“TENS OF THOUSANDS OF THE STAUNCH MEN OF ’61, MEN WHO WITHOUT HESITATION ANSWERED THE CALL OF ‘FATHER ABRAHAM’ AND DEFENDED THE STARS AND STRIPES WITH THEIR HEART’S BLOOD, MARCHED OVER DENVER’S STREETS TODAY.” – The Denver Times, Sept. 6, 1905
Mammoth flags and red-white-and-blue bunting draped almost every downtown building, fife-and-drum corps played without stop and everywhere there was a wave of patriotism and admiration.
Labor Day weekend marked the 100th anniversary of the 39th national encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic. Veterans who fought for the North in the Civil War from 1861-65 descended on Denver Sept. 4-8, 1905, for a madcap celebration, copious storytelling and a renewal of wartime friendships.
The GAR was founded in Decatur, Ill., on April 6, 1866, based on the principles of fraternity, charity and loyalty. In the beginning, its aim was to lobby for jobs, old-soldiers’ homes, pensions and comfort for Civil War veterans, including thousands of ex-slaves who served in the war.
It soon turned more political. By 1890, the GAR boasted 409,489 members with enough political clout to dictate, for several years, the Republican presidential candidate. In fact, five of its number, including Ulysses Grant and William McKinley, became president.
Among its many legacies is Memorial Day, known originally as Decoration Day. Though many cities and organizations claim the founding, it didn’t gain national status until Gen. John A. Logan, commander of the GAR, proclaimed that the last Monday in May should be set aside for placing flowers and mementos on veterans’ graves. Decoration Day first was observed on May 30, 1868.
The 1905 GAR gathering remains one of the largest ever in Denver. Union Station was overwhelmed by dozens of special trains filled with veterans, their wives and supporters. An estimated 72,000 visitors poured into the city, jamming hotels, which set up cots in halls, and forcing schools and churches to open their doors to the overflow.
City boosters pointed out the benefits, estimating that visitors left a $2 million bonanza with local businesses and that it was “good advertising” for the city.
The first night of the encampment, 200 former members of the First, Second and Third Colorado Volunteers were guests at an elaborate dinner at the Savoy Hotel. A who’s who of Colorado business and political leaders attended, including Gov. Jesse McDonald, Mayor Robert W. Speer, William G. Evans, Walter Cheesman, Amos Steck, Wolfe Londoner, Henry Teller and Crawford Hill.
It was only the beginning of one of the GAR’s last great gatherings. Their numbers were declining rapidly. Membership, more than 409,000 in 1890, was down to 232,435 by 1905. Death had taken 6,184 Civil War vets off the federal pension rolls in the previous year.
Though Colorado’s involvement in the war was minimal, it made the veterans feel as if they were home. There were nightly performances by Indian dancers, a campfire at Broadway and Colfax, banquets, dances and ballgames. Every hotel buzzed with former comrades catching up on the old days.
The centerpiece of the five-day encampment was a spectacular parade, described by a newspaper of the day as “a mighty anthem to the glory of the men who saved the flag.” Banks and schools closed for the day.
The marching line of 22,000 veterans, tramping eight abreast, was so long it took three hours to course its way through downtown, and 150,000 people, equal to the city’s population, lined the route.
There were 18 bands, led by Cook’s Drum and Bugle Corps, that kept a rhythm of 90 steps a minute to urge the veterans, showered with flowers thrown by bystanders, to keep moving.
A massive grandstand capable of holding 6,000, including “ministering angels” – 100 Civil War nurses – towered over Colfax and Broadway.
If they could walk – and even some who couldn’t – they were in the parade. John Briggs of North Dakota who fought with the First Wisconsin Cavalry marched as Uncle Sam, dressed in a suit of silk and satin. A legless vet had to be pushed in a wheelchair by a comrade from Maine but shouted to those nearby, “There’s enough me left yet, boys, to enjoy this day!”
The oldest vet was 99-year-old William “Uncle Billy” Taylor, who fought for four years in the Civil War but also took part in the Black Hawk War in 1831 and the Mexican War in 1845. He bragged that he “walks several miles every day just to keep limbered up in case Uncle Sam should need (me) once more.” The youngest was Joby Howland, 56, of Denver, who enlisted in the 51st Indiana Volunteers at age 12 years, 2 months and 6 days on Dec. 12, 1861.
Hotels, barrooms and streets were filled with war stories. Capt. George Johnson told listeners that his nickname, “Minnie,” came about because he delivered a message from his commanding officer so quickly, the officer exclaimed, “I declare, my boy, you travel like a minnie-ball.” There was “Noisy Joe” Van Daniker whose voice was so loud his commander had him relay orders to the men while the artillery was booming.
E.H. Stuart of the First Wisconsin Cavalry recalled how he helped capture Confederate President Jefferson Davis, a feat for which he received $330 of the $100,000 bounty. “Jeff Davis did try to escape disguised as a woman (but) it is not true that he wore hoop skirts. That is all foolishness.”
Everton Conger trumped them all. As a lieutenant colonel in the First District of Columbia Cavalry, he told how, after the assassination of President Lincoln, he helped track John Wilkes Booth to Garret’s Farm in Virginia and the tobacco barn where he holed up.
Conger set fire to the structure, expecting Booth to come out, but before he could a soldier named Boston Corbett shot Booth, against orders, he said.
According to Conger, Booth was brought outside the burning building and whispered, “Tell mother I died for my country. Tell her I did what I thought best.” Conger said he carried the news to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton but was told to remain silent until an official announcement could be made. He did, and his name was never connected in contemporary accounts with the incident.
Though they fought in separate units during the war, black and white vets mingled at the encampment. The GAR was officially color-blind. The Statesman, a newspaper prominent in the African-American community, pointed out proudly that a black man, Cmdr. James H. Wolff, led the Massachusetts division in the parade and that there were 30 black veterans from Mississippi and Louisiana in the lineup.
They paraded the streets and partied together, but black veterans did not stay in downtown hotels. Instead, they were housed in churches, schools, private homes and tents in the Five Points neighborhood.
The GAR’s first national gathering in Denver took place July 23-27, 1883, on an 80-acre site 3 miles out on the plains northeast of the city near what is now 38th and York. The land was donated by the Union Pacific Railroad, whose tracks ran near the site. UP officials realized that attendees would ride the train to the camp, at 45 cents a round trip.
An estimated 25,000 veterans, many of whom had brought their wives, made the downtown streets “as crowded at midnight as they naturally are at middday,” marveled The Denver Republican.
When the GAR reconvened in Denver for its 62nd encampment in 1928 its numbers and vigor were diminished considerably. There were only 6,500 attendees, headquartered at the Brown Palace Hotel, not a dusty campsite on the edge of town. The average age of the attendees was 86.
Still, there were reunions in hotel lobbies, repeated renditions of wartime tunes, including “Tenting Tonight on the Old Camp Ground” and “The Boys of the Old Brigade,” and war stories to be expanded upon.
Col. George H. Otis, 90, regaled listeners with his story of being in charge of the troops at the hanging of Mary Surratt, implicated in the assassination of Lincoln. “I’ll never forget the horror of the hanging,” he told an enthralled audience.
Sgt. Andrew J. Kimball, 86, a member of the “Famous Seventh Regiment” of Maine recounted how his unit entered the battle at Antietam with 373 men and 60 officers, and only 62 survived.
Special care was taken for the veterans. After two elderly men were hit by automobiles, the city’s newspapers warned motorists to drive carefully. “Remember, the eyes that peered over rifle sights at Vicksburg are dimmer now.” The annual parade, pared to a few blocks, found many of the GAR members forced to ride in automobiles or wheelchairs.
Abram Cohn, a 78-year-old delegate from San Francisco who enlisted as a drummer boy at age 13, died in his room at the Mayflower Hotel three hours after arriving by train. “No use fooling myself,” he told his roommate. “It’s taps, John.”
Time was running out.
The end of the war was 63 years in the past. The Boys in Blue were fading fast, and so was their link to history. The last GAR encampment was held in Indianapolis in the summer of 1949 but only six members attended, and they voted to disband.
Robert T. Bryan, the last Colorado member of the GAR, died at his daughter’s home in Boulder in 1949 at age 100. And when Albert Woolson, the last living Union veteran, slipped into a coma and died in 1956 at 109 in Duluth, Minn., it marked the end of the Boys of ’61.
Staff writer Dick Kreck can be reached at 303-820-1456 or at dkreck@denverpost.com.
The 1905 GAR gathering remains one of the largest ever in Denver. Union Station was overwhelmed by dozens of special trains filled with veterans, their wives and supporters. An estimated 72,000 visitors poured into the city, jamming hotels, which set up cots in halls, and forcing schools and churches to open their doors to the overflow.
