Wayne County NcArchives Obituaries.....Merritt, W. J. October 1940
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Tammy Tyner tameratyner@aol.com August 10, 2005, 7:34 pm

Goldsboro News Argus October 18, 1940
Last Johnny Reb
    A very remarkable man was W. J. Merritt, last surviving Confederate veteran 
of Wayne County who died at his home in Mount Olive Monday night. He had 
celebrated his 102nd birthday about two weeks before.
    A young man of 23, he was at Fort Sumter, Charleston, S. C. , in April, 
1861, when the first gun of the bloody War Between the States was fired.
    Shortly before his 100th birthday, Mr. Merritt was guest of honor at a 
barbecue in Goldsboro. And many of us at a mere forty can't treat barbecue with 
the familiarity we did a few years ago.
    When he was well over 90 years of age, Mr. Merritt could discuss with 
unusual clarity of detail his experiences as a soldier. Over and over again 
lived those ardent days of his youth.
    Seventy-five years after the end of the War Between the States, Captain 
Merritt is dead, and there remains in Wayne not one of the gallant men who 
followed Lee and Jackson.      
 



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