sentences: "When he died in 1959 in Houston, Texas, at the reported age of 117, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, chairman of the Civil War Centennial, said the death was an occasion for national mourning.However, in September 1959, Scripps-Howard journalist Lowell K. Bridwell revealed that he could not find "one single scrap" of substantiating evidence to back up Williams's age or claims of military service, or anyone else's for that matter.