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50th Gettysburg Reunion
The Great Reunion of 1913
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"Comrades and friends, these splendid statues of marble and granite and
bronze shall finally crumble to dust, and in the ages to come, will perhaps be forgotten, but the spirit that has called this
great assembly of our people together, on this field, shall live for ever." -Dr.
Nathaniel D. Cox, July 2, 1913
The largest combined reunion of Civil War veterans ever held occurred at Gettysburg
in 1913. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania hosted the event and extended invitations to every surviving honorably discharged
Union and Confederate veteran in the nation. It was scheduled to be a unique encampment, a combined reunion of members of
the Grand Army of the Republic and United Confederate Veterans. The response was overwhelming and despite efforts to limit
the numbers attending, over 50,000 veterans came to Gettysburg and settled into the great camp situated on the battlefield. Former foes walked together over the old battlefield and re-lived
the terrible days where so many of their comrades had lost their lives. Not only were there veterans of Gettysburg, but men
who had fought under McClellan at Antietam, Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, Sherman in Georgia, Grant in Tennessee, Bragg in Kentucky, Hood at Atlanta, and Ord at
Appomattox. This was the largest gathering of former soldiers who had changed the face of a nation, torn it apart, and now
delighted in its reunification.
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(Right) Photograph of old soldiers in blue and gray as they pose side
by side for the camera near the Great Tent in 1913.
Pennsylvania Governor John K. Tener insisted from the beginning that
the state be the sole host of the reunion and provide funds for free rail transportation to all of his state's veterans. The
governor urged other states to provide equal donations for their veterans for transportation and sustainment during the encampment.
Though his request did not fall on deaf ears, the expense of sending hundreds of old soldiers to the reunion from as
far away as California was overwhelming and many states could not provide cash donations either to the reunion or to their
veterans. A handful of northern states were successful in passing special legislation to assist their veterans while others
depended on personal contributions to help get the old men to Pennsylvania. The Virginia chapter of The United Daughters
of the Confederacy took an active role and supplied United Confederate Veterans' uniforms to those in the state who needed
them. Other chapters of the UDC held socials and fund raisers to gather money for transportation as well as food, clothing,
and medical assistance.
Despite Pennsylvania's good intentions for hosting the reunion, Governor Tener
was soon faced with a growing financial and political dilemma. The projected cost of the reunion rose as plans changed, and
with it grew opposition in the legislature as more state money was appropriated. Several legislators argued that hosting two
large veteran organizations without compensation was fruitless and was eventually going to put a strain on the state budget.
Tener finally approached the Federal government, which agreed to step in and appropriate funds to feed and provide tents for
the veterans during the encampment. Additionally, US Army personnel would support the reunion with cooks and bakers, quartermaster
staff and troops to aid in crowd control. Emergency Federal money would also pay the bills for the reunion until the states
could appropriate some back payments. With this assurance of aid, the Pennsylvania legislature approved half a million dollars
to cover the cost of the reunion.
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| The Great Camp of 1913 |
Plans to establish a camp large enough to house the perspective number of
guests and military support personnel were started two years before the event. The number of tents required to house everyone
would quickly deplete the state's supply and again the Federal government stepped in to provide additional tents and equipment
necessary to complete the camp. Personnel from the United States Army Quartermaster Corps and Engineer Corps arrived at Gettysburg
National Military Park in 1912 to plan military and civilian support for the encampment. The engineers surveyed the field
adjacent to the fields of "Pickett's Charge" where they laid out the arrangement for "The Great Camp", divided into areas for Union veterans and for Confederate veterans.
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| Mine had a Ramrod... |
Soldiers installed utility systems, erected hundreds of tents to house the
veterans, built picnic tables, benches, and boardwalks throughout the camp. By the first of June the sprawling Great Camp
occupied 280 acres, included 47 1/2 miles of avenues and company streets, was lit by 500 electric arc lights, and 32 bubbling
ice water fountains were installed. Over 2,000 army cooks and bakers manned 173 field kitchens, ready to provide three hot
meals per day for veterans and camp personnel alike.
Two battalions of the Fifth United States Infantry guarded the camps and supply
depots, and provided security along with a mounted detachment of the Fifteenth United States Cavalry. Pennsylvania also provided
medical staff and a detachment of the Pennsylvania State Police and Pennsylvania National Guard to support the reunion activities.
Several hundred members of the Boy Scouts of America served as escorts to the veterans during the encampment, acted as aides
and messengers in the army hospitals, and acted as couriers for various officials. Medical care was provided by the American
Red Cross and US Army Medical Corps.
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| Veterans at the Lincoln Speech Memorial |
The first veterans arrived on June 25 and within days the Great Camp swelled to overflowing. Every veteran
was provided a cot and bedding in a tent that would hold eight men. Meals were served from a kitchen at the end of each company
street and varied from fried chicken suppers to pork roast sandwiches with ice cream for desert. By the end of the reunion,
the army kitchens had supplied over 688,000 meals to reunion participants. Invariably the days were hot and the thermometer
topped 100 degrees on July 2. Heat exhaustion and physical fatigue resulted in hospitalization of several hundred veterans.
Over 9,980 patients were treated by medical personnel for ailments ranging from heat exhaustion to stomach disorders. Remarkably,
only nine veterans passed away during the week-long encampment. Despite the heat and often dusty conditions, nothing could
keep the aged men in camp and hundreds wandered the battlefield. Many visited battle sites where they or their comrades had
been fifty years before. Confederate veterans especially were pleased to find old cannon mounted on metal carriages to mark
the locations where their batteries had been during that fateful battle. Invariably, the presence of khaki-clad US Army personnel
caused a lot of excitement. The soldiers were there to guard camp supplies, give demonstrations, and provide services to the
veterans who delighted themselves discussing the modern weapons of war. Many an aged veteran was eager to explain how much
things had changed in fifty years to any soldier who was handy and army personnel were entertained by old soldiers at every
turn.
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| Presentation of the flags |
The youngest veteran at the reunion was 61 years old and the oldest "alleged that he was 112 years." In
spite of their advanced years, the old soldiers walked for miles through the battlefield park and packed into the Great Tent
erected in the field of "Pickett's Charge" adjacent to the camp, for daily meetings and ceremonies. Every day there were programs
with speeches by dignitaries and governors of several states. Though President Woodrow Wilson had made a conscious effort
to avoid the event, he was persuaded by an assistant not to let such an opportunity slip by. Following some last minute arrangements,
President Wilson came to Gettysburg to address the veterans on July 4th. The president spoke to the veterans with compassion
and gratitude: "These venerable men crowding here to this famous field have set us a great example of devotion and utter sacrifice.
They were willing to die that the people might live. But their task is done. Their day is turned into evening. They look to
us to perfect what they have established. Their work is handed unto us, to be done in another way but not in another spirit.
Our day is not over; it is upon us in full tide."
A singular highlight of the reunion was the meeting of Pickett's Division Association (Pickett's Division) and the Philadelphia Brigade Association near the High Water Mark on July 3, 1913. Despite the torrid heat, the veterans
made speeches, traded ceremonial flags and shook hands over the stonewall that outlines the Angle where fifty years before,
the two groups had met in mortal combat.
In 1913, the nation and the world were in political turmoil. On the edge of
the first World War, European alliances over political and territorial disputes were affecting the world market, national
pride and threatened a precarious peace between numerous foreign "democracies" and sovereign states. The Wilson administration
was already under pressure for the United States to stay out of European disputes though opponents believed that America should
take an active role in world affairs. The age of industrial barons was at its height and their influence in national politics
broadened political and social divisions. In the center of it all was this Great Reunion at Gettysburg, an event whose significance
did not go unnoticed by a public weary of sectional turmoil and political rhetoric. The Washington Post summed up the event:
"Nothing could possibly be more impressive or more inspiring to the younger generation than this gathering. They feel the
thrill of bygone days, without a knowledge of its bitterness, which, thank God, has passed us all. But even more touching
must be the emotions of these time-worn veterans, as they assemble on an occasion that in itself constitutes a greater victory
than that of half a century ago, and one too, in which every section of a reunited country has common part."
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| Confederate guests pause in the shade. |
For a while it appeared the Great Reunion was to be the last dual gathering of the United Confederate Veterans
and the Grand Army of the Republic. The goodwill expressed at Gettysburg faded as the nation plunged into World War I, raced
through the "roaring twenties", and was traumatized by the Great Depression. By the 1930's, a new generation of veterans from
the Great War outnumbered the old veterans of the past, largely forgotten in time as their numbers dwindled and more pressing
affairs touched American lives. A more radical and less forgiving leadership altered the United Confederate Veterans, and
with time the goodwill expressed at the 1913 reunion was just a faint memory. As the 75th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg
approached, it appeared that another reunion at Gettysburg was out of the question. If not for the persistent efforts of Gettysburg
native Paul Roy it might never have happened. Roy spent five years in pursuit of the leadership for both organizations and
finally convinced them to have one last meeting on the old battleground. Approximately 1,800 veterans from across the country
came to Gettysburg for the last great reunion in 1938, yet it was a far cry from the great gathering of old soldiers twenty-five
years before.
The monuments and memorials have not crumbled to dust as Dr. Cox predicted
in 1913. They still stand in silent honor to the men, the regiments, and the armies that fought this great battle. It is the
words and deeds of the veterans at that great reunion that have faded with time. All traces of the Great Camp are long gone;
the site was returned to farm fields soon after the reunion, and residential and commercial growth during the 1950's has covered
the area where the veterans of that great war camped, talked, and ate together. The site where the Great Tent stood is once
again returned to the peaceful pursuit of raising corn and wheat. Many of the Gettysburg shops and restaurants visited by
the veterans are long gone, replaced by new owners and updated interiors for the modern consumer. Yet if you stand on Seminary
Ridge on a quiet summer's evening and listen closely, you may detect the low murmer of aged men shuffling through the dry
grass, sharing memories to one another of when they were young, full of bravado, serving their country as soldiers.
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(Photos are reproduced from Lt. Col. Lewis E. Beitler (editor), Fiftieth Anniversary
of the Battle of Gettysburg: Report of the Pennsylvania Commission, Wm. Stanley Ray- State Printer, Harrisburg, 1914.) |
Credit: Gettysburg Military National Park
Recommended Reading: Encampment.
Description: Halfway between the Emancipation proclaimed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 and the dream of Free at Last
proclaimed at Lincoln's Memorial in 1963, America held its breath. What if America's history had taken a different turn in
1913, and white men had put aside their racial hatred while black men had washed away their pain? Encampment:
A Novel of Race and Reconciliation examines a road not taken during the July 1913 reunion of 54,000 veterans at Gettysburg
a now-forgotten, week-long reunion that ended in a gesture of reconciliation between North and South. Continued below...
Domestic and foreign reporters kept telegraph wires humming while 100,000
civilians came each day to see for themselves: could Blue and Gray bind up the nation's wounds and make peace? They could,
and they did...for those who were white. But what if there had been a
deeper healing? What might have happened if 5,000 black veterans had dared to attend? What if not just blue and gray but also
black and white had battled through their hatred and regrets, laid down their hurts and found a way to heal history? Encampment follows three of these men in their autumn years. Savannah sergeant Zachariah
Hampton still marches often, drinks hard, and believes blacks should stay in a place called Jim Crow. To Lucius Robinson,
however, Jim Crow's place smells like the slavery he ran away from 50 years ago, and his heart and dignity are worn down to
rags. Retired Vermont abolitionist Calvin Salisbury laments as the triumph of his youth is shredded by a national bigotry
that leaves the sacrifices of his comrades in tatters. These three men
are among the thousands at Gettysburg who could have pieced together all Americans into a quilt of common heritage. The hopefulness
of this novel evokes forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation, and a re-thinking of history that informs the present. Review: In this beguiling, important novel, Carl Eeman reinvents a
world of 1912-14 in which our tortured struggle with Civil War memory and race relations might have had different outcomes.
He imagines Civil War veterans, their language, their identities, their sense of place and honor as they have never been portrayed
in fiction. And the story of the spectacular Gettysburg Reunion of 1913 is rendered in new terms by the presence of 5,000
black veterans. Every serious student and reader of history has wondered "what if?" In Eeman's haunting characters and dialogues,
and in his textured storytelling, Americans can see the genuine tragedy in our story of Civil War remembrance. David W. Blight,
Yale University, author of Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory --From back cover
Advance to:
Recommended Reading: Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage. Description: America's Civil War raged for more than four years, but it is the three days of fighting in the Pennsylvania countryside in July 1863 that continues to fascinate, appall, and inspire new
generations with its unparalleled saga of sacrifice and courage. From Chancellorsville, where General Robert E. Lee launched
his high-risk campaign into the North, to the Confederates' last daring and ultimately-doomed act, forever known as Pickett's
Charge, the battle of Gettysburg gave the Union army a victory that turned back the boldest and perhaps greatest chance for
a Southern nation. Continued below...
Now, acclaimed
historian Noah Andre Trudeau brings the most up-to-date research available to a brilliant, sweeping, and comprehensive history
of the battle of Gettysburg that sheds fresh light on virtually every aspect of it. Deftly balancing his own
narrative style with revealing firsthand accounts, Trudeau brings this engrossing human tale to life as never before.
Recommended Reading: The Gettysburg
Companion: A Guide to the Most Famous Battle of the Civil
War (Hardcover). Description: There have
been many books about Gettysburg, but never one to rival this
in scale or authority. Based on extensive research, The Gettysburg Companion describes the battle in detail, drawing on firsthand
accounts of participants on all sides in order to give the reader a vivid sense of what it was like to experience the carnage
at Gettysburg in early July 1863. The many full-color maps--all
specially commissioned for the book--and the numerous photographs, charts, and diagrams make this book a feast for the eyes
and a collector's dream. Includes a massive library of 500 color illustrations.
Recommended Reading: Pickett's Charge,
by George Stewart. Description: The author has written
an eminently readable, thoroughly enjoyable, and well-researched book on the third day of the Gettysburg battle, July 3, 1863. An especially rewarding read if one has toured, or plans
to visit, the battlefield site. The author's unpretentious, conversational style of writing succeeds in putting the reader
on the ground occupied by both the Confederate and Union forces before, during and after
Pickett's and Pettigrew's famous assault on Meade's Second Corps. Continued below...
Interspersed
with humor and down-to-earth observations concerning battlefield conditions, the author conscientiously describes all aspects
of the battle, from massing of the assault columns and pre-assault artillery barrage to the last shots and the flight of the
surviving rebels back to the safety of their lines… Having visited Gettysburg several years ago, this superb volume makes me
want to go again.
Recommended Reading: Hallowed Ground: A Walk at Gettysburg,
by James M. Mcpherson (Crown Journeys) (Hardcover). Review From Publishers Weekly: The country's most distinguished Civil War historian, a Pulitzer Prize winner (for
Battle Cry of Freedom) and professor at Princeton, offers this compact and incisive study
of the Battle of Gettysburg. In narrating "the largest battle ever fought in the Western Hemisphere,"
McPherson walks readers over its presently hallowed ground, with monuments numbering into the hundreds, many of which work
to structure the narrative. Continued
below...
They range
from the equestrian monument to Union general John Reynolds to Amos Humiston, a New Yorker identified several months after
the battle when family daguerreotypes found on his body were recognized by his widow. Indeed, while McPherson does the expected
fine job of narrating the battle, in a manner suitable for the almost complete tyro in military history, he also skillfully
hands out kudos and criticism each time he comes to a memorial. He praises Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine, but also the 140th
New York and its colonel, who died leading his regiment
on the other Union flank in an equally desperate action. The cover is effective and moving: the quiet clean battlefield park
above, the strewn bodies below. The author's knack for knocking myths on the head without jargon or insult is on display throughout:
he gently points out that North Carolinians think that their General Pettigrew ought to share credit for Pickett's charge;
that General Lee's possible illness is no excuse for the butchery that charge led to; that African-Americans were left out
of the veterans' reunions; and that the kidnapping of African-Americans by the Confederates has been excised from most history
books.
Recommended Reading: Lincoln at Gettysburg:
The Words that Remade America (Simon & Schuster Lincoln Library). Description: The power of words has rarely been given a more compelling demonstration than in the Gettysburg Address.
Lincoln was asked to memorialize the gruesome battle. Instead
he gave the whole nation "a new birth of freedom" in the space of a mere 272 words. His entire life and previous training
and his deep political experience went into this, his revolutionary masterpiece. Continued below...
By examining
both the address and Lincoln in their historical moment and cultural frame, Wills breathes new life into words
we thought we knew, and reveals much about a president so mythologized but often misunderstood. Wills shows how Lincoln desired to change the world and…how his words had to and did complete the work of the guns,
and how Lincoln wove a spell that has not yet been broken.
Recommended Reading:
General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse. Review:
You cannot say that University of North
Carolina professor Glatthaar (Partners in Command) did not do his homework in this massive examination
of the Civil War–era lives of the men in Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Glatthaar spent nearly 20 years
examining and ordering primary source material to ferret out why Lee's men fought, how they lived during the war, how they
came close to winning, and why they lost. Glatthaar marshals convincing evidence to challenge the often-expressed notion that
the war in the South was a rich man's war and a poor man's fight and that support for slavery was concentrated among the Southern
upper class. Continued below...
Lee's army
included the rich, poor and middle-class, according to the author, who contends that there was broad support for the war in
all economic strata of Confederate society. He also challenges the myth that because Union forces outnumbered and materially
outmatched the Confederates, the rebel cause was lost, and articulates Lee and his army's acumen and achievements in the face
of this overwhelming opposition. This well-written work provides much food for thought for all Civil War buffs.
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