Class Year
2019
Document Type
Blog Post
Publication Date
10-4-2018
Department 1
Civil War Institute
Abstract
Borne of the Civil War, one fraternal organization quickly assumed such great authority that it re-shaped cultural prescriptions of manhood, dictated the northern public’s memory of the war, and even influenced presidential elections. This organization, the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), was formed in Illinois in 1866 by veteran Benjamin Franklin Stephenson and its number of posts in the United States quickly increased. In order to be a member, one simply had to be a Union veteran. By the 1890s, there were 7,000 GAR posts around the country; approximately 1.3 million men, half of all Union veterans, were group members. Members would have worn these cufflinks, or more commonly, the badge with the same image on it, as status symbols. [excerpt]
Copyright Note
This is the author's version of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.
Recommended Citation
Labbe, Savannah, "To Liberty, Honor, and…Cufflinks?: The Grand Army of the Republic" (2018). The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History. 338.
https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/compiler/338
Comments
This blog post originally appeared in The Gettysburg Compiler and was created by students at Gettysburg College.