160th Anniversary of the Grand Army of the Republic

The Grand Army of the Republic was founded on April 6, 1866, on the principles of “Fraternity, Charity and Loyalty,” in Decatur, Illinois, by Dr. Benjamin F. Stephenson. The GAR was a fraternal organization composed of veterans of the Union Army, Navy and Marines who served in the American Civil War. The organization grew to include thousands of veterans and posts across the United States.

Linking men through their experience of the war, the GAR became among the first organized advocacy groups in American politics, supporting voting rights for black veterans, promoting patriotic education, helping to make Memorial Day a national holiday, lobbying Congress to establish regular veterans’ pensions, and supporting Republican political candidates. Its peak membership, at 410,000, was in 1890, a high point of various Civil War commemorative and monument dedication ceremonies. It was dissolved in 1956 at the death of its last member, Albert Woolson.