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Grand Army Of The Republic
This three-sided memorial to the "Grand Army of the Republic" is located on Pennsylvania Avenue between the site of Matthew Brady's photography studios and the statue of General Hancock. The Temperance Fountain is on the same block.
After the Civil War, returning veterans expected a hero's welcome but instead found hard times, few jobs, and little compensation for service-related disabilities. The name shown on the statue here is Benjamin Stephenson but he was little more than a political errand boy for two former Union generals from Illinois (Richard Oglesby and John Logan) who capitalized on discontent among returning Civil War veterans by forming a political group called the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) whose membership reached 427,981 in 1890. Basically, the group pushed for soldiers' causes, such as equalizing wartime bounties, the national pension law, and establishing homes for veterans' orphans. In reality, they became a tool of the Republican party and some said the GAR actually stood for "Generally All Republicans". The group held its last meeting in 1949 and the last Civil War veteran (a former drummer boy from Minnesota named Albert Woolson) died in 1956. |