Lining Up to Serve
Wounded and Sick Union Officers Join Veterans Reserve Corps during Civil War, Reconstruction
Spring 2003, Vol. 35, No. 1
By Paul A. Cimbala
© 2003 by Paul A. Cimbala
Letter from Erastus Everson accepting his commission in the Veteran Reserve Corps.
Erastus W. Everson fought long and hard for the Union cause. Enlisting in 1861 as a sergeant, he rose from the ranks to a lieutenancy in the Eighteenth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, received two battlefield wounds, and earned two brevets for his trouble.
Fighting eventually put him in the hospital. His wounds, including a gunshot wound to the testicles that would have an “irritable influence upon his mental faculties,” continued to trouble him. Nevertheless, he had grown used to military life and had no desire to leave the army.
“Being in sound health, always my wounds excepted,” he explained as he recuperated in a hospital ward in October 1863, “I had rather die from exposure in the field than to leave the service, now that I have been in it since this war began.”
Furthermore, he continued to feel the need to be useful, even though by any standard he had already done his part. “I find it extremely difficult to keep easy in hospital,” he wrote, stressing that “My record is good & I do not desire to leave it unfinished.” Thus, instead of seeking a discharge, he secured a commission in the U.S. Army’s Invalid Corps.
With the war’s end in 1865, Everson still had no desire to leave the army. When it became apparent that the Veteran Reserve Corps—as the Invalid Corps became officially known in March 1864—would be consolidated and the need for commissioned officers greatly reduced, he secured an appointment in the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. It was in this organization in South Carolina that he served until his muster out on January 1, 1868.1
Everson’s desire to stay in the service of the Union cause long after he had proven himself a true patriot was a desire shared by hundreds of veteran officers of the Civil War–era United States Army. Not all were honorable men. There were enough scamps, drunks, thieves, Lotharios, and scoundrels looking for an easy berth behind the lines to diminish the Veteran Reserve Corps’ reputation among civilians and soldiers alike.
But many more officers wished to remain useful and to see the fight for the Union through to a successful conclusion. Probably most of them were seriously concerned about how they would adjust to civilian life. They realized that their wounds or dysentery-plagued bowels had rendered them unfit for their pre-war civilian professions. Consequently, many of them feared that they would be incapable of supporting themselves and their families in a society that demanded a degree of physical competence would prove challenging, especially a society that had yet to develop modern notions of state-sponsored philanthropy.2
These officers did not expect charity; rather, these wounded and camp-sick veterans expected the government to allow them to continue to serve during and after the war in a military organization that appeared to be suited for men of their record and abilities.
The establishment of the Invalid Corps, authorized on April 28, 1863, by the secretary of war, was one means by which the army attempted to solve its insatiable need for men. Through this organization, the army expected to make use of veteran soldiers who were in some way disabled but were still fit for rear echelon duty. Enlisted men, who previously might have expected to spend time loitering around hospital wards or who would have received their discharge papers, now found themselves fair game for more service. Most enlisted invalids probably accepted their transfer to the new organization as an obligation, a duty that they had to fulfill at least until their terms of enlistment were up. Some disabled soldiers actually welcomed the opportunity to continue the fight. Others grumbled, complained, and wrote letters to the President, all the while assuming that their physical condition exempted them from further service.
Understandably, the fact that the men of the Invalid Corps were the butts of humor, ridiculed by other soldiers who easily spotted them in their sky-blue uniform jackets, did not help matters. Nor did it speed the efforts of officers who tried to recruit eligible honorably discharged men into the corps. The organization’s heavy reliance on transfers to fill its ranks gives some indication of the enlisted man’s enthusiasm for service in the Corps.
Of the approximately 57,000 enlisted men who served in the Corps from its inception into the fall of 1865, only 5,275 had enlisted directly into the Corps, while 3,493 had reenlisted. The other soldiers received transfers into the organization, primarily from hospital wards. After the war, when these men had the opportunity to stay in the service or accept their discharges, the great majority of them chose the latter course of action.3
The officers who commanded these men, however, were another matter. Disabled officers eagerly sought places in the Corps. Any shortage of officers in the organization was the consequence of the carefulness of the Corps’s examining boards and the bureaucratic delays of the War Department rather than lack of interest on the part of veteran soldiers. By July 1863, the commanders could no longer simply transfer officers into the Corps; rather, Provost Marshal General James B. Fry, under whose jurisdiction the Corps fell, required that disabled officers make special application for an appointment.4
Furthermore, receiving a commission was more complicated than simply asking for one. Intent on turning the organization into a Corps of Honor, Colonel Fry stressed the need to review with great care all applications for those commissions.5 Applicants for commissions had to prove their good character, intelligence, sobriety, and courage; starting January 1, 1864, they had to appear before a review board and pass rigorous examinations before they were allowed to hold VRC commissions.6
By early September 1863, there were more than 900 applications on hand for commissions in the Invalid Corps; by the end of the month, there were almost 1,400.7 By the end of October, the Provost Marshal General’s Office had reviewed a sufficient number of those applications to issue 501 commissions to invalids, of which 491 actually went on to serve in the Corps.8
By the fall of 1865, the army had appointed a total of 1,036 officers to the Veteran Reserve Corps. Only 15 declined to accept their commissions, and only about 18 percent (181) resigned for various reasons at some point after accepting appointments.9 The commissions were desirable. Veteran officers, as well as some enlisted men and noncommissioned officers, vied for them. And once they had them, they wished to hold on to them.
As the war came to a close, job prospects appeared to be limited for veterans who sought work outside the military, thus making a commission in the VRC all the more valuable.
In May 1865, Erastus Everson learned there was no work to be had in Massachusetts, which certainly contributed to his desire to find a position in the Freedmen’s Bureau. In his hometown of Dedham, Massachusetts, editorialists urged businesses to do their duty by hiring veterans. Few individuals who had benefited from the veterans’ “hardships and sufferings” would challenge the notion that faithful soldiers deserved “every consideration.” But “these thoughts,” his correspondent noted, “are seldom, made use of in practice.”10
In March 1866, Lt. Adolph Glackmeyer, who had some trouble walking because of a gunshot wound, also encountered poor employment prospects as he waited at home in New York City to hear from the War Department about his military future. “I have as yet been unable to procure something that would warrant me to make a change of Masters and by the looks of things generally it looks very dubious whether I shall be able to do so shortly,” he wrote, “for that reason I unite my wish with your’s [sic] that our present position may remain so indefinitely.”11
Even if the prospects had been better, for many disabled veteran officers, the Corps was an opportunity—perhaps the only opportunity—to replace a pre-war profession now rendered inaccessible because of wounds suffered in battle or illnesses contracted in camp. Disabled in some way while trying to preserve the Union, these men expected the government to take an interest in their future and offer them an alternative to unrewarding or unfulfilling civilian lives.
Before the establishment of the Invalid Corps, Emil Munch, who eventually received an appointment in that organization, wrote to President Abraham Lincoln about his expectations of the government. Munch, who had first enlisted in October 1861, wanted no charity. Unable to return to lumbering after a wound and exposure rendered him unfit for active service, he was “unwilling to accept any Gift from the Government (in the way of Pensions), except for Services actually rendered, and Knowing, that it is the just intention of the Government, in making appointments, to regard the interests and claims of disabled soldiers, if otherwise they are qualified, I would most respectfully apply to be appointed to some position, either civil or military, that would render me the necessary subsistence of life.”12
Indeed, that some sort of an invalid organization should provide deserving heroes with useful positions was part of the rationale for establishing the Corps, a notion not lost on the men who sought its commissions. In November 1863, for example, Col. Richard Rush, an assistant to the provost marshal general in charge of matters pertaining to the Corps, explained that the Corps could provide “honorable employment, suited to their physical capacities” while sparing them “the necessity of becoming pensioners” and shielding them “from the undoubted evils of a life of idleness.”13
Officers such as Col. John Speidel agreed with Rush. Speidel had joined the army in April 1861, lost the use of his right arm because of a battlefield fracture, commanded the depot camp at Hartford, Connecticut, and served as the colonel of the Third Regiment VRC. In July 1864, he petitioned the Provost Marshal General’s office for his retention in the VRC. Speidel reminded his superiors of the debt the nation owed to him. “Having now been so long connected with the military service of the United States,” he explained, and “having given up all my business” to join the army, losing his commission in the VRC would deprive him and his family of their sole support.14
Other officers shared Speidel’s expectations of the government. In August 1865, after learning of the War Department’s plan to reduce and consolidate the Corps, Lt. J. Arnold Yeckley of the Twenty-first Regiment VRC, made a case for his retention by reminding his superiors that he had placed the Union above all selfish concerns. “In 1862, I left a college course nearly completed, a pleasant and comfortable house, against the affectionate regards of my parents, (being an only son) and fair civil prospects to serve my imperilled [sic] country as a private soldier, impelled by a sense of duty solely,” he explained. Wounded at Gettysburg, suffering from blindness in one eye, he entered the VRC in May 1865. He wished to stay in the army, placing what he considered a reasonable and just claim on his nation.
In the end, the army accommodated the expectations of only a minority of the veteran officers who sought to extend their military careers in the Corps. If a grateful nation conferred a place for a wounded officer, for some disappointed veteran officers, it was an ungrateful one—or at least its ungrateful representatives—that withheld their commissions.
Financial security loomed large in the minds of handicapped officers when they sought out VRC appointments, but there were other reasons for veteran soldiers to request commissions and then to fight to keep them. Some veterans found military life to be agreeable, while allowing them not only the opportunity to replace civilian vocations, but also to rise beyond their former civilian status. Lt. William G. Vance wrote to his congressman in August 1865, “I had bright anticipations for the future,” he explained, “for my past life I must say has not been bright but I have had to struggle hard to rise to a higher sphere.” He wished to remain in the VRC “because I am fond of Military life.”15
For such men, the Corps was the one place in the army that provided them with an outlet for their ambitions. Lt. Jacob Sheets, who had been an enlisted man in the antebellum army, claimed to be able to draw a greater salary as a civilian bookkeeper, but wished to remain in the Corps because “it is my highest ambition to excel as a soldier.”16
VRC officers, therefore, commonly had selfish motives for desiring to remain in the army and believed that their sacrifices for the cause gave them a claim on the nation. Such motives and expectations, however, are understandable given the circumstances in which veteran officers developed them. Furthermore, they did not necessarily exclude the consideration of more noble motives.
In October 1863, a meeting of Invalid Corps officers stationed at Burnside Barracks near Indianapolis commended the government for establishing the Corps. Their resolutions acknowledged that wounded and diseased men remained “anxious, to render such assistance as in their powers, to aid in maintaining the Union and defending their Flag and Country, in this the hour of the Nation’s peril.”17
Erastus Everson confirmed the assumptions of these fellow officers when he pleaded for a place in the Corps to have an opportunity to finish the job he had started, while Emil Munch successfully requested a VRC commission because along with his desire to be useful, he wished “to serve the cause as far as capable.”18 It was this theme of self-sacrificing patriotism that permeated the VRC officers’ lobbying campaign of August 1865.
During the summer of 1865, the officers of the VRC learned that the War Department was preparing to consolidate their organization, reducing the number of regiments from twenty-four to possibly six. Fewer regiments meant fewer places for officers, so most of them, they realized, would be sent home. The veteran officers launched an extraordinary lobbying effort in the hopes that Congress would give them and their Corps a reprieve. In August 1865 and again in October, VRC officers met in Philadelphia to discuss their best strategy for at least delaying the War Department’s actions until Congress could meet in to consider their Corps’s fate.19 A committee collected assessments from the Corps’s officers to finance their efforts and continued to function into 1866.20
Intent on remaining in the service, Erastus Everson sent along his contribution, as did other officers, including those of the Sixteenth Regiment VRC, who forwarded a total of $124 for the campaign.21
VRC officers asked their brother officers, congressmen, senators, and governors to intercede with Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.22 Groups of regimental officers violated the chain of command and sent petitions directly to Stanton, pleading for a stay in the organization’s consolidation. “A large proportion of us were engaged in the active pursuits of civil life, which we abandoned, and took up arms against traitors and rebels when they inaugurated war and fired upon our flag, the emblem of our nationality,” the commonly used standard petition explained. The petitioners noted that many of them had suffered wounds in the line of duty and now only wished to continue to serve their country by remaining in the army.23
Petitioning for the government’s favor claiming consideration for patriotic service might have appeared opportunistic to cynics. But many veteran officers already had provided proof of their honorable motives by their political allegiance, actions, sacrifices, and good service that indeed had contributed to the Union war effort.
John J. Knox had been a Democrat before the war and had lived in Alabama until secession drove him out of the state and back to his Michigan home. Fighting with the Fifth Michigan Infantry, he received a serious neck wound on May 31, 1862, at Seven Pines, recovered sufficiently to campaign with the Army of Virginia, and was wounded again. He suffered the rest of his life from the effects of the neck wound, which limited the use of his right arm and impaired his breathing. Yet when he had the opportunity to enter the Corps in June 1863, he did, taking a reduction in rank from captain to first lieutenant, a common practice for officers wishing to join the VRC. He continued his service with the Freedmen’s Bureau in Mississippi and in Georgia until his discharge in late December 1868. 24
Charles F. Johnson, like Knox, appeared to be committed to the Union cause, if one were to judge from the sacrifices he made to stay in the VRC. He endured four battlefield wounds, including a testicular wound that made it difficult for him to remain on a horse. He also suffered from recurring discomfort caused by an illness that produced a painful rash on parts of his body. He frequently confessed to missing his wife and family, yet he also expressed his love for the Union and his hatred of the rebels, “the arch-fiends who are creating all this disaster for our country.”25 Johnson longed for another opportunity to meet the enemy in battle and, after continuous service in rigorous field assignments, had his wish granted. In June 1864, he participated in a fight with rebel raiders at White House Landing, Virginia. Johnson died in 1867 while on duty with the Freedmen’s Bureau in Kentucky.26
Judging by their actions, other officers shared Knox’s and Johnson’s commitment to the cause by risking their lives in the line of duty. One officer and a guard apprehended a group of “rowdies” who had beaten a local policeman. Another led a detachment of men into snowy Pennsylvania mountains and tracked down deserters in a gunfight. In Ohio, an officer and his company, in search of deserters, did night patrols in a densely forested area inhabited by belligerent civilians.
Such men made the patriotic protestations of the petitioners ring true and no doubt contributed to the generally favorable reaction to the VRC lobbying effort. A significant record of service that included maintaining order in various northern towns and tangling with Copperheads, rebel raiders, draft dodgers, and deserters, while keeping volunteers and conscripts in line as they passed to and from the front, provided a foundation of good will that lead many politicians and editorialists to support their cause before Stanton.27
To be sure, the VRC certainly had its civilian and military wartime critics who considered its men deadbeats, a view that lead at least one congressman to speak out against the Corps after the war.28 But the support for at least delaying the War Department’s plan for consolidating the VRC until Congress gave it careful consideration was impressive. Apparently many Northerners agreed that the nation owed the VRC men something for their service and suffering. In writing about the consolidation efforts of the War Department in August 1865, the editor of the Indianapolis Daily Journal was quite blunt in his sentiments in favor of keeping the VRC, reminding his readers that “These men deserve the sympathy and cordial support of every patriot and friend of humanity in this country.”29
Public recognition of the claims that VRC officers placed on their government indicated at least some appreciation for what they had contributed to the war effort, but by this time the War Department had set a course that would be too difficult to reverse. The efforts of the VRC officers did little to stop the movement to a smaller, less expensive army. By the end of 1865, officers of the VRC were receiving orders “to go to their respective homes, and . . . to await the disposition which may be made of them.”30 Once home, many of the officers would hear no word concerning their future for months to come. No wonder VRC men became “somewhat anxious for the fate of that corps.”31
In the end, Congress failed to offer them much consolation. In December 1865 the House passed a resolution in favor of delaying the mustering out of the VRC until Congress could give the matter its full consideration, but in July 1866 the Senate finally postponed indefinitely its consideration of the House resolution.32 If VRC men wished to remain in the service after the end of the war, and especially after April 1866 when the reduction of their ranks was no longer avoidable, they most likely would need an appointment in the Freedmen’s Bureau.
Veteran Reserve Corps officers generally claimed appointments in the Freedmen’s Bureau using the same lines of argument that had won them their VRC commissions.33 The patriotic Erastus Everson, for example, may have been influenced by the dearth of employment opportunities back home in Dedham, Massachusetts, to seek a place in the bureau.
Lt. M. M. Kistler, who still carried a ball in his lungs from a near-mortal wound suffered at Antietam, informed Bureau Commissioner Oliver Otis Howard that he was “totally disabled for hard labor” and that he had “a wife and four children totally dependent on my earnings.” Lt. George Barton, who had first entered the service in April 1861, explained to Howard that he was “unable to follow my legitimate business on account of disability caused by the loss of my right leg at the Battle of Fredericksburg.”34
Many of the VRC men who made application for bureau appointments in 1866 were already at their homes living in a military limbo. They were still attached to the army on inactive duty. They still craved to be useful, but they were well aware that new orders would probably mean severing ties with the military.
The Freedmen’s Bureau provided them with the opportunity to “be able to return some service to the Country in return for my pay,” as 2nd Lt. James Walker explained as he whiled away the time at his Langley, Virginia, residence.35 First Lt. Henry Wallace was in a similar situation when he asked Howard for a job, noting that “I have been at my home for the last four months” and “have had nothing to do.” He hoped that he “could be of service” to the commissioner.36
Since Congress empowered the Freedmen’s Bureau in its March 1865 legislation to supervise all affairs concerning the freedpeople of the South, one might expect the that the War Department agency would attract officers who were concerned about the plight of the ex-slaves.37 But few applicants expressed such concern. Lt. J. S. Taylor, however, was one of those men who felt a need to help the ex-slaves. He explained to General Howard that he held a “deep sympathy in the progress, elevation, and wellfare [sic] of the unfortunate people whose especial care your Bureau has been provided.” Perhaps knowing Howard’s reputation for being a religious man, Taylor further noted that he believed bureau service was “a noble field for a Christian soldier.”38
The Freedmen’s Bureau provided invalid officers with continued military employment, but serving with the agency was by no means any less taxing than wartime service with the Veteran Reserve Corps. Veteran officers on duty with the bureau took on yet another job that strained their physical abilities and tested their commitment to the cause for which they had already sacrificed much. If they failed to express great concern for the freedpeople when applying for transfers to Howard’s agency, they did not ignore the ex-slaves’ needs. Indeed, many proved to be staunch friends of the freedpeople or at least sympathetic to their plight.
Lieutenant Yeckley, perhaps giving credence to his earlier claims of selfless dedication to the cause, reported that he was “almost heartsick at the present state of affairs” in his Virginia bureau district because “outrages on the freedmen are alarmingly on the increase.” Frustrated by his inability to see justice done through the civil courts, he warned his superiors “Unless I have power given to give these people protection, self respect will compel me to resign.”39
If other veteran officers were not exactly staunch friends of the freedpeople, they were certainly committed to a just Reconstruction that in the end could only benefit the ex-slaves. Consequently, they understood that their presence in the South made a difference.
As 1st Lt. F. J. Massey of the Fifth Regiment VRC realized while stationed with the agency in Virginia, “Were it not for the controlling hand of the Bureau and the Military Authorities, I am satisfied the whites would treat them [the freedpeople] in a most unfair and unjust manner.” At the same time, he made it clear that the bureau’s presence was necessary for training the freedpeople in the ways of free labor and self-reliance. As far as Massey was concerned, his bureau was there to give the freed slave the opportunity “to place himself in a position, where he will be able to maintain himself, after the Bureau shall cease to exist.”40
The VRC men who assumed roles in Reconstruction acted as if they understood that the war would not be over until they had secured the fruits of victory. If they had not expressed their patriotism in their letters to Howard, once in the South they acted as if they understood the significance of their work for the nation’s future.
In December 1867, Erastus Everson learned that he would soon be mustered out of the service and that he had an opportunity to remain in the Freedmen’s Bureau as a civilian. He informed his superiors that he had no desire to remain on duty with the agency in such a capacity. However, “if my service would be of value to the country,” he continued to explain, “in perfecting the plans, and forwarding the objects for which the Bureau was established, and for which the officers who have had the charge of the advancement & betterment of the condition of the freedpeople have so earnestly labored, I would be glad to stay.”
Everson also realized there remained a connection between his duties in the bureau and his earlier wartime efforts. He would stay, “that I might as far as possible be an instrument of perpetuating the principles which caused me to leave my home in 1861 & which in part have been my guide and support under the trials & hardships since endured.”41
Bureau jobs were not sinecures. They required an effort that could only come from a commitment to something more than a paycheck, and they were critical for making sure the Union victory endured. Furthermore, they could be lonely and dangerous.
Capt. Samuel A. Craig, of the Seventeenth Regiment VRC, for example, served with the bureau in Brenham, Texas, during 1866. He found himself “utterly tabooed in social ways.” Craig brought this situation upon himself not by being a special or ardent friend of the freedpeople. Indeed, he found them to be “ignorant.”
However, Craig attempted to interpose himself between the freedpeople and violent ex-masters who still treated them as slaves. Consequently, Texans ostracized him: “[A]t church no one would come into the seat with me; even at entertainments they avoided the place where I sat, in the Court House the same, my uniform seemed to be sufficient notice.” His only friend was the postmaster, who had survived the war as an ardent Union man. Of greater concern than his social life was keeping himself alive in such a hostile environment. After Craig had some threatening encounters with the locals, his superior officer, the assistant commissioner of Texas, Joseph B. Kiddoo, transferred him because he feared for Craig’s life.42
There is no indication that Maj. John J. Knox pleaded any special concern for the freedpeople when he asked for their appointments with the bureau. He became a great defender of the freedpeople’s cause, however, especially while stationed in Georgia.43
As a bureau officer, Knox became a vocal critic of President Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction policies. He was also an ardent supporter of the continuation of the agency, once arguing that he would be saddened to learn that Congress would leave the freedpeople of the South “to the tender mercies of a wicked rebellious people who get glory in their shame.”44 On one occasion, Captain Craig had been prepared to use his weapons in the face of an ugly crowd; Knox actually had to defend himself with his pistols because he made decisions that were contrary to the wishes of white Southerners. His experience in the bureau may have been unusual only in that he participated in two such gun fights—one in Meridian, Mississippi, and another in Athens, Georgia—and lived to return to his home in Michigan.45 A handful of officers were not so fortunate. Such was the sad case of VRC officer Lt. Jabez Blanding.
Lieutenant Blanding, who entered the war at the commencement of the rebellion as a private and had been wounded twice, received a position in the bureau in the early spring of 1866, while other VRC officers waited at their homes for orders.46 He was assigned to Grenada, Mississippi, on March 23, 1866 as an assistant subassistant commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau and in little over a month was dead.47 In the short time that he was on duty there, he strove “to obtain the good will and co-operation of those with whom” he came into contact. But on April 30, in the evening hours, a white Mississippian shot Blanding in the back and head while the officer was walking on the street. Blanding died the next day.48
Blanding was murdered, Knox attacked, and Craig threatened, but any VRC officer serving with the bureau risked finding himself in any of these situations if he tried to do his job or, as Jabez Blanding’s brother believed, was seen wearing a blue uniform in public.49The white South was far from pacified during the late 1860s, and veteran officers were well aware of the situation in which they found themselves. More than a salary of $1,000 to $1,200 per annum kept these men on duty in the face of the dangers and hardships they encountered.
The Freedmen’s Bureau provided only a short-term solution for those veteran officers who wished to remain in the service. Experience, patriotism, usefulness, and sentiment were insufficient bulwarks in the face of the retrenchment that came with peace. Even the guerilla warfare that VRC veterans serving in the bureau encountered was insufficient for convincing the government otherwise.
After a rapid reduction of the ranks, in 1866 the VRC found itself reduced to four Veteran Reserve regiments within the regular army. Most officers serving in the bureau lost that hold on a military career by the end of 1868, when the agency began to reduce its presence in the Reconstruction South. Eventually in March 1869, regular army regiments absorbed any remaining Veteran Reserve men who could perform active duty; the rest received honorable discharges.50
The officers of the VRC had given up pre-war careers, trades, or businesses and had left behind their families to defend the Constitution. Many of them, if not most, had rallied to the flag in the earliest days of the war and willingly placed themselves in harm’s way for the cause.
What made them different from most other Union officers was that even though they suffered from wounds or illnesses sufficiently serious to render them unfit for active duty, they continued to serve. Instead of seeking pensions, they asked for work. Concerned about making a living, desirous of having something productive to do, and eager to see the war to a successful conclusion, they considered serving with the Veteran Reserve Corps as the best way to address their concerns.
When the government planned to deprive them of their place in the army by reducing and consolidating their Corps, many of them loudly protested. When their protests failed to change the course set by the War Department, many of them sought positions with Oliver Otis Howard’s Freedmen’s Bureau.
But even as they worried about supporting their families, they placed themselves in circumstances that forced them to forego the comforts of home as well as the safety of civilian life, while delaying the hero’s place in their communities that they could have claimed. In the end, they contributed much to winning the war, and they also worked hard to secure the peace. If these veteran officers expected some consideration from their nation, it was because they deserved it.
Paul A. Cimbala received his Ph.D. at Emory University and is a professor of history at Fordham University. He is the author of Under the Guardianship of the Nation: The Freedmen's Bureau and the Reconstruction of Georgia, 1865–1870 ( 1997, 2003), winner of the Malcolm and Muriel Barrow Bell Award of the Georgia Historical Society. Among his other books are the co-edited collections Union Soldiers and the Northern Home Front: Wartime Experiences, Postwar Adjustments (2002) and An Uncommon Time: The Civil War and the Northern Home Front (2002). He is presently at work on a history of the Veteran Reserve Corps.
Notes
The official records of the Veteran Reserve Corps collected by its Washington, D.C., headquarters staff, a part of the Records of the Provost General’s Office, Record Group 110, were critical for understanding the duties that the VRC required of its officers.
The material in the various VRC regimental papers in the Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, Record Group 94, while primarily routine documents, yielded some interesting correspondence that illuminate the officer's wartime work.
The pensions of the VRC officers in the Civil War and Later Pension Files, Records of the Veterans Administration, Record Group 15, were essential for grasping the physical sacrifices these men made to continue to serve their country.
Finally, the Records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, Record Group 105, one of the richest collections dealing with the political, economic, and social history of the Civil War era housed in any repository, were important for coming to an understanding of the continued sacrifice the officers of the VRC made to secure the fruits of the Union's victory after the war.
I wish to thank the staff at the National Archives Building, and especially Michael Musick, for helping him make the best use of these materials.
1 E. W. Everson to Col. J. B. Fry, Oct. 8, 1863, Letters Received, Veteran Reserve Corps (VRC), Records of the Provost Marshal General’s Office, Record Group (RG) 110, National Archives Building (NAB), Washington, DC; Capt. J. M. Walsh to Maj. A. G. Brady, Jan. 31, 1864, Regimental Papers, 20th Veteran Reserve Corps (VRC), Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, RG 94, NAB; and Erastus W. Everson, Pension File, Civil War and Later Pension Files, Records of the Veterans Administration, RG 15, NAB.
2 For nineteenth-century ideas about philanthropy, see Robert H. Bremner, The Public Good: Philanthropy and Welfare in the Civil War Era (1980).
3 Col. Richard H. Rush to Col. James B. Fry, Nov. 6, 1863; [Col. M. N. Wisewell] to Brig. Gen. James B. Fry, Oct. 24, 1864, Annual Reports of Operations, VRC, RG 110, NAB; Capt. J. W. De Forest to Brig. Gen. J. B. Fry, Nov. 30, 1865, in U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 70 vols. in 128 (1880–1901) (hereinafter cited as Official Records), series 3, vol. 5, p. 544; and Edwin M. Stanton to Andrew Johnson, Nov. 22, 1865, Official Records, series 3, vol. 5, p. 510. For background information on the Veteran Reserve Corps, see Paul A. Cimbala, “Union Corps of Honor,” Columbiad 3 (Winter 2000): 59–91; and Cimbala, “Soldiering on the Home Front: The Veteran Reserve Corps and the Northern People,” in Union Soldiers and the Northern Home Front: Wartime Experiences, Postwar Adjustments, ed. Paul A. Cimbala and Randall M. Miller (2002). An older but still useful dissertation is Stanley M. Suplick, Jr., “The United States Invalid Corps/Veteran Reserve Corps,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1969).
4 Commanding officers were able to transfer subordinate officers to the Invalid Corps until sometime in July 1863, when that procedure became no longer possible. No doubt, the Provost Marshal General feared that the Corps would become a dumping ground for incompetent officers. After the Corps stopped that practice, it required that officers, either discharged or still in the service, make application regardless of their circumstances. Col. Richard H. Rush to Maj. W. H. Sidell, July 28, 1863, vol. 1, Letters Sent, VRC, RG 110, NAB.
5 Col. R. H. Rush to Col. C. M. Prevost, Aug. 11, 1863, vol. 1, Letters Sent; Col. R. H. Rush to Capt. R. Touty, Aug. 28, 1863, vol. 2, Letters Sent, VRC, RG 110, NAB.
6Capt. J. W. De Forest to Brig. Gen. J. B. Fry, Nov. 30, 1865, in Official Records, series 3, vol. 5, pp. 550–551; Circular, Nov. 6, 1863, Provost Marshal General’s Office, Regimental Papers, 13th VRC, AGO, RG 94, NAB.
7 Col. R. H. Rush to Dr. Jesse R. Brown, Sept. 3, 1863; Col. R. H. Rush to W. Schouler, Sept. 30, 1863, vol. 2, Letters Sent, VRC, RG 110, NAB.
8 Col. R. H. Rush to Col. J. B. Fry, Nov. 6, 1865, Annual Reports of Operations, VRC, RG 110, NAB.
9 Capt. J. W. De Forest to Brig. Gen. J. B. Fry, Nov. 30, 1865, Official Records, series 3, vol. 5, p. 567.
10 F. D. Ely to E. W. Everson, May 8, 1865, Erastus W. Everson Papers, South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston.
11 Adolphe Glackmeyer to John T. Durang, Mar. 1, 1866, Durang Papers, Schoff Civil War Collection, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Adolphe Glackmeyer, Pension File, Civil War Pensions, RG 15, NAB.
12 Emil Munch to Abraham Lincoln, Feb. 26, 1863, Emil Munch Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.
13 Col. R. H. Rush to Col. J. B. Fry, Nov. 6, 1863, Annual Reports of Operations, VRC, RG 110, NAB.
14 Col. J. Speidel to Col. M. N. Wisewell, July 2, 1864, Letters Received, VRC, RG 110, NAB.
15 2nd Lt. William G. Vance to George S. Bantwell, Aug. 22, 1865, ibid.
16 1st Lt. J. C. Sheets to Brig. Gen. J. B. Fry, July 23, 1864, ibid.
17 Resolution dealing with the formation of an Invalid Corps, Officers of Burnside Barracks, near Indianapolis, Ind. 1863, [Oct. 22, 1863?], George Wagner Collection, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia, Athens.
18 Emil Munch to [—], June 23, 1863, and Col. Richard H. Rush to Capt. Emil Munch, Aug. 19, 1863, Emil Munch Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.
19Col. S. D. Oliphant to Capt. J. D. De Forest, Nov. 6, 1865, Letters Received, VRC, RG 110, NAB.
20 Col. J. C. Strong and Maj. D. F. Foley to Brig. Gen. Fry, Nov. 11, 1865, copy forwarded by Bvt. Col. R. E. Johnston, ibid.; Lt. Col. F. E. Trotter to Capt. J. T. Durang, Jan. 12, 1866, and Lt. Aldolphe Glackmeyer to J. T. Durang, Feb. 17, Mar. 4, 1866, Durang Papers.
21 Maj. A. G. Brady to Brig. Gen. J. B. Fry, Nov. 14, 1865, Letters Received, VRC, RG 110, NAB; Lt. Col. F. E. Trotter to E. W. Everson, Jan. 13, 1866, Erastus W. Everson Papers, South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston; endorsement of Maj. F.A.H. Gaebel, Nov. 10, 1865, on Capt. J. D. De Forest to Commanding Officer, 16th Vet. Res. Corps, Nov. 3, 1865, Letters Received, VRC, RG 110, NAB.
22 The Provost Marshal General’s VRC files in RG 110 contain numerous examples of letters from politicians and others asking Stanton to delay action concerning the consolidation of the Corps on behalf of their VRC constituents, some of which are cited below.
23 Col. E. P. Fyffe, et al., to E. M. Stanton [August 1865], Letters Received, VRC, RG 110, NAB, and numerous other petitions scattered throughout this collection. There was a printed form, probably provided by the committee, that the officers used or copied.
24 R. E. Trowbridge to E. M. Stanton, Dec. 13, 1864, Aug. 29, 1865, Letters Received, VRC, RG 110, NAB; Station Books, vol. 1, 1867–1868, Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Georgia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (National Archives Microfilm Publication M798, roll 35), Record of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, RG 105, NAB; John J. Knox, Pension File, Civil War Pensions, RG 15, NAB.
25 Charles F. Johnson to Mary Johnson, July 18, 1863, Archives, United States Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, Pennsylvania (hereinafter cited as USAMHI).
26 Johnson’s career is documented in the voluminous collection of letters between him and his wife Mary in the Charles F. Johnson Papers, USAMHI. For a description of the White House landing fight, see Trenton, [NJ] Daily State Gazette, June 30, 1864.
27 Cimbala, “Soldiering on the Home Front,” pp. 182–218.
28 New York Times, Apr. 21, 1866.
29 Indianapolis Daily Journal, Aug. 25, Oct. 19, 1865.
30 Indianapolis Daily Journal, Dec. 7, 1865. See Thomas M. Vincent to Chief Mustering Officers, Nov. 30, 1865, Letters Received, VRC, RG 110, NAB; and General Orders, No. 165, Nov. 24, 1865, AGO, Library, USAMHI.
31 A. Wheeler to Alexander H. Reis, April 17, 1866, Registers and Letters Received by the Commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865–1872 (National Archives Microfilm Publication M752, roll 30), RG 105, NAB.
32U.S. House Journal, 39th Cong., 1st sess., Dec. 13, 1865, p. 38; U.S. Senate Journal, 39th Cong., 2nd sess., July 18, 1866, p. 1050.
33 2nd Lt. George Barton to O. O. Howard, May 19, 1865, roll 13; A. Wheeler to A. H. Rice, Apr. 17, 1866, roll 30; 2nd Lt. S. W. McClure to G. S. Orth, May 1, 1866, roll 28; 2nd Lt. John J. Toffey to O. O. Howard, May 12, 1866, roll 30; 1st Lt. A. W. Lomas to Bvt. Brig. Gen. C. H. Howard, June 11, 1866, roll 3, M752. 2nd Lt. William A. MacNulty to O. O. Howard, Sept. 5, 1865, Letters Received, VRC, RG 110, NAB.
34 2nd Lt. G. Barton to O. O. Howard, May 19, 1865, M752, roll 13.
35 2nd Lt. James Walker to Maj. Gen. O. O. Howard, May 12, 1866, M752, roll 30.
36 1st Lt. Henry F. Wallace to Col. Maxwell Woodhull, Apr. 24, 1866, M752, roll 30.
37 For a general survey of the duties of the bureau, see George R. Bentley, A History of the Freedmen’s Bureau (1954; reprint, 1974).
38 1st Lt. J. S. Taylor to Maj. Gen. O. O. Howard, Apr. 22, 1866, M752, roll 30.
39 Lt. J. Arnold Yeckley to Capt. James A. Bates, April 19, 1866, M752, roll 30.
40 1st Lt. F. J. Massey to Bvt. Brig. Gen. Orlando Brown, May 1, 1866, M752, roll 32.
41 E. W. Everson to Maj. E. L. Deane, Dec. 9, 1867, Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of South Carolina (National Archives Microfilm Publication M869, roll 12), RG 105, NAB.
42 Capt. Samuel A. Craig, “Memoirs of Civil War and Reconstruction,” pp. 77–83, USAMHI. For the problematic climate in Reconstruction Texas, see Barry A. Crouch, The Freedmen’s Bureau and Black Texans (1992).
43 Cimbala, Under the Guardianship of the Nation, pp. 76–77, 128, 210
44 Maj. J. J. Knox to T. D. Elliot, Dec. 30, 1867, vol. 169, Letters Sent, Athens Subassistant Commissioner, Field Offices, State of Georgia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, RG 105, NAB.
45 Maj. Gen. T. J. Wood to Maj. Gen. O. O. Howard, May 5, 1866, M752, roll 28; Cimbala, “Reconstruction’s Allies: The Relationship of the Freedmen’s Bureau and the Georgia Freedmen,” in The Freedmen’s Bureau and Reconstruction: Reconsiderations, ed. Paul A. Cimbala and Randall M. Miller (1999), pp. 329–331.
46 W. B. Blanding to Henry R. Anthony, June 4, 1866, M752, roll 28.
47 Roster of Officers, State of Mississippi, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, March 1866; Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Wood to Maj. Gen. O. O. Howard, May 4, 1866, M752, roll 28.
48 Jabez E. Blanding, Pension File, Civil War Pensions, RG 15, NAB.
49W. B. Blanding to Henry R. Anthony, June 4, 1866, M752, roll 28.
50 General Orders, No. 116, June 17, 1865; General Orders, No. 155, Oct. 26, 1865; General Orders, No. 165, Nov. 24, 1865; General Orders, No. 56, Aug. 1, 1866; General Orders, No. 92, Nov. 23, 1866; and General Orders, No. 16, 1869, Adjutant General’s Office, War Department, trace the consolidation of the VRC. The orders are bound and on file in the library of the United States Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, PA.