Chapter One Hundred and Forty Seven
Brotherhood, Trauma and a Great Purpose - The Army and its Veterans
From "The Reconstruction Era" by Michael Baylor
Grosvenor 2006
"The might of the United States army in the summer of 1865 was ephemeral. The volunteers wanted to go home. Demobilization, however, was spread over a period of two years because of the needs of the occupation of the Southern states and the instability in Mexico. This all despite the fact that demobilization could have occurred in three months...
The Radicals in Congress were pushing to ensure the enforcement of expatriation and proscription was not diluted for want of manpower. For the next two years the Radicals insistence on many volunteers being kept with the colors would begin to sour opinions among many northern voters..."
From "Kearny's Army - The United States Army from the Civil War to the Emperors' War"
MacArthur University 2007
"On January 1, 1865 there were 1,187,354 volunteers in the Army. Within two years, the General in Chief, knew that strength would be gone. To replace it General Kearny wanted to increase the regular army to 100,000 men. Neither the President nor Secretary of War Stanton would agree to back a fivefold expansion of the regulars. The Radicals however had the whiphand. They wanted a large enough army to keep the South in its place. Congress voted an establishment of 80,512 officers and enlisted men. This meant that the regular army would, on paper at least, expand to 44 regiments of infantry and 20 regiments of cavalry (later reduced in 1868 to 15)...
The 13th Cavalry - invariably the "Scouts"
A significant effect of the Civil War on the new organisation of the Army was a provision in the 1865 Act for 5 African American infantry regiments, 3 African American cavalry regiments (10th, 11th and 15th), and 1 Native American cavalry regiment (13th). Furthermore, while those regiments already on strength would remain white in character, the remaining new regiments to be raised were to be mixed (albeit with a mono-racial company structure and white officers only). This was acknowledged, even by the Radicals, as an 'experimental' provision. It had worked well during the war. The question for the army was whether it would work in peacetime. Within the army the provision had its advocates: Isaac Rodman, John J. Peck and Oliver O. Howard for example. It was not without its detractors, and Winfield Scott Hancock was foremost among them. To him it had been an "
exceptional wartime measure" that would have a "
deleterious effect on morale in peacetime"..."
Hancock the Superb had grave misgivings about the mixed regiments
From "The Reconstruction Era" by Michael Baylor
Grosvenor 2006
"The war had settled once and for all time the questions of slavery and of state sovereignty. However after the peace the problems of reconstruction remained and with them the Army's involvement in southern affairs. Of course the army had the primary responsibility for overseeing reconstruction. As the Union armies had advanced, civil government in the South had collapsed. This was particularly acute after the murder of General Hunter which had raised fears of tit for tat killings and so civil officials fled before the advancing armies. From Virginia to Texas the Army found itself acting as the civil government in every respect: from the regulation of the cotton and tobacco trade to the use of provost marshals as police. As the war drew to a conclusion the responsibilities of the Army only increased, particularly with the establishment of the Freedmans' Bureau, the Office of Proscription and the Secret Service. The Army found itself pursuing proscripted persons, arresting counterfeiters, and protecting freed slaves from exploitation...
After the passing of the Naturalization Act of 1865 and the Confiscation Act of the same year the South was effectively denied access to the majority of its experienced political leaders. Not only that but it was also denied the classes of persons from whom it would normally have drawn their replacements. The plantation classes and their supporters were effectively expatriated or proscribed. Until new electoral rolls could be complied, military governments would remain in each Southern state. Even after the election of new state governments military department heads remained imbued with wide ranging emergency powers to overrule these 'inexperienced' politicians. (Powers that ultimately would lead to the conflict between the army high command under Kearny and the Supreme Court under Davis). To quote Edward Bragg "
the country remains divided between the President ruling over a Northern Republic and the General in Chief ruling over his Southern Feudal Kingdom"...
Bragg the soldier was a loyal Union man. Bragg the politician would never dance to the tune of National Unionism
Under these Reconstruction Acts the district commanders had to deal with issues such as rioting (particularly in the aftermath of the passage of the 14th Amendment), civil court proceedings, regulating commerce, public education, enforcing expatriation, administering elections and mid-wiving constitutional conventions. This occupation engaged fully two thirds of the Army's strength in the period 1865-68. Even as the Southern states were restored to the Union, military authority was maintained in many areas. It would be many years before peace could be fully restored..."
From “Armed Resistance - Organised and Violent Opposition to Reconstruction” by Dr Guy Burchett
LSU 1997
"Though few bands existed and even less recruited more than a few dozen members, armed resistance to Reconstruction and its policies persisted. In South Carolina many proscripted persons went into hiding. Attacks on African American community leaders began. Servants of the Reconstructionist Civil Government were at risk as soon as they left the towns. The Sons of the Palmetto perhaps had no more than 40 members at its height. Yet every incident, every outrage seemed attributed to its actions...
In Alabama there were the Red Mountain Boys, named after the location of the lynching of an African American who was offering paid work to former slaves in nearby Birmingham...
In Texas the former members of the Texas Rangers (or perhaps the 8th Texas Cavalry - Terry's Texas Rangers) would become one of the most persistent and longest lasting holdouts against Reconstruction. Frequently using the chaos in Mexico to slip over the border Joseph Hooker described them as more damaging to Texas than the Apache...
As long as such resistance existed Congress would insist that the Army maintain garrisons in the Southern states. Dealing with these diehards was more of a nuisance that a threat on a national scale, but the Radicals ensured such resistance received national coverage...
It would remain the responsibility of the army notwithstanding the restoration of state militia forces under the Reconstructionist State Governments. Many of these new militia forces consisted of African Americans and were the subject of direct attacks themselves on occasions. These militia forces mainly performed general police duties, save in South Carolina where General Peck ensured they played an equal part in dealing with the attacks of the Sons of the Palmetto and other diehards..."
From "Kearny's Army - The United States Army from the Civil War to the Emperors' War"
MacArthur University 2007
"Aside from some engagements with the Native American tribes the Army engaged in no conventional military operations of any consequnce until the final year of Lincoln's second term when it embarked upon its most ambitious international undertaking since the war with the Barbary States..."
From “The United States Legion” from an article by Paul Bernouli
North & South Magazine 2009
"Following the attempted assassination of President Lincoln it was clear to many that the act was part of a wider conspiracy to murder prominent government officials. In response a number of officers attached to General Kearny's headquarters decided to form a 'legion' whose primary purpose would be the protection of General Kearny. The Legion founded by Louis Fitzgerald, Chauncey McKeever and Philip Kearny jr. grew quickly beyond its original purpose into a fraternal organisation for veterans of the Civil War...
Within a year the Kearny Legion had morphed into the United States Legion, though its original founding principal was honored in other ways. Holders of the Kearny Cross in the Legion were members of a special class called the Companions of the Cross. In future decades as holders of that unique award passed away their privileges passed to the Companions of Honor - holders of the Medal of Honor...
Part of the Ceremonial Sash of a Companion of the Cross in the United States Legion
Philip Kearny jr. quickly founded the first regimental branch of the Legion in his own 11th New Jersey, then acting as guards for General Kearny in late 1864. When he became aware of the organisation General Kearny warmly endorsed the idea of the 'Legion' but suggested its primary function should be as a fraternal organisation whose purpose should be to guard the goals for which the war had been fought rather than the life of any one man. Kearny himself had been an active member of the Aztec Club for veterans of the Mexican War, and his first official act in the United States following his return from Europe was to join his local New Jersey branch of the Legion...
By the time of the first national meeting, on May 18th 1866 at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, there were already almost a quarter of a million active members...
With large numbers of members in every state the Legion had the potential to be a potent political force. In many states it was quickly harnessed by ambitious men keen to wield its numbers in service of Republican/National Unionist, pro-army. pro-veteran causes. The United States Legion prospered as the veterans' arm of the National Union movement during the prosecution of Reconstruction measures...
The Legion sought to protect the rights of negro and Indian veterans, celebrating their patriotism and sacrifices. The Legion became one of the first racially integrated fraternal organisations in the United States...
To list the early state leaders of the Legion is to list a who's who of American politics for a generation. To name just a few:
- John C. McClernand: Captain-General of the Illinois Legion 1868-1876
- Anson George McCook: Captain-General of the Ohio Legion 1871-1880
- Lew Wallace: Captain-General of the Indiana Legion 1868-1878
- Russell A. Alger: Captain-General of the Michigan Legion 1875-1885
- Daniel Sickles: Captain-General of the New York Legion 1868-1872
United States Legion Parade 1889
From "Life After War - The Civil War's Injured" by Freddy Campion
Janus 2014
"The war generated hundreds of thousands of casualties, and more wounded soldiers than any other American war save one. In the aftermath of the war, a huge new population of disabled men had to incorporated back into society. Not only that but they had to be provided for. Disabled veterans were a common part of daily life in America for decades afterwards...
During the war the United States Sanitary Commission proposed a plan for the expected flood of disabled veterans. The Commission's report on a "System for the Economical Relief of Disabled Soldiers" outlined a plan of action for how disabled veterans should be integrated into society. Those involved in the report were men of business and industry and as a result the Report wisely focused on the economic consequences of the injured veterans' predicament...
"
Every measure, tending to fuse Invalids into a class with particular privileges or immunities, should be discountenanced. Nor should any such accumulations of them be encouraged in any locality, as would render them independent of public opinion, or segregate them from friends or kindred... As far as possible, invalids should be restored to their original homes, and the communities to which they belong should absorb them, by assigning to them, by conventional agreement, the lighter occupations; and no provision separating them from their families, or diminishing their domestic responsibilities should be encouraged. For, wherever invalids have homes, public opinion should be directed to these as the best places for them, the object always being to keep them from ultimately drifting into town or county pauper asylums...Home is generally the best hospital, even as repose is often the best remedy."
The Sanitary Commission did however recognize that many disabled veterans had no homes to return to. For such men institutions were proposed: The Soldiers' Homes. Financial aid for these institutions came from a variety of sources: federal, state, municipal, and private charity including huge sums raised by the United States Legion and other veterans organisations...
For those injured to the point of requiring "lighter occupations" the prospects were not inspiring: broom makers, button makers, cigar makers, daguerrotypists, engravers, postmen, hatters, newspaper vendors, tailors, and teachers...
Samuel Decker built his own prosthetics and went on to become Official Doorkeeper of the House of Representatives
In the latter decades of the 19th century, the social structures that shaped the lives of people with disabilities changed as urbanization and industrialization separated the home and the workplace. The rapidly expanding urban, and largely immigrant, labor force often lacked extended family resources. The problem of caring for people with disability loomed ever larger. One class to suffer were the immigrants of the Eastern cities: especially the Irish where their families were back in the 'old country'...
Recognizing the overwhelming number of amputations resulting from combat, the Lincoln administration committed itself to the "
Great Civil War Benefaction". This was a commitment by the Government to provide prosthetics to all disabled veterans who needed them...
All across the United States entrepreneurs began competing for a share of the burgeoning prosthetics market. However the quality of the prosthetics available was poor. Few devices were comfortable. Those who had lost legs found crutches the easiest option...
Rubber began to replace rigid substances mid-war as the material of choice for replacement limbs. Rubber was more resilient, more flexible and more natural in appearance than either wood or metal...
It is surprising to look at these early prosthetics. The rubber hands produced by 1865 have fingers that could move under pressure, with enough action to permit small objects like a fork or pencil to be held. Some were almost Swiss Army knife-like in their utility, allowing the user to swap the hand for hooks, brushes, sawing attachments, and various other tools and accessories...
The Civil War marked the end of the era of wooden peg legs and simple hooks. The war set the prosthetics industry on a course that would ultimately lead to better attempts to restore independence, productivity, and dignity to severely wounded veterans. Organisations like the United States Legion and the Magdala Club would ensure that the fate of disabled veterans could never be forgotten by any administration. For that matter the most famous amputee of them all would not forget his fellows either..."
General Commanding the Armies and amputee Philip Kearny
, I look forward to reading more as you write it.
