Existing comment:
The Grand Review:
-- "The only national debt we can never pay is the debt we owe to the victorious Union soldiers." -- Banner suspended across Pennsylvania Avenue -- Washington D.C. -- May 23, 1865
Union veterans 200,000 strong marched through Washington on May 23 and 24, 1865, to celebrate their triumph in the Civil War. The column of troops was twenty-five miles long and took two days to pass before the reviewing stand. The Grand Review served as a rite of passage for the citizen-soldiers of the Union, most of whom eagerly anticipated their own transformation back into civilian life.
The Grand Review was America's first mass military parade. Never before had such a large force been gathered in one place in the United States. Crowds cheered, troops marched, and the Union army paraded off the stage of history. But the veterans carried with them an experience that would bind them in a unique brotherhood for the rest of their lives. Demobilization was completed with remarkable swiftness and, by June 1866, more than 1 million men had been mustered out of U.S. service.
The Grand Review served as a catharsis, exhibiting the size and power of the Union's volunteer army, while celebrating the fact that the huge force would soon evaporate. The Grand Review was a stirring moment in U.S. history, and veterans' organizations subsequently attempted to evoke its emotional appeal. |