The last publicly known confederate widow — who briefly married a Dixie infantryman who settled in the Ozark Mountains —died at a Helena-West Helena hospital on Sunday.

Maudie Celia Hopkins, 93, was hospitalized last week after doctors found fluid in her lungs, family said Tuesday. She died in her sleep Sunday night.

Marriage license

See it here.

Hopkins was the only living confederate widow known publicly, said Martha Boltz, the Civil War historian who first detailed Hopkins existence in a 2004 article.

Boltz said she’s confirmed the existence of other living confederate widows, but said none want to be acknowledged publicly. She said less than 10 are still alive.

Hopkins married William M. Cantrell, a soldier in the Confederate Army’s 7th Virginia Mounted Infantry, in 1934 in Baxter County.

Cantrell was 86 years old at the time and Hopkins was 19.

This article was published Tuesday, August 19, 2008.

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