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I'm Mark McDonald in Springfield at the corner of 7th and Cook at the Grand Army of the Republic Memorial Museum.

This museum's been here since the early 1960s, and as you can see it's a very distinctive look, not many buildings around Springfield look like this, and it was built like this for a very specific reason.

I have Chuck Hill with me here, and he's the curator here, and part of the reason we're doing this story is because he's new to this job, and he's also sort of reorganized the museum.

So Chuck, as we talk about this, we got a chance to go back inside, we were here several years ago, but it's different now.

- Yes.

- You're different, and it's organized differently, and you have it set up differently.

So, first though, let's talk about this building, because when you drive through downtown Springfield, you don't see anything else that looks like this.

- I know, it's amazing.

I lived in Springfield for 30 years, and drove by here from the early sixties, right after it was built.

- [Mark] And I always wondered what does G.A.R.

mean?

What is this building?

- Great army, no.

And I was a history major too, and then I moved away 30 years ago and came back, and ended up being the curator here.

- [Mark] Yeah, it's very distinctive, and you can, this was, and we have some pictures of it, of the home that was here being torn down.

There was a big house on this corner.

There was a big house next door.

- [Chuck] Right.

- [Mark] They both went down in 1963, and up came the G.A.R.

Museum.

- My understanding is this house came down in 1963.

I'm not sure when that house next door came down.

But in 1963, the Women's Relief Corps, who owns and operates the museum still today had a Victorian house that was built around 1900 on this, three story house that they decided to tear it down, because it was deteriorating, and it had served as their national headquarters since 1941.

- And that's an organization that runs the Grand Army of the Republic Museum.

- Yes.

- The Women's Relief Corps.

- Women's Relief Corps, yes, and they decided in 1963 to just go ahead and tear the house down, and build this museum in order to continue to honor the men of the Grand Army of the Republic.

- [Chuck] We'll find out more about who the men of the Grand Army of the Republic were.

But as people look at this, it's very distinctive.

It doesn't look like anything, it looks like a fortress to me.

- [Chuck] It does, it does, and my understanding from reading the, some of the old records about the construction is that it was built as a fireproof building, and it's stone and concrete and brick, and that's just about it.

- [Mark] Yeah, and the brick on the back now serves as an apartment for whoever needs to take care of it, right?

And that's you right now.

- [Chuck] Yeah.

- Okay, very interesting.

Okay, 1963, and here we are, and now really have entered a new phase with you coming on, and, because you're a professional curator.

- I'm retired.

- At this kind of work for a long time.

- I was an archivist and curator for 25 years.

- You still are.

- And now I am, yeah.

I retired in order to become one again.

- Can we go in and take a look?

- Sure.

- Well, Chuck, it's not a big space, but it's got a lot of interesting items in it, and it looks to me, like I mentioned, you've recently reorganized.

- Yes.

- So tell me what your thought process was.

- Well, when I came here three years ago, there was quite a bit of material in the cases, and there was very little in storage.

So I took it upon myself with permission to the museum.

We have a museum board that oversees the museum, and with their permission and the president's permission, I started rearranging things, and giving a little more coherence to it.

I think if you were here five or six years ago, you'd come back, and you would notice a difference.

You'll see it a little more organized, a little more descriptive information than had been possible before, because I have access to more tools now in terms of research on the internet.

So I can tell stories of some of the men and some of the artifacts that you couldn't tell before.

- But this is also a Civil War Museum.

It's the Grand Army of the Republic and the Civil War Museum, and it looks to me like you have it sort of set up so people can look at different aspects of it.

- Right, I rearranged it so that primarily on one side is Grand Army of the Republic material, artifacts and memorabilia, and then Women's Relief Corps material on the other side of the room that relate to the Women's Relief Corps and their relationship with the Grand Army of the Republic.

And then primarily in between is Civil War material, not entirely, but there's a little bit of a mix there.

- You can't get in this room without seeing that flag.

I mean, and I think what draws my attention to it is it's so tattered and unfinished.

- [Chuck] Yes.

- [Mark] But you wanted it that way.

Can we go take a look?

- [Chuck] Oh sure, yeah.

The flag, I found the flag in storage, and it looked like this, when it was taken out of the box.

- [Mark] Oh man, and it was in a box?

- [Chuck] It was in a box, small box, like a flag display box, and I was afraid to touch it, but I contacted the Illinois State Military Museum, and the curator was kind enough to come over, and help me take it out of the box.

And then they took it to the museum and rehydrated it.

And then we laid it out flat downstairs.

- [Mark] What is significant about it?

- [Chuck] The flag belonged to G Company of the 30th Indiana Infantry, G company.

It was handmade, by the information I had, it was handmade by the ladies of Lima, Indiana in 1861, and G Company carried it through the war.

The curator from the Illinois State Military Museum told me that it is authentically a flag of the Civil War.

- [Mark] Through the entire war?

- [Chuck] Through the entire war.

- I bet you very few of those existed, because they either got destroyed or stolen or, you know.

- Put in somebody's attic, and you know, eventually.

But he authenticated it by saying that if you notice, there are burn marks here, that's a burn mark compared to this is deterioration.

Burn mark, burn mark, that would indicate shrapnel, so it must have been carried in the war.

- God, how many men must have carried that?

Because they probably went down, somebody else picked it up.

They might've gone down from shrapnel, somebody else pick it up.

- Yeah.

- All for four years.

- Yes, '61 to '65.

- That's amazing.

- And then at the end of the war, the company presented it to their captain, Captain James M. Preston, who was living at, of course in Indiana at the time, but then moved to Nebraska, and later on built a library in Orleans, Nebraska, and gave it to the library, where it sat for many years.

And then in 1987, the library ward there decided to bring it to the museum.

- [Mark] Wow, that's fantastic, and you were able to save it.

That's just remarkable.

- Well that, and that's the other thing.

Then we had to raise money to do the conservation on it.

So the Women's Relief Corps raised money, more than $5,000 to have it conserved.

It hasn't been restored.

It's simply conservation, and it's under UV filtered glass, and matted.

- And I like knowing that this is just the way it found its way out of the war.

That's what I liked.

Okay, the Grand Army of the Republic, not a lot of people know what the heck that is, and I'm going to simplify it a little bit.

There are service organizations for service men and women, the American Legion, Disabled Veterans, Veterans of Foreign War, so those kinds of groups, this was the first such group after the Civil War.

- I'm not clear about that.

I think it was the first major one.

There seemed to have been other smaller organizations, like regional or county wide, or, you know, some of the veterans got together and formed their own little associations based on their regiment, or based on their company, or something like that.

But this was the first one that really took off and became a national organization.

And my understanding is that most of the other veterans organizations now are really based on the Grand Army.

- And it was founded in Springfield?

- Yes.

- Let's walk down this way if we can, because we've got a picture of the first, the founder of it, and all of this material that we're going to look at here is all pictures, and emblems, and artifacts from the Grand Army.

- Yes.

- But this fellow up here, Stevenson, I guess we can credit him with founding this organization.

- Yes, he did.

Dr. Benjamin S. Stevenson lived here in Springfield.

He had been a surgeon in the Civil War, and he had a tent mate who was a chaplain, and they got to talking about the fact that the guys should get together, and talk about their experiences.

In fact, this is speculation, but he may have recognized post traumatic stress disorder.

If you think about it, he thought the guys should get together and talk about their experiences, and meet on a regular basis.

So they decided to form the organization, and every year, instead of having a convention, they had an encampment.

So it was kind of like the Masons, or the Oddfellows, and things like that, but more along military lines.

- Do we have any pictures or examples of at all of those encampments, do you have any?

- I don't have one specifically of an encampment, but I do have pictures of- - [Mark] Meetings that they would have, sure.

- [Chuck] Now this would have been a, what they called, yeah, this is the annual encampment in 1926, so you can see how small their group is.

- [Mark] Well, you know, they're dying off, right?

And in fact, you know, once the last veteran from the Civil War or the Union veteran died, the organization ended, because they no longer needed assistance.

- [Chuck] Yes.

- So what a lonely thing that would have been for that last member?

If I, my recollection is right, he died in 1956?

- Yes.

- And he was the only one, the only member left.

- Yes.

- So if you're the only member, you don't, you're not really a member.

(laughing) - You're just, you're the organization.

This gentlemen, Albert Wilson died in 1956.

- [Mark] Oh, that's him?

Okay, terrific.

- [Chuck] And that's him in his coffin over here.

He died in Duluth, Minnesota.

He had been a drummer boy, 14 years old when he enlisted.

- [Mark] 14.

- [Chuck] Never saw any kind of combat, but he was over a hundred when he died.

He was 106 years old.

- Huh.

- Yeah.

- Now let's talk about John Logan a little bit, because people know that name.

I think he was a U.S.

Senator, but he's from Illinois.

- Yes.

- [Mark] And he was a major general, and he was one of the founders as well I guess, wasn't he?

- [Chuck] Well, he actually was elected as the first real Commander in Chief.

Stevenson took the call as Commander in Chief, because he founded the organization.

And then I believe, actually I believe Logan was the second Commander in Chief.

He became Commander in Chief in 1968.

- Now, the first post was actually in Decatur, right?

- Yes.

- So it was founded in Springfield, the first post opened up in Decatur.

- And the reason for that is because when they were putting the rules and regulations, Stevenson, and some people that he worked with wanted to find a Union printer, and there was a printing office in Decatur that had all Union veterans, and so they took it there.

And the guys there, when they printed, they were sworn to secrecy, so when they printed it, they read the rules and regulations, and they decided they wanted to form a post, and be the first post, so the charter was signed here.

They had charters that they signed, and the first charter was signed in Springfield, and then sent over to Decatur so they could establish the first post.

And that's the way they were set up.

The Illinois would have been a department, like, you know, the Union Army had departments, and armies, and they had armies, and then they set up posts.

At one time there were several hundred posts in Illinois alone.

- Well, Chuck, these encampments and the G.A.R.

itself, they had a lot of codified ways they did things.

- Yes.

- And like each member had a badge.

- Yes.

- And it was very interesting that not only what was on the badge, but what the badge was made of.

- Right.

- How did they do that?

- The early badges, the way I understand it, and from this envelope, this is a copy of an envelope from a membership badge that they acquired, captured Confederate cannons, brass cannons, and had them melted down, and they used the melted down material to make their member badges.

- [Mark] And so every member had a badge similar to every other member, and they were all made of Confederate metal.

- The member bandage was identical, except that on the edge, it was sometimes numbered, and the numbering started with a letter like D, or A, or whatever, and that was the initial, the first initial of the last name of the Commander in Chief at the time.

- Oh, okay.

- But you can't always trace those, because this one has a V on it.

There were two Commanders in Chief whose last name started with a V. However, since the envelope says who the adjutant general was at the time, we know what year it was.

- Oh, okay, all right.

- This one was made in 1890 or '91.

- And there were, I guess there were a hundred dozens, or hundreds of posts all over the country.

And every post had these necessities, right?

- [Chuck] They always had a Bible at the center on a podium.

They would have a gavel of some sort, a ballot box where they would initiate members.

If somebody applied for membership, all the members would vote by dropping a white marble in, or a black marble if they wanted to deny them entry, they would blackball them.

They had seals for their documents.

Most of the gavels, a lot of the gavels, they went back to the battlefields, and actually cut limbs, and made gavels from the wood on the ground.

- They were very specific about the symbolism of all this, weren't they?

- This one for instance, was made from the battlefield at Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia.

You know, they went back after.

- And they did that with other items too, because I know you've got some canes in here.

- I love these canes.

- Well they don't even look like they would be very helpful.

They're decorative, I guess, because they certainly wouldn't help you much.

But these canes, these were to come from, from the woods at the battlefield.

- [Chuck] Many of them did, yeah.

You can't always tell which ones for sure, but you know, a lot of them did come to the museum saying that they were made from wood from a battlefield.

- [Mark] What great keepsakes.

- [Chuck] And they loved their badges and ribbons.

- [Mark] Oh, did they?

- [Chuck] Oh, gosh.

- [Mark] Well, look up to the right on the wall, just look over there and get an idea right there.

- [Chuck] Now these are badges from every encampment, starting in, I can't remember what year, 1883.

- [Mark] Okay, so these, these encampments were annual affairs, so everybody in attendance would get one of these or by one of these at the encampment?

- [Chuck] Yes, and sometimes it would be based on the state that they were from, but sometimes they were, they were also, every delegate would have a similar badge, and it would say delegate or representative.

- [Mark] And they're all so different.

Each year, somebody designed, was appointed to be the designer of each year's medal, because, and they probably worked years in advance, because that stuff doesn't just happen.

- [Chuck] No, they had to plan that out.

- Well, Chuck, this museum wouldn't exist if it weren't for the Women's Relief Corps.

- That's correct.

- Which came into existence, I guess some 15 years after the war, because some of the Union soldiers, the Union veterans were getting older, they weren't in the best of health, and they saw a need to help take care of them.

- Yeah, the way I understand it, the Women's Relief Corps was founded in 1883 as the official auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Republic, but it did have its roots in the Civil War.

Women naturally got together to make bandages, and clothing, and ship stuff to the men in the field.

- They would have these Sanitary Commissions.

- The Sanitary Commissions, yeah.

- They'd raise money to help, yeah.

- And then after the war, when the Grand Army of the Republic was formed, of course you'd have that natural sort of socializing when the men got together to meet at their posts, the women would get together to socialize, and out of that really grew the idea that they should make this a more formal arrangement.

And then it was founded as the Women's Relief Corps.

- And you have pictures here of like in the early days, when they were assisting the veterans, and I'm sure that these photographs were taken under formal circumstances, but these women were probably doing, when you say relief, I imagine they were doing a lot of nursing, and a lot of assistance financially, and in other ways for the families of these veterans too.

- [Chuck] Yeah, it wasn't just the veterans themselves.

It was also the widows and orphans.

The Women's Relief Corps actually built some of the first soldiers' and sailors' homes that later on became state VA facilities, like in Oxford, New York, Tilton, New Hampshire.

The Grand Army of the Republic was a driving force behind getting the home in Quincy, and the Women's Relief Corps actually was there at the opening of that as well.

- I'll be darned.

Okay, well, we're very familiar with that in Quincy, for sure.

They also assisted, now, then this is interesting story, because you wouldn't think that they'd have much to do with the Andersonville Prison, but they stepped in there at a time when there was a lot of uncertainty what to do with this property.

- Yeah, the Andersonville Prison site was a, well, of course Andersonville was a very notorious prison, and many men died there, but in the 1890s, the Grand Army of the Republic Department of Georgia purchased the property and tried to keep it up, but their group was growing smaller, of course, and because the Women's Relief Corps is not, you're not, you don't have to be related to a Civil War veteran, or have a family member who served in the Civil War.

It's open to any loyal woman so it can keep going.

The Grand Army of the Republic was an organization that was doomed to die.

- Once that last man goes.

- It's gone, but the Women's Relief Corps kept on going.

So in 18, I think it was 1896, the Women's Relief Corps took over the Andersonville property.

They fixed it up, they took care of the grounds, they took care of the grave sites, and eventually turned it over to the Department of Defense as a historic site, and it became not only a national cemetery, but a national park as well, and that's all thanks to the Women's Relief Corps.

If it wasn't for them, it would not have happened.

- Chuck, we mentioned that it's also a Civil War Museum.

Anybody who's interested in this period of history would have a heyday in here just going down this middle section here, but you pointed out that maybe the most interesting thing in the collection is this drum, and it kind of stores history, doesn't it?

- [Chuck] Oh, it does, yeah.

I think it's a fascinating thing.

The man who owned this, Dennis Lovett, was a drummer boy.

He enlisted, we said he was 18, but I believe he was only 14, according to census records, and he enlisted in the 67th Ohio Infantry.

He went, he documents a number of battles that, where he beat the drum for the sound of freedom, he called it, and then later on at the surrender at Appomattox, he says that he beat Reveley on the occasion of Lee's surrender.

- Wow.

- And you know, sometimes when you get these in local history museums, and small museums like this, they come with a family history that is often suspect, but I did the research, and the 67th Ohio was bivouacked on the west side of Appomattox courthouse during his surrender.

- So, and apparently the family of Lovett, this stayed in the family until they gave it to the Women's Relief Corps, and of course, then to the museum.

- He came here in 1954.

- That's precious.

- Before the museum was built actually, because the house that was here before also housed artifacts as well.

They had a G.A.R.

room that included Civil War relics.

- You know, and we often overlook the fact that museums have archives, and it's not always open to the public, and you have a collection here of some very, very rare documents.

- Yes.

- Can you show them to us?

- Sure.

First one of course, would be, since we talked about Andersonville, this diary was kept by John Gorham, - [Mark] A prisoner there?

- A prisoner there, who was with an Indiana cavalry regiment, and he notes on May 27th of 1864, the old Dutchman hunting tunnels, found five.

- [Mark] The old Dutchman was?

- Henry Wirz, and Henry Wirz was the commander of Andersonville, one of two men that was hung at the end of the war for for war crimes.

- [Mark] Oh, so he found that they were trying to tunnel out?

- Yeah, he often went looking for tunnels.

- [Mark] We doubt that anybody ever made it.

- Yeah.

And then he goes on to record, he records names, which is really good for family histories.

I hope to get this transcribed at some point, but then he talks about the number of prisoners in the camp at any one time, and then the number of deaths from February to the 1st of September, 7,700.

- [Mark] Oh my God.

- [Chuck] 7,570.

- [Mark] They had all these thousands of soldiers.

How big was Andersonville?

- I'm trying to remember.

- It was only a couple of years, wasn't it?

- Yeah, just a few, very few.

- Oh my God.

- All housed in there.

And then after he was exchanged, he left.

He's the one that survived and left, and then went back, and received his back pay, but he also got $71.75 for his back rations that he didn't get while he was in prison.

- [Mark] What a horrible experience, at least he lived.

- He lived.

- [Mark] You've got an example of something called a parole?

- Yes, this is a parole issued at Vicksburg on June 1st, 1863 to a man named Henry Frazzel.

He was in Company B of Missouri Regiment.

This is a picture of him.

- What does a parole mean?

- Well, during the Civil War, they would parole a prisoner, because they didn't want to feed them.

They didn't have food at Vicksburg, and so they would parole them, send them back to their home, or if they were injured, they'd send them to the hospital.

And then once a comparable Confederate prisoner was paroled, they would exchange them, and at that point, the person who had been paroled and then exchanged could go back and serve in his company again.

- Oh, okay, so this document means that they released him to go back to the North.

- But there would also be another document which apparently hasn't survived, which would have been his exchange to let him go back, because Frazzel survived a charge on Vicksburg where a hundred men were volunteered to go in, and they were called the Forlorn Hope, because they did not expect any of them to survive.

85% of them received the Medal of Honor.

- He was a rare one then.

- Yeah.

- And got rearrested.

- And other documents that are kind of rare, I think are rare.

I don't know how many you would find.

This is a commutation.

A commutation is a payment to the government to get you out of the draft.

- [Mark] Oh.

- [Chuck] Because the draft was very unpopular in 1864.

- [Mark] How much did he have to pay?

- He paid $300, which is a lot of money in 1864.

But I checked census records, and he had a wife and two children.

He was about 39 years old at the time, and he was a sailor, so I don't think he wanted to go in the Army.

- Nope, nope.

It's interesting to note that these items, donated items are still coming into the G.A.R.

Museum.

The revolver that you see here, and the rifled musket, and the bayonet and the scabbard, they were all recently donated to recent acquisitions.

It's very interesting to see history remain to becoming alive all the time.

If you want to visit the Grand Army of the Republic Museum in Springfield at the corner of 7th and Cook, they're open Thursday, Friday, and Saturday 10 to four.

There's no admission, but your donations are encouraged.

With another Illinois Story in Springfield, I'm Mark McDonald.

Thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Illinois Stories is brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you.

Thank you.

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