are the tombstones of his wife and relatives. Krock said while the war may seem like an ancient memory, the veterans and others were just regular people.

"The war. We can't imagine what it was actually like to be there," he said. "We want to keep the memory alive."