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Remembering the Last Confederate Widow

Aired June 15, 2004 - 14:38   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Singer Glen Campbell just got booked for a ten-night stand in a Phoenix jail. You'll recall the rhinestone cowboy was convicted of leaving the scene of an accident and driving under the influence after a November collision in Phoenix.
The singer will get out of the pokey each day to join a work furlough. Hopefully that will make it a little gentler on his mind. The 68-year-old country crooner has paid a fine, put him on two years' probation and ordered to perform community service.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Checking health headlines, this Tuesday, June 15, an apple a day may protect your eyesight. A new study shows eating fruit while you're young can ward off one of the leading causes of vision loss when older. Researchers found that individuals who ate three or more servings of fruit each day decreased their risk for developing muscular degeneration.

A new study on mouthwash my make you feel less guilty about not flossing. Researchers found that mouthwashes like Listerine used twice a day does as good a job fighting plaque or gingivitis or flossing once a day. But dentists say you get the biggest boost from doing both. And if you have periodontitis, you still have to floss.

Now, a new study that says women with long legs are less likely to develop heart disease. Researchers in London found women with short legs, those about 29 inches long or less, face a greater risk of developing coronary heart disease.

O'BRIEN: Well, when Alberta Martin was 21 she had a new baby, was dirt poor and had been abandoned by her husband. But this is not an unhappy story, is it?

PHILLIPS: No it's not. Not at all.

O'BRIEN: Eighty-one-year-old William Jasper Martin lived next door and needed some help getting by.

PHILLIPS: So in 1927, Alberta became the wife of a Civil War veteran. Then part of American war history when she passed away on Memorial Day. Bruce Burkhardt has the story of the last Confederate widow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was 139 years ago that the Civil War came to an end. But on this blazing hot Saturday in South Alabama, another end is being marked. Ninety-seven- years-old at her death, Mrs. Alberta Martin was the last, the very last widow of a Confederate veteran.

And her story tells us much about the South of old and the South of now.

(on camera): Alberta Martin was not a child of the plantation South. This is the place she grew up in. The daughter of sharecroppers and like many such children she was in the fields picking cotton almost as soon as she learned to walk.

It was not an easy life. She married as a teenager, had a baby and a husband who ran off and died six months later. So it was as a 21-year-old single widow mother that she accepted the marriage proposal of an 81-year-old Confederate veteran named William Martin.

KEN CHANCEY, SONS OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS: The old man had $50 a month pension. He need a wife. She needed someone to help her.

BURKHARDT (voice-over): In 1998 radio interview Mrs. Martin was asked if she loved him.

ANDREA MARTIN, LAST CONFEDERATE WIDOW: Well I don't know. It ain't the same love that you got for a young man. He slept on one bed. Me on the other one. People when they get old they actually don't require kissing and hugging and necking (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BURKHARDT: There must have been some hugging and kissing because they had one child, Willie. That's him sitting by the grave.

But the marriage lasted only four years before the old man died. She then married the old man's grandson from his first wife, a marriage that lasted more than 50 years. She's being buried next to him.

But it was that brief marriage in 1927 that brought these people out to honor her.

Before the funeral a viewing at her home church in Elba, Alabama. A ritual observed as it might have been during the war. Many came in period dress. But not her son Willie. For him he was simply saying good-bye to his mother.

But for the Sons of Confederate Veterans who organized all this and others here, they were burying part of the South.

WAYNE FLINT, HISTORY PROF., AUBURN UNIV.: To some degree the tragedy of her death to them is not about the Civil War and about the Confederacy. It's about a certain set of values that are rooted in this time and thrive for a long period of time and are gradually being eroded by the rise of urbanization.

BURKHARDT: Dixie, a land of contradictions. Young Jesse Garcia, one of the reenactors, standing guard at the church door.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seeing a part of history, and she's part of history, too. It's kind of exciting.

BURKHARDT: But for others it is still about the Confederacy.

CHANCEY: Those principles outlive Jefferson Davis, they outlived Robert E. Lee. And they're going to outlive Miss Alberta.

BURKHARDT: Bruce Burkhardt, CNN, Elba, Alabama.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: As long as we're making an issue of age we have to mention Rosaria Iglesias.

O'BRIEN: But we won't just mention her. We'll show you LIVE FROM...'s favorite senior moment of the day as Rosaria trains for the Olympics.

PHILLIPS: That's right. She's not actually competing in any events now. This 93-year-old powerhouse has been training to be an Olympic torchbearer when the flame comes through her neighborhood today.

O'BRIEN: But Rosaria's trainer says she's no athletic poser. She began competitive racing at the tender age of 80 and still is at it. She holds world records in her age class in several categories including the 400 and 800-meter events as well as being able to stand up, I think probably.

PHILLIPS: Is she wearing Chuck Taylors? Check her out. She's got Chuck Taylors on!

O'BRIEN: She's got Chucks. She's got game.

PHILLIPS: She trains at least 30 minutes a day. That's when she doesn't have a race scheduled. And, Rosaria, let's go ahead and say it, via, muchacha, which of course means, you go girl.

O'BRIEN: Bueno.

They say clothes don't make the man but they can hide the soldier. Will this new camouflage design save Private Ryan? I don't see a soldier there. Do you? Camo.

PHILLIPS: One nation polled by Gallup. Extremely divisible with liberty and justice for all. Stick around for our "American Voices" segment coming up.

O'BRIEN: Later, in the control tower, a whole lot of retiring going on. What that means for your air safety a little later on LIVE FROM...

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, GI Joe and Jane are getting a makeover. The Army is introducing new high-tech uniforms in green and sandy brown for next year. It's the first major change to the Army's uniforms in a quarter of a century. The new design is supposed to be more wearer friendly. Name tags and patches will be held in place by Velcro. That's supposed to make it easier to clean. And pockets have moved from the bottom of the jacket to the sleeves for easier access. And to finish off the ensemble, this hasn't changed, tan boots still in place.

O'BRIEN: Timeless they are.

T-minus 15 days and counting to the handover of power in Iraq. What kind of review are Americans giving to the war and its aftermath? Frank Newport joining us from New Jersey with the latest Gallup polls on this. Frank, good to see you.

FRANK NEWPORT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, GALLUP POLL: Good to see you, Miles. Indeed, it's a negative attitude in the environment in which the country moves towards that June 30 deadline. Not necessarily totally bad for the Bush administration. The reason, there could be a contrast effect. In other words, things are perceived to be going so badly now that if anything good comes out of the handover, the Bush administration could get a lift (UNINTELLIGIBLE) terms of the election.

Here's where we stand. A couple of examples things. Going badly in Iraq, 60 percent of Americans say yes. Almost as many, 57 percent say they disapprove of Bush's handling of Iraq. So those aren't good number at all.

Second point I want to make is that this is a highly partisan perceptual environment. These are amazingly mirror image numbers -- 76 percent of Republicans in our latest poll said it was worth it to go to war in Iraq. On the right-hand, 76 percent of Democrats say exactly the opposite, it was not worth it. So it's clearly Bush's war.

One of the keys will be in the middle. These are independents, a third of the electorate, 59 percent say it's not worth it. So they're tending negative. But nearly so much as Democrats. So this would be the group susceptible to change when the new pictures come in, when we find out what happens after June 30 -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Lots of emphasis in both campaigns in getting younger voters out. How does the picture look there?

NEWPORT: Good and bad news. The good news, no matter what your age you're more involved in the campaign than typically Americans have been. This is one of the highest interest presidential campaigns that we at Gallup have measured in a long time. That's good.

The bad news is I guess for some of us who look at these things, young people still not nearly as engaged as their elders. Maybe it's bad news. Maybe some people would said that's good because young people don't know what they're talking about.

I happen to disagree and think 18 to 29-year-olds, a vital segment of our population, and 52 percent saying they're giving quiet a lot of thought to the election. Look how the numbers jump up as one gets older: 77 percent of senior citizens, 65 and over, paying quite a bit of attention. Of course, Miles, that's why both candidates are desperately trying to get the older vote. They're reliable and pay attention and they go out to the polls.

O'BRIEN: Are you pandering to those good demos there, Frank? Be careful now.

Final thought, Supreme Court ruling yesterday, rather artful dodge, not really ruling on that whole issue of the Pledge of Allegiance. How do Americans feel about that under god portion?

NEWPORT: I have to say all heck would have broken loose had the Supreme Court ruled that the "under God" should be removed. We rarely see this much unanimity. Not depending on your political perspective is, almost everyone, 91 percent, says they want that phrase to remain.

So so far the Supreme Court as you said dodged the bullet on this one. We'll see what happens in the future.

O'BRIEN: Frank Newport, always a pleasure, thank you.

(MARKET UPDATE)

O'BRIEN: All right.

PHILLIPS: Your e-mail.

O'BRIEN: I was actually trying to prepare for the "Mars Minute." As a matter of fact.

PHILLIPS: We're preparing for our top story. Chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour is talking about the Saddam handover flap.

O'BRIEN: And as you can caught me trying to get ready for the big Mars moment today, somebody messed up the computer. But we'll get that rectified. All in the home stretch as LIVE FROM...

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired June 15, 2004 - 14:38   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Singer Glen Campbell just got booked for a ten-night stand in a Phoenix jail. You'll recall the rhinestone cowboy was convicted of leaving the scene of an accident and driving under the influence after a November collision in Phoenix.
The singer will get out of the pokey each day to join a work furlough. Hopefully that will make it a little gentler on his mind. The 68-year-old country crooner has paid a fine, put him on two years' probation and ordered to perform community service.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Checking health headlines, this Tuesday, June 15, an apple a day may protect your eyesight. A new study shows eating fruit while you're young can ward off one of the leading causes of vision loss when older. Researchers found that individuals who ate three or more servings of fruit each day decreased their risk for developing muscular degeneration.

A new study on mouthwash my make you feel less guilty about not flossing. Researchers found that mouthwashes like Listerine used twice a day does as good a job fighting plaque or gingivitis or flossing once a day. But dentists say you get the biggest boost from doing both. And if you have periodontitis, you still have to floss.

Now, a new study that says women with long legs are less likely to develop heart disease. Researchers in London found women with short legs, those about 29 inches long or less, face a greater risk of developing coronary heart disease.

O'BRIEN: Well, when Alberta Martin was 21 she had a new baby, was dirt poor and had been abandoned by her husband. But this is not an unhappy story, is it?

PHILLIPS: No it's not. Not at all.

O'BRIEN: Eighty-one-year-old William Jasper Martin lived next door and needed some help getting by.

PHILLIPS: So in 1927, Alberta became the wife of a Civil War veteran. Then part of American war history when she passed away on Memorial Day. Bruce Burkhardt has the story of the last Confederate widow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was 139 years ago that the Civil War came to an end. But on this blazing hot Saturday in South Alabama, another end is being marked. Ninety-seven- years-old at her death, Mrs. Alberta Martin was the last, the very last widow of a Confederate veteran.

And her story tells us much about the South of old and the South of now.

(on camera): Alberta Martin was not a child of the plantation South. This is the place she grew up in. The daughter of sharecroppers and like many such children she was in the fields picking cotton almost as soon as she learned to walk.

It was not an easy life. She married as a teenager, had a baby and a husband who ran off and died six months later. So it was as a 21-year-old single widow mother that she accepted the marriage proposal of an 81-year-old Confederate veteran named William Martin.

KEN CHANCEY, SONS OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS: The old man had $50 a month pension. He need a wife. She needed someone to help her.

BURKHARDT (voice-over): In 1998 radio interview Mrs. Martin was asked if she loved him.

ANDREA MARTIN, LAST CONFEDERATE WIDOW: Well I don't know. It ain't the same love that you got for a young man. He slept on one bed. Me on the other one. People when they get old they actually don't require kissing and hugging and necking (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BURKHARDT: There must have been some hugging and kissing because they had one child, Willie. That's him sitting by the grave.

But the marriage lasted only four years before the old man died. She then married the old man's grandson from his first wife, a marriage that lasted more than 50 years. She's being buried next to him.

But it was that brief marriage in 1927 that brought these people out to honor her.

Before the funeral a viewing at her home church in Elba, Alabama. A ritual observed as it might have been during the war. Many came in period dress. But not her son Willie. For him he was simply saying good-bye to his mother.

But for the Sons of Confederate Veterans who organized all this and others here, they were burying part of the South.

WAYNE FLINT, HISTORY PROF., AUBURN UNIV.: To some degree the tragedy of her death to them is not about the Civil War and about the Confederacy. It's about a certain set of values that are rooted in this time and thrive for a long period of time and are gradually being eroded by the rise of urbanization.

BURKHARDT: Dixie, a land of contradictions. Young Jesse Garcia, one of the reenactors, standing guard at the church door.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seeing a part of history, and she's part of history, too. It's kind of exciting.

BURKHARDT: But for others it is still about the Confederacy.

CHANCEY: Those principles outlive Jefferson Davis, they outlived Robert E. Lee. And they're going to outlive Miss Alberta.

BURKHARDT: Bruce Burkhardt, CNN, Elba, Alabama.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: As long as we're making an issue of age we have to mention Rosaria Iglesias.

O'BRIEN: But we won't just mention her. We'll show you LIVE FROM...'s favorite senior moment of the day as Rosaria trains for the Olympics.

PHILLIPS: That's right. She's not actually competing in any events now. This 93-year-old powerhouse has been training to be an Olympic torchbearer when the flame comes through her neighborhood today.

O'BRIEN: But Rosaria's trainer says she's no athletic poser. She began competitive racing at the tender age of 80 and still is at it. She holds world records in her age class in several categories including the 400 and 800-meter events as well as being able to stand up, I think probably.

PHILLIPS: Is she wearing Chuck Taylors? Check her out. She's got Chuck Taylors on!

O'BRIEN: She's got Chucks. She's got game.

PHILLIPS: She trains at least 30 minutes a day. That's when she doesn't have a race scheduled. And, Rosaria, let's go ahead and say it, via, muchacha, which of course means, you go girl.

O'BRIEN: Bueno.

They say clothes don't make the man but they can hide the soldier. Will this new camouflage design save Private Ryan? I don't see a soldier there. Do you? Camo.

PHILLIPS: One nation polled by Gallup. Extremely divisible with liberty and justice for all. Stick around for our "American Voices" segment coming up.

O'BRIEN: Later, in the control tower, a whole lot of retiring going on. What that means for your air safety a little later on LIVE FROM...

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, GI Joe and Jane are getting a makeover. The Army is introducing new high-tech uniforms in green and sandy brown for next year. It's the first major change to the Army's uniforms in a quarter of a century. The new design is supposed to be more wearer friendly. Name tags and patches will be held in place by Velcro. That's supposed to make it easier to clean. And pockets have moved from the bottom of the jacket to the sleeves for easier access. And to finish off the ensemble, this hasn't changed, tan boots still in place.

O'BRIEN: Timeless they are.

T-minus 15 days and counting to the handover of power in Iraq. What kind of review are Americans giving to the war and its aftermath? Frank Newport joining us from New Jersey with the latest Gallup polls on this. Frank, good to see you.

FRANK NEWPORT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, GALLUP POLL: Good to see you, Miles. Indeed, it's a negative attitude in the environment in which the country moves towards that June 30 deadline. Not necessarily totally bad for the Bush administration. The reason, there could be a contrast effect. In other words, things are perceived to be going so badly now that if anything good comes out of the handover, the Bush administration could get a lift (UNINTELLIGIBLE) terms of the election.

Here's where we stand. A couple of examples things. Going badly in Iraq, 60 percent of Americans say yes. Almost as many, 57 percent say they disapprove of Bush's handling of Iraq. So those aren't good number at all.

Second point I want to make is that this is a highly partisan perceptual environment. These are amazingly mirror image numbers -- 76 percent of Republicans in our latest poll said it was worth it to go to war in Iraq. On the right-hand, 76 percent of Democrats say exactly the opposite, it was not worth it. So it's clearly Bush's war.

One of the keys will be in the middle. These are independents, a third of the electorate, 59 percent say it's not worth it. So they're tending negative. But nearly so much as Democrats. So this would be the group susceptible to change when the new pictures come in, when we find out what happens after June 30 -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Lots of emphasis in both campaigns in getting younger voters out. How does the picture look there?

NEWPORT: Good and bad news. The good news, no matter what your age you're more involved in the campaign than typically Americans have been. This is one of the highest interest presidential campaigns that we at Gallup have measured in a long time. That's good.

The bad news is I guess for some of us who look at these things, young people still not nearly as engaged as their elders. Maybe it's bad news. Maybe some people would said that's good because young people don't know what they're talking about.

I happen to disagree and think 18 to 29-year-olds, a vital segment of our population, and 52 percent saying they're giving quiet a lot of thought to the election. Look how the numbers jump up as one gets older: 77 percent of senior citizens, 65 and over, paying quite a bit of attention. Of course, Miles, that's why both candidates are desperately trying to get the older vote. They're reliable and pay attention and they go out to the polls.

O'BRIEN: Are you pandering to those good demos there, Frank? Be careful now.

Final thought, Supreme Court ruling yesterday, rather artful dodge, not really ruling on that whole issue of the Pledge of Allegiance. How do Americans feel about that under god portion?

NEWPORT: I have to say all heck would have broken loose had the Supreme Court ruled that the "under God" should be removed. We rarely see this much unanimity. Not depending on your political perspective is, almost everyone, 91 percent, says they want that phrase to remain.

So so far the Supreme Court as you said dodged the bullet on this one. We'll see what happens in the future.

O'BRIEN: Frank Newport, always a pleasure, thank you.

(MARKET UPDATE)

O'BRIEN: All right.

PHILLIPS: Your e-mail.

O'BRIEN: I was actually trying to prepare for the "Mars Minute." As a matter of fact.

PHILLIPS: We're preparing for our top story. Chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour is talking about the Saddam handover flap.

O'BRIEN: And as you can caught me trying to get ready for the big Mars moment today, somebody messed up the computer. But we'll get that rectified. All in the home stretch as LIVE FROM...

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com