Viola was not a "Civil War widow" since she was not widowed by the Civil War. No one is calling women "WWII widows" because they were married to a man who died 74 years after VJ Day, and the same will be true for Vietnam and Gulf War veterans. Yes it's a weird story, particularly the fact that a 93 year old man married a seventeen year old girl. Over 2,000,000 soldiers served in the Union Army, and the last one Albert Woolson died in 1956 at 106 years old. The Civil War was still six generations ago no matter how you tell the story.