LEXINGTON, Ky. _ Kentucky lost its last living daughter of a Civil War soldier on Thursday.
Eva Martin, 94, of Bethelridge was the 14th child of John Green Watson, who served as a private in the Union Army's 1st Kentucky Cavalry.
That division, nicknamed the "Wild Riders," fought in Kentucky during the Battle of Wildcat Mountain and later in the Battle of Perryville in October 1862.
Mrs. Martin's father was 79 when she was born to his third wife. He died when Mrs. Martin was 5, said her son Joe Martin.
"But her mother told her the stories of the war he had told her," Martin said.
One was the tale about how Watson supposedly got the nickname "Turkey Joe."
Out on maneuvers one day, the Union soldiers were looking for something to eat when they came upon a farmhouse with a flock of turkeys in the yard. The soldiers offered to buy them, but the woman said they weren't for sale.
Watson "had a fishing line and a hook that he put some corn on," Martin said. "He dropped it on the ground, and that old turkey swallowed it and followed him all the way down the road."
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