I’ve said this a number of times on this board, but I think it bears repeating: In some respects, the Civil War was not that long ago. When I was a child there were people still alive who could remember the Civil War. Our neighbor in Colorado Springs, a Mrs. R, had been born in Washington DC in 1859 and had lived there during the war. Most of a century later, she could vividly recall the sound of artillery in the distance. She could remember seeing President Lincoln in person, especially at his second inauguration in 1865. She was 99 when she passed away in 1959.
Once in a while, I get cold chills thinking about it: I am still here in the 21st century, and might have a good many years left to go, but I personally knew someone who had seen Abe Lincoln in the living flesh with her own eyes.