"It is that charity which hears the cry of the orphan; that aids and assists the sufferer - the poor-house shall not be the dwelling of a comrade, who, having fought to preserve the Stars and Stripes, beneath its folds shall not be disgraced" -John A.
Logan, speech to Maine G.A.R.
June, 1885 Introduction Historians have defined the Grand Army of the Republic, or "G.A.R." as a potent political force in America from the late 1870s through the late 1890s.
But it can also be said with authority that the G.A.R.
was the first national political lobby with a huge grass-roots demographic following.
The G.A.R.
held great power as a voting block for many decades, which gave it during the period of the 1880s and 1890s substantial political power as well. The G.A.R.
was founded at Decatur, Illinois on April 6, 1866.
Dr.
Benjamin Franklin Stephenson founded the organization on the three cardinal principles of fraternity, charity, and loyalty and these principles guided the G.A.R.
throughout its existence.
To become a member of the Grand Army a man must have served in any of the military service branches of the U.S.
between April 9, 1861 and April 12, 1865. Local organizations were called posts and it was to a post that a man applied for membership in the G.A.R.
The members or "comrades" of the post would vote to accept or reject each applicant.
If a man was rejected (blackballed) from one post he was banned from joining the organization.
Initially, membership was rather a picky affair, and members were "graded" into ranks.
By 1890, this practice was abandoned and membership skyrocketed.
Posts from a state or region joined together to form Departments and the Departments formed the National Organization.
At each level the three primary offices were Junior Vice-Commander, Senior Vice-Commander, and Commander.
For the National Organization the term "in-Chief" was added to each of these titles.
Departments and the National Organization held conventions called encampments each year in various Departments.
Encampments were the ruling bodies of the G.A.R.
and delegates would decide the business of the organization in a format similar to a town meeting. Most historians rightly regard the G.A.R.
as generally Republican in nature although there were many members in the Democratic Party.
It was through the G.A.R., and smaller players within the pension lobby, that many soldiers and their families received timely and increased pension benefits.
"With a membership larger than that of all other veterans groups combined, with a post in almost every Northern town, with the aura of the Union victory still behind it, the G.A.R.
was perhaps the single most powerful political lobby of the age."[i] The Republican Party held a decided advantage at the end of the Civil War as far as soldier opinion was concerned.
Their propaganda claimed a monopoly on patriotism, which placed the Democrats on the defensive.
"Republicans were to emphasize it in their appeals to veterans until they had wrung from it every last political benefit".[ii] Eric Foner, in Reconstruction, America's Unfinished Revolution states that Republicans in the 1870's remained internally divided on virtually every question except the Civil War and Reconstruction, which acted as "touchstones that transcended local differences and served as a continuing definition of the party's identity.
For some politicians this meant cynically 'waving the bloody shirt' before each election".[iii] Gilded Age Republicans became well known for trotting out the bloody shirt to attack Democrats.
This highly successful campaign tactic was calculated to use the sacrifices and subsequent victory in the Civil War to move Northern voters.
Carefully selected memories portrayed the wartime Democratic Party as treasonous, a tool of Southerners during the secession crisis, and closely associated with Northern Copperheads during the fighting itself.
There was a huge block of voting veterans, and the recollection of their suffering, especially as prisoners-of-war, stirred emotions, and in some cases inflamed sectional tensions between North and South.
Having said that, the wonder of the time was that there wasn't more bitterness between sections and parties.
And as a practical matter, the GOP was the party of union and victory and no politician would ever throw away that advantage. The Grand Army's political power grew after a shaky membership-building period through the 1870's.
During the 1880's its membership increased substantially, and it certainly had a major role in the election of 1888.
Five presidents and a very large number of politicians were members of the G.A.R.
In 1881, former President Hayes joined, as well as General Sherman, and Grant had been a member since 1877.[iv] By 1890 when the G.A.R.
was reaching its peak years, the membership of the organization was 409,489 veterans, a very large lobbying constituency.
[v] The G.A.R.
was instrumental in the passage of the Disability Pension Act of 1890, which insured a pension to every veteran who had ninety days of military service and some type of disability, not necessarily incurred during or as a result of the War.
Since most ex-soldiers were at least middle aged, the Act became an almost universal entitlement for every veteran.
For many decades the federal Government paid claims to all Union veterans of the Civil War and their survivors.
Such was the success of the G.A.R.
that Congress almost always passed the individual bills that were needed to grant or change pensions.[vi] The Mix of Non-Partisanship and Politics By the end of 1866 a majority of veterans had flocked, through openly or secretly political organizations, to the Radical Republican camp.[vii] Indeed, the early overt "Radical" politicization of the G.A.R.
backfired on them as it became plain that rather than an apolitical fraternal organization, the G.A.R.
appeared to be a political tool of the Republicans.
The Democrats gleefully castigated the G.A.R.
in the press.
The stigma of partisanship aside, elements of the G.A.R.
wholeheartedly endorsed Gen.
Ulysses S.
Grant for President.
In an attempt to diffuse the politicization of the organization the Order instituted the first of many non-partisanship pledges (the first taking place in National Order #2 and penned by Logan himself).
This had the benefit of defusing some of the Democrats objections, however much of the Grand Army leadership to ignored the pledge.[viii] So for the first decade of its existence the G.A.R.
was rightfully branded as a politically partisan organization, which kept down membership, and took a long time to overcome. It must be stressed that the G.A.R.
was only overtly politically motivated on the national electoral stage in a few selective instances.
The first, as noted above was the backing of Grant at a time when it was seen as irresponsible for a fraternal organization to overtly meddle in national politics.
Eventually, in order to be an organization inclusive of both political parties, the vast majority of the political pressure brought to bear was as pension lobbyists, and not as adherents to any one political machine, with the notable exception of the election of 1888.
Although even this aberration can be seen as an extension of the G.A.R.'s pension lobbying. The organization still leaned heavily to the Republican side however, and Democratic accusations of partisanship repeatedly cropped up in the press and were repeatedly answered by Grand Army officers.
Commander-in-Chief Beath in 1884 devoted a great deal of time to it in his address to the National Encampment.
He said that the society could not be "responsible for every indiscreet utterance in conventions or on the stump...We cannot muzzle every speaker or suppress the reporter."[ix] It was explicitly stated in a variety of published General Orders over a period of years that overt partisanship in political affairs was prohibited in the leadership.
In an Order dated August 8, 1892, the Adjutant General's Office described the official reaction to an event that occurred at the 26th National Encampment: "A political campaign badge has been placed for sale, an exact facsimile of that of our order, except that in the center is a picture of the candidate.
The Commander in Chief urges all members not to wear this thing [bolded in text] upon his breast."[x] It of course also goes without saying that the task of de-politicizing the membership was often impossible, as the pro-pension Republican partisanship of the G.A.R.
was part and parcel of the grass-roots membership of the organization.
General Logan and other G.A.R.
leaders would in some cases use the organization as a political stepping stone, and "protest too much" as Shakespeare would say, continuing to selectively perpetuate this not-so-subtle charade until the order's political power faded by the 20th century. General John A.
"Blackjack" Logan The G.A.R.
was firstly a veterans and fraternal organization, loosely patterned on elements of both Masonry and Army protocol.
After a divisive start as a partisan political organization, it evolved into a potent political force of no one party.
The germination of the need for that political force came from the writings and public career of Gen.
John A.
Logan, who was elected Commander-in-Chief in 1867.
He served three consecutive terms as Commander-in-Chief as well as being a "Radical Republican" representative and subsequently a U.S.
Senator from Illinois.
The man who established May 30 as Memorial Day (by an Order of the G.A.R.) had an axe to grind with Washington and the highest ranking officers of the Army. In his auto-biography, Volunteer Soldier, published after his death in 1887, he wrote in regard to the privileges given West Pointers and the denigration of Reserve officers: "The West Point influence has become the dominant power in our military interests...this influence controls military legislation [in] the general Government." Logan goes on to explain: "The reader will doubtless ask why a Captain, for instance, in the regular Army, disabled by a wound in a certain battle, should be retired upon pay of $2,100, while a Captain of the volunteer service, wounded in precisely the same manner, on the same day and in the same battle should receive as a pension the miserable pittance of $240 a year."[xi] The book, (written by one of the national champions for pensions in Congress), indicates the mindset of many veterans after the war, and indicates that the 1880's and 1890's were a period of fierce struggle for additional benefits and pension reform.
In fact, Logan was immensely popular.
His popularity was a direct offshoot of the fact that he was a genuine war hero, a brilliant speaker, and a volunteer.[xii] Unlike other prominent generals, he did not go to West Point.
He was a self-made success on the battlefield and off.
He made it very plain in the many speeches he made and in Volunteer Soldier that the real weight of victory in the Civil War fell on the shoulders of the citizen-soldier.
Volunteer regiments won the war, and in Logan's view they personified the old republican institution of the militia.
The rejuvenation of the militia system instead of the insistence on professional West Pointers would act as a model for the next generation, in his opinion. "The G.A.R.'s veneration of the volunteer hero Logan - like its quasi-militia structure, 'national saviors' pension campaign, and monumental war remembrances - portrayed the Civil War not as a social and political earthquake but as the preserver of a timeless Republic."[xiii] Early on in his first year as Commander-in-Chief, John Logan wrote in only the 2nd G.A.R.
General Order, dated February 1, 1868, "Another stated objective of the G.A.R.
is the establishment and defense of the rights of the late Soldiers, Sailors and Marines morally, socially and politically, with a view to inculcate a proper appreciation of such services and claims by the American people."[xiv] Logan used the G.A.R.
to advance himself politically, and in fact, as it became more anti-partisan in the 1870's, and helped him less, he let his membership lapse.
It was only in the mid-1880's when the star of the G.A.R.
was steadily on the rise, (partially as a result of non-partisanship, according historians such as Mary Dearing) that he aligned himself with the organization again as he had designs on the presidency, and was subsequently put on the unsuccessful Republican ticket as James Blaine's vice-presidential running mate in 1884. At his untimely death in 1886, a who's who of famous and powerful people passed his coffin in the rotunda in Washington.
In 1887 George Dawson wrote a fawning biography of Logan and stated what many veterans felt at the time.
"As to the soldier vote, that prodigious vote that goes into millions, without a doubt it would have gone solid for a Presidential ticket headed [by Logan] the soldier's friend par excellence".[xv] There is no question that Logan's early politicization of the G.A.R.
paved the way for its future role in pressuring the United States government to enact pension legislation. Grass Roots Mission The G.A.R.
was involved in local politics as well, particularly in the Northeast and parts of the Mid-West (Illinois, Indiana and Ohio in particular).
Apart from Memorial Day activities, parades, and other civic events such as the raising of statues and monuments, the centerpiece of a post's charity was the relief fund.
Mandated by Order each Grand Army post was required to set aside money for assistance to needy soldiers, widows and orphans.
Another form of charity was providing for funerals.[xvi] This very real charity aspect of the organization can be seen as sowing the seeds of a very positive political capital, both locally and nationally.
It is not out of the question to infer that G.A.R.
charity was motivated partly to build its solidarity as a political force.
It also had the intended effect of diffusing a stigma present at the time in many communities of eschewing handouts.
It was the G.A.R.'s contention that "mutual self-help was deserved through service, not randomly given out as charity.
By the time the federal pension legislation of the later 1800's took effect this activity of the G.A.R.
became "an anachronism".[xvii] "The G.A.R.
could claim credit for many state laws establishing homes for veterans and soldier's orphans."[xviii] In Connecticut, the G.A.R.
had effective control (through the Board) of the state subsidized Soldiers and Sailors Hospital.
This was not always liked by politicians.
Amos Allen, the Adjutant General of Connecticut wrote an Order on August 15, 1892 urging all state G.A.R.
members to write their representatives regarding "a House Bill relative to Invalid Soldiers, Sailors and Marines...providing for an increase of Board Members and in the powers of the Board Members of the Hospital who look toward the interests of Comrades in need of hospital accommodations".
He goes on to say: "There is reason to believe that the Bill will be antagonized when put up for passage by the Legislature."[xix] Posts of the G.A.R.
were called upon privately to help elect like-minded candidates in local elections, and often did.
But it was quite rare after the late 1860's to see any overt recommendation, particularly in an Order from a state department. These local acts of charity and the promotion of the sacrifice and subsequent victory of Union forces generated substantial political capital for the movement nationally, and "undoubtedly widened the society's non-partisan reputation and served as a recruiting stimulant second only to the organization's pension program".[xx] The G.A.R.
and Civil War Veteran Pensions The G.A.R.
became the nation's most effective lobby for the increase and expansion of the Civil War Pension system, which became the single largest expense of the Federal government in the post-war era.
Veterans were deeply concerned about their ability to get, keep and potentially grow their pensions, and that concern directly affected political battles.
The G.A.R.
reinforced the idea of a debt that the nation owed its Union veterans, widows, and survivors.
As an aside it is useful to note that Confederate veterans received none of this Federal aid, and while eligible for benefits earned before the Civil War and after, (if they signed an oath of allegiance), they are not a part of this story. In 1870 the government spent $29 million on military pensions (less administrative fees) of which the vast majority was spent on Civil War veterans.
At its height in 1913, the sum was $174 million, and thereafter declined.[xxi] The General Law Pension System was founded by an Act of Congress and approved by Abraham Lincoln in 1862.
It provided pensions for those who suffered permanent disability in military service after March 4, 1861.
The system also provided for widows, children and other dependents of soldiers who died in service.
This was the only system of pension laws in effect until 1890, when it was augmented by a more liberal system solely designed for Civil War veterans, spouses and children.[xxii] The law of 1862 was a huge departure for America.
Previously, veteran's widows and children were not provided for by national legislation. After the Civil War ended, the number of Civil War pensioners topped off in the mid 1870's.
The pension and claims attorneys of the era were losing business and became the first vocal group for legislation to loosen claims restrictions.[xxiii] The rallying cry was 'arrears', representing the gap between when a veteran had finally applied for aid and started receiving it, and the actual date of injury during the War.
Many arrears bills were proposed to Congress before one became law.
Measures were introduced in 1873, 1876, and 1877.
In 1878 though, the political pressure was such that the measure passed, with almost all nays from the Southern and Border-state members.[xxiv] The vote was overwhelmingly positive on June 19th 1878, with a tally of 164 to 61 with 65 not voting.
The Commander-in-Chief of the G.A.R.
at the time, General John C.
Robinson, was at the 12th Annual Encampment in Springfield, MA before the vote.
On June 4th he spoke of the measure and advised that it be brought to the attention of the department commanders, hoping that action by several department encampments might make a difference.[xxv] This little push for legislation was the G.A.R.'s only involvement to date on such bills, and it would not become more active in pension matters until later.
The Republican led Senate passed the measure and Hayes signed it in January of 1879. Historians such as Dearing and McConnell play down the national political impact of the G.A.R.
in these years.
The membership was still building, and was surprisingly low in 1890 at only 60,634.[xxvi] In fact McConnell states "the real movers behind the Arrears Act were not Grand Army officers but the pension agents [who, acting as lobbyists for their own businesses stood to make a fortune] and politicians solicitous of the 'soldier vote' in the upcoming 1880 elections".[xxvii] The GAR's truly first active role in politics began with the 1881 formation of a committee to look into the delay in the settlement of pension claims and report recommendations.
The committee was to report at the annual encampment in 1882.
The committee met with delegations of both houses that year and reported that one important result of their work was the appointment of about 1200 new clerks to be employed in various offices to expedite pension work at an additional expense of $1,742,430.
The committee then recommended that the GAR establish a Standing Committee on Pensions.[xxviii] This was the first instance of a political action group funded and empowered by the G.A.R.
and thus began a policy of regular G.A.R.
representation in Washington during sessions of Congress. At the Denver Encampment of 1883, a Committee of five members was formed to lobby on the pension issue.
They were to present their recommendations for a program of desired legislation to the pension committees of both houses and then report at subsequent annual encampments as to results.[xxix] Successive Commanders-in-Chief of the G.A.R.
urged that the organization remain non-partisan publicly, but showed time and again that they were firmly Republican in orientation.
By 1880 the National Tribune, published in Washington D.C.
(originally a claim agents' organ, under the Editor, George Lemon) was recognized by the G.A.R.
and became the premier national newspaper advising ex-soldiers.
McConnell (in particular, in Glorious Contentment) places great emphasis on the National Tribune as one of the major factors jump-starting the national political agenda of the G.A.R., particularly in the arena of pensions.
The National Tribune, in an editorial dated July 26, 1883, advised G.A.R.
members to "go to nominating conventions of both parties" and demand recognition. In the 1880's there was widespread interest among veterans in a universal service pension.
This would cover veterans whether disabled, indigent or not.
The G.A.R.
Committee on Pensions believed in a plan of incremental legislation to get a disability pension passed, urging that be the G.A.R.'s first objective.
The G.A.R.
Committee on Pensions met with the Senate Committee on Pensions in January 1887, and a watered-down Dependant Pension Bill passed later that month.
It was sent to President Grover Cleveland, who vetoed it. Cleveland advanced the case that this was the first time that a pension would be instituted that allowed payment for injury after service, and also noted the existence of some small frauds perpetrated in the programs.
G.A.R.
petitions soon came from every part of the country urging the passage of the bill over the President's veto.[xxx] The veto was not overturned, after much Congressional discussion including a Democratic attack on the National Tribune as an organ of the claim agents who were "blood-suckers" of the soldiers they purported to help.[xxxi] (Glasson, p.
216) The Disability Pension Bill wound its way through the Senate in late 1887 but was never acted on in the House.
It continued to be debated through 1888 and the election platform of the Republicans explicitly endorsed "pension relief".
President Grover Cleveland got the majority of the popular vote, but Republican challenger Benjamin Harrison received 233 electoral votes to Cleveland's 168 to win the election.
Although the most publicized issue was over tariffs, on the whole Republicans derived a great deal of political advantage from the pension issue.
This "Grand Army Vote" was much talked about as being the decisive factor in a number of states.[xxxii] 1888 was a watershed year for the G.A.R.
and its political growth. The Election of 1888 The election of 1888 is seen as the high-point of political agitation by the G.A.R.
by historians.
One of the reasons for this was that "the politics of pensions became particularly acrimonious in the 1880's because electoral support for the two major parties was almost equally divided."[xxxiii] The presidential elections of 1880, 1884 and 1888 were decided by very small margins.
Benjamin Harrison had only won in 1888 by detaching New York and Indiana from the states that Cleveland had previously carried. After the 1884 election, "in the bleak aftermath of defeat, Republicans faced the cold fact that bloody-shirt waving and vague promises were insufficient of hold the soldier vote for any one party".[xxxiv] As discussed in the previously, the strong advocacy of pension legislation by Republican candidates had some effect on the soldier vote in earlier elections, particularly in swing states.
But the truth was that both parties tried to derive benefit from the pension issue.
It was no longer a GOP specialty, although the Republicans had an earlier start and more political capital built up as a result. The G.A.R.
contained three factions in the 1880's that struggled for control of policy.
Die hard Republicans wanted to make the organization an overtly political machine, but there were many in the membership that advocated a more subtle political stance, and then of course there were the Democratic members.
"The conservative element that had guided the Grand Army through the 1870's was still dominant".
"These men continued to emphasize the Grand Army's fraternal aspect while quietly directing the members down Republican paths".[xxxv] It was Cleveland's lot to take the punishment for the veto of 224 private pension bills in 1886 that in many cases were completely fraudulent, but nonetheless, no other president had dared to do so before.
As Cleveland continued to veto other bills, including an effort to expand the pension system, disgust in the G.A.R.
increased.
The National Tribune was scathing in its denunciation of Cleveland.
This was indeed the high-point for bloody-shirt and jingoistic nationalism in the G.A.R.[xxxvi] There was great agitation for the G.A.R.
membership to actively turn against Cleveland.
Various speeches were given at the National Encampment of 1887 in St.
Louis which predicted that a president who would veto a Pension Disability Bill (which Cleveland did as discussed above) again, would never be reelected.[xxxvii] He was certainly not wanted at the encampment and finally declined to attend: There is trouble in the camp of the executive committee of the G.A.R.
The committee invited President Cleveland to attend the next meeting of the national encampment at St.
Louis, and the invitation has been accepted.
The committee is said to be in reception of a bushel or two of indignant letters from posts all over the country, protesting that it is not the desire of the veterans of the war to have Mr.
Cleveland review the Grand Army, and that if the present programme is adhered to their posts will not attend the grand encampment....The dilemma is a difficult one.
The responsibility is with the committee, however.
It should have remembered that while the committee might sink its personal feelings toward Cleveland as a man and enjoy an official contact with Cleveland as president and the luster that might be reflected upon themselves, there will be no such compensation to the rank and file of the Grand army boys.
They remember with tingling nerve the numerous flings that the president, in his hundred vetoes of pension bills, indulged in during the late session of congress.
With execrable taste he could not confine himself in these messages to the discussion of the evidence in the cases that were before him, but injected a sneer here and there at the invalid soldier, generally in many of these curious documents...Hence it was a mistake for the committee to invite the president to appear at St.
Louis as the honored guest of the Grand Army...
So if the majority of the veterans who shall congregate at St.
Louis this summer happen to be of the class that considers the president an active enemy of themselves and the widows and children of their departed comrades, no considerations of official respect will withhold from them rough demonstrations of their disapproval that the soldier has learned so well to deliver at proper occasion.[xxxviii] Democratic organizations were in fact going to stage demonstrations for the President in St Louis, and when the Department Commander found out, he proclaimed "both Democratic and Republican members hate Cleveland for his pension bill veto and will most emphatically decline to do him honor".[xxxix] In an effort to show unity with southern Democrats, Cleveland ordered many captured Confederate battle flags returned to the states that had organized the regiments.
It was arguably a perfectly decent thing to do, but it was turned into a crime by Commander-in-Chief Fairchild in a speech in which he stated: "I appeal to the sentiment of the nation to prevent this sacrilege".[xl] Cleveland continued to veto individual pension bills.
In the months leading up to the election Harrison (a G.A.R.
member) promised a liberal interpretation of pension legislation.
"The pension issue was second in importance to the tariff issue, yet possibly it became the deciding factor in Cleveland's defeat.
Certainly veterans exercised greater influence than they had in any previous presidential struggle."[xli] In 1888, Cleveland actually out-polled Harrison by 90,000 votes, but lost the Electoral College 233-168.
81.8% of eligible voters voted.
The South went for Cleveland, and the North and Territories generally went for Harrison.
The veteran vote was no doubt a crucial aspect in swing states like New York: (there were 45,000 federal pensioners in New York in 1888, and Harrison won by 14,373 votes), Ohio (won by 20,598 votes), Indiana (won by 2,376 votes), and Illinois, (won by 22,124 votes).
Indiana boasted 38,000 pensioners, and newspapers of the period reported that "the soldier vote had won the state".
Cleveland won Connecticut by 336 votes.[xlii] It will never be precisely clear how much the G.A.R.
affected the election in real terms.
However, the perception at the time was that the organization did have a major impact.
The organization clearly had a hand in subsequent elections as well, although its power never equaled that of 1888. After the election President Harrison immediately named James Tanner Commissioner of Pensions.
Tanner had served for many years on the G.A.R.
Pension Committee and was well liked.
He was so disposed to help his former compatriots that he instituted a re-rating scheme for pensions that was so overly aggressive that when the additional money flows were discovered, Tanner came under investigation and was forced to resign in 1889. In 1889 the G.A.R.
Pension Committee had reformatted the Disability Bill without a requirement that disability be of service origin, and without a dependent's clause.
Harrison advocated the Bill, but House Democrats held up the Bill and action did not take place until 1890, and it passed eventually in the Senate on March 31st.
The Disability Pension Act of 1890 "established an entirely new system of pensions for Civil War Veterans and their dependants, and proved to be the most costly pension law ever enacted".
For many years $60 - $70 million a year was paid out of the Treasury under this law.[xliii] It is important to mention that this whole period was one of excess national taxation and largely unneeded protectionist tariffs.
The budget was not keeping up with the surpluses.
There was a widespread veteran feeling that they should be put on something of a pedestal, and the nation owed them something (a refreshingly modern attitude).
It was felt that "if the government had money, it should spend it on the men that saved the nation".[xliv] Pensions took the easily palatable form (politically) of distributions of excess dollars rather than the form of a direct tax subsidizing veterans.
Certain states became partially dependent politically and socially upon the largesse of the Pension System. The G.A.R.
was now the undisputed champion of pension policy in the United States.
In the election year of 1900, the Act of 1900 (amending the Act of 1890) was passed by Congress, making the administration of the Pension system even more liberal by loosening classifications and expanding coverage.
But the Commissioner of Pensions, a Democrat named Evans, would not change his interpretations much even under the new Act, causing great consternation within the G.A.R.
President McKinley was notified of the G.A.R.'s disapproval of the Commissioner, but he was not replaced before McKinley's death in 1901.
President Roosevelt then got the brunt of the complaints from the G.A.R.
At the national encampment of 1902, Commander-in-Chief Torrance noted in a speech that the Pension Bureau investigation had been put in the hands of the President and "The acceptance of the resignation of the Commissioner of Pensions immediately followed".[xlv] This was further evidence of the political power the G.A.R.
now wielded. Another reinterpretation of the Act of 1890 was introduced by the G.A.R.
in 1904 as a bill adding age and length of service of only 90 days as criteria for distribution of benefits, as well as increased payouts to widows.
Thousands of G.A.R.
Posts petitioned Congress for its passage.[xlvi] Congress did not take up the matter in any kind of timely fashion, and in an admission of the power of the G.A.R.
lobby, (and in an election year), Roosevelt bypassed Congress and issued Order #78 which partially addressed additional benefits in original bill such as re-classifying the old age requirement as an infirmity.
Also in the administration of Roosevelt, James Tanner was named Registrar of Wills in Washington D.C.
and in 1905 he was elected Commander-in-Chief of the G.A.R. Subsequently political force was brought to bear to force Congress to make Order #78 a law.
It was passed in 1907 and signed by the President.
Thereafter, a widow's pension bill was sought by the G.A.R.
as veterans slowly started to die off.
It too passed in 1908.
There was a correspondingly large increase in pension expenditures, from $138 million in 1907 to $153 million in 1908 and $162 million in 1906, the largest disbursement to date.[xlvii] The top six states in dollars received per capita in federal pensions in 1910 were the District of Columbia, $4.55; Maine, $4.08; Vermont, $4.04; Kansas, $3.96; Indiana, $3.90; and Ohio, $3.36.[xlviii] It stands to reason that the G.A.R.
would have grown more bi-partisan by 1911, but Representative Isaac Sherwood from Ohio noted regarding the G.A.R.
national encampment that summer, "I was not the only Democrat at the encampment, but I was about the only one".
He went on to say that the G.A.R.
was ready to vote en masse for the bill he sponsored in the House to further liberalize pension payments.[xlix] This would have the effect of needing a bond issue to raise the needed funds, and although it passed the House, it was watered down in the Senate (to avoid a bonding), and passed as the Act of 1912, which had the incremental effect of paying more out to veterans who had a longer length of service during the Civil War.
Pension payments peaked in 1913 and thereafter declined as veterans and widows slowly died off. By the opening of World War I, the G.A.R.
was in legitimate decline numerically and politically.
Some historians such as McConnell would argue that it was finished as an effective force by 1900, but the history of the fight for pension legislation does not bear that out in my opinion.
Much pension legislation passed in the early years of the 20th century.
A more likely date for the end of its effective lobbying force would be during the period of World War I, when as McConnell puts it "The disjunction between the old soldier's view of the nation as a millennial republic with a civilizing mission and the reality of a burgeoning, culturally diverse population engaging in wars that were not easily construed as moral crusades did not become apparent until after the horror of World War I."[l] In summation, I cannot challenge the generally held view by historians that the G.A.R.
held great power as a pension lobby but substantially less so as a partisan political machine, except perhaps in the election of 1888, despite Democratic claims in the period.
Nonetheless, a group of generally like-minded individuals of that size could do a great deal politically - and it appears they did, becoming America's first broad based political lobby. The bulk of the records and data accumulated by the G.A.R.
went to the Library of Congress in 1920.
The final Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic was held in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1949 and the last member, Albert Woolson, died in 1956 at the age of 109 years. Bibliography Primary Sources Collection of the Connecticut State Library: Journal of the National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic.
Boston, Mass.
: E.B.
Stillings & Co.(and others) var.
pub dates, 11th -18th Encampments 1877-1884 (pub.
1884); 19th-23rd Encampments, 1885-1889, (pub.
1890); 1894-1906;1909-1922;1925-1936; 1937-1949. Grand Army of the Republic; Department of Connecticut; General Orders.
Hartford, CT.
State Archives, Record Group (RG) 113, CT State Library.
Record Boxes 1 and 2. James Carnahan, Editor, Decisions and Opinions of the Commanders in Chief and Judge Advocates-General of the G.A.R.
Indianapolis, Hesselman Co, 1884 Trinity College, Watkinson Library: John Alexander Logan.
Volunteer Soldier of America.
Chicago and New York, R.S.
Peale & Co., 1887.
Collection of the Watkinson Library, Trinity College Internet Daily Nebraska State Journal, Lincoln, NB, (Sunday 5 June 1887).
Accessed Dec2, 2004.
http://www.rootsweb.com/~neresour/OLLibrary/immigr/immgrgar.htmlHistory Central.com.
1888 Election Results.
Accessed Dec.
2, 2004.
http://www.multied.com/elections/1888state.html Secondary Sources Robert B.
Beath's History of the Grand Army of the Republic.
New York: Bryan, Taylor & Company; Cincinnati: The Jones Brothers Publishing Co., 1888.
Collection of the Watkinson Library, Trinity College. Mary Rulkottet Dearing.
Veterans in Politics: The Story of the G.
A.
R.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1952. Stuart McConnell.
Glorious Contentment: The Grand Army of the Republic, 1865-1900.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992. George Francis Dawson.
Life and Services of General John A.
Logan, as Soldier and Statesman.
Chicago: Belford, Clarke & Co., 1887.
Collection of the Watkinson Library, Trinity College. William H.
Glasson.
History of Federal Military Pension Legislation in the United States.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1918. William H.
Glasson.
History of Military Pension Legislation in the United States, in Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, Vol.
12; Columbia University Press.
1900.
pp.
219 - 354. Donald Fenton, "The G.A.R.
in Hartford" M.A.
Thesis, Trinity College, 2002.
Collection of the Watkinson Library, Trinity College. Endnotes [i] McConnell, 15 [ii] Dearing, 49 [iii] Foner, 487 [iv] Dearing, 275 [v] See the timeline chart in the attached Appendix for more detail.
[vi] For an example of an actual pension bill see H.R.
10343 in the attached Appendix [vii] Dearing, 111 [viii] Ibid., 133 [ix] Journal of the 18th National Encampment, G.A.R.
(1884) [x] National Order, CT State Library, Col.
113, Box 1 (August 8, 1892) [xi] Logan, 1887, 584 [xii] McConnell, 194 [xiii] Ibid., 200 [xiv] G.A.R.
National Order, State of CT.
Col.
113, Box 1 (February 1, 1868) [xv] Dawson, 497 [xvi] McConnell, 134 [xvii] Ibid., 138 [xviii] Dearing, 316 [xix] G.A.R.Department of Conn., CT State Library, Col.
113, Box 1 (August 15, 1892) [xx] Dearing, 320 [xxi] Glasson, 123 [xxii] Ibid., 125 [xxiii] Ibid., 149 [xxiv] Ibid., 158 [xxv] Journal of the 12th National Encampment, G.A.R.
(1884) 521 [xxvi] See chart in Appendix [xxvii] McConnell, 147 [xxviii] Journal of the 16th Encampment, G.A.R.
(1884) 572-575 [xxix] Journal of the 17th Encampment, G.A.R.
(1884) 151-152 [xxx] Glasson, 210-1 [xxxi] Ibid., 223 [xxxii] Ibid., 225 [xxxiii] McConnell, 149 [xxxiv] Dearing, 307 [xxxv] Ibid., 308-9 [xxxvi] Ibid.,324 [xxxvii]Journal of the 21st Encampment, G.A.R.
(1890), 231 [xxxviii] Editorial: Daily Nebraska State Journal, Lincoln, Sunday, June 5th 1887 [xxxix] Dearing, 340 [xl] Ibid., 344 [xli] Ibid., 389 [xlii] See Dearing, 390; Glasson, 220-25; and interesting data on HistoryCentral.com [xliii] Glasson, 233 [xliv] McConnell, 156 [xlv] Glasson, 245 [xlvi] Ibid., 246 [xlvii] Ibid., 252 [xlviii] Ibid., 269 [xlix] Ibid., 257 [l] McConnell, 238
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