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In 1942, just over 500 Civil War veterans were on the rolls of the Grand Army of the Republic.Īt the outset of the Cold War and the Atomic Age, only 16 remained. By the time the United States entered World War II, however, the Civil War veterans time had passed, and with their memory went so many of their numbers. The last of America’s Union Army, gathered in an Indianapolis ballroom in 1949.īy the time the First World War came around GAR membership was still very strong, its encampment still bringing in numbers just shy of a half a million or so. A young James Hard was present for all of it. Its biggest loss came at Chancellorsville in 1863 when it lost more than 200 men to night fighting and a surprise attack during a flawed, unorganized retreat. McDowell had never led troops in combat and was soundly beaten.
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Irvin McDowell used the 37th as a reserve unit in the battle of First Bull Run.
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His unit was stationed around Washington, DC until Gen. He joined the 37th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, also known as the Irish Rifles, in May 1861 and his service record verified his claim. He lied about his age in 1861 to be able to join the Union Army. James Hard was born in Rochester, New York around 1843. A 1912 Grand Army of the Republic parade marching through downtown Los Angeles. The Grand Army of the Republic held marches, and a yearly meeting called the Encampment to celebrate those veterans who served and to make sure they held on to their hard-won rights. is seeing with its World War II veterans today. Hard was the last surviving Union combat veteran of the Civil War.īetween 1900 and into World War II, the surviving number of American Civil War veterans began to dwindle at an exponential rate, much like what the U.S. But Woolson never saw action as a member of a heavy artillery unit from Minnesota. The only one of the six to outlive Hard would be Albert Woolson, the last known member of the Union Army and the last undisputed surviving member on any side of the Civil War. The battle standard of James Hard’s Civil War infantry unit. In the next four years, all but one of those would have died, and with them, the firsthand memory of Civil War combat. One of those was 108-year-old James Hard, a veteran of the battles of First Bull Run, Antietam, and Chancellorsville. And only six were able to make the trek to Indianapolis. At its peak, it boasted 400,000 members with thousands of posts nationwide. In 1949, six men gathered in Indianapolis for the last meeting of the Grand Army of the Republic, a Civil War veterans organization.