Another Episode of "Sentences You Never Thought You'd Read"

So I'm reading the news from back home, when I noticed a story about the reinterment of the body of a Civil War soldier, probably a Union soldier, whose body was discovered at a construction site last May. The body is lying in state starting tomorrow, and then re-enactors are going to perform a "period" funeral service on Saturday. That's interesting and all, but what really got me was this part of the story (emphasis mine):

The city of Franklin has organized a memorial service for a Civil War soldier whose remains were discovered over the summer at a construction site. The sons of two Civil War veterans will speak at the service Saturday.

What?! The sons of two Civil War veterans? Hold on a moment, let me check my calendar. Yup, it's 2009, a full 144 years after the end of the Civil War. What the hell are sons of Civil War veterans doing alive? The article's explanation:

It’s something of a fluke for any child of a Civil War veteran to be alive. Brown was born in 1912 when his father, who had remarried a much younger woman, was 71.

"A fluke" might be putting it mildly.

Perhaps the coolest part is that the father of one of the two veterans actually fought in the battle that took place in the town where the body was discovered, in 1864. And the other one's father was at Gettysburg and Appomattox.

I'm tempted to start digging Europe around for sons of Franco-Prussian War veterans.