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chapter 11 E. D. Northrup and the Betrayal of Esprit de Corps For the rest of their lives, until they were stooped and gray and wobbling over canes, Union veterans remained the Boys in Blue. As the years passed, they made excursions to their old battlefields, marched in parades and raised monuments in home towns to honor martyred soldiers, and gathered on a regular basis as members of various veterans’ organizations, not the least of which was their regimental association. Esprit de corps was too strong to die at the muster-out of Civil War regiments. The bonds formed during years of hardship, toil, and danger were too tight to untie. An old soldier’s regimental affiliation remained as important to him as it had during the war. With the passing decades, many regimental associations saw to it that their unit’s exploits were recorded for posterity in published histories. Like the veterans of other regiments, former members of the 154th New York proudly recalled their service, and they too expected to commemorate their deeds in a book. Sadly for them, their hopes were dashed. Little has been written about Civil War veterans. Historians of the war’s common soldiers have typically ended their studies at Appomattox Court House and Bennett’s House. Gerald Linderman and Earl Hess, however, have both investigated the veteranhood of Union soldiers. Linderman postulated what he called a “hibernation” after the war, for a period of approximately fifteen years, during which veterans and the public were generally content to put the war and its painful memories behind them. Then followed what Linderman termed a “revival” of interest in the war, beginning circa 1880. Linderman pointed to the flood of Civil War literature that poured from the presses at that time, including hundreds of regimental histories and the popular series of articles in Century Magazine which doubled that periodical ’s circulation and were later published as the four-volume set Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. Linderman also cited membership in the chief Union veterans’ organization, the Grand Army of the Republic, which skyrocketed during the revival period, reaching almost a half-million members. Hess agreed with Linderman’s time line, and described ways in which Union vet251 brothers one and all erans participated in the revival, including writing their memoirs and visiting battlefields. Evidence regarding the 154th New York shows that its veterans adhered to the pattern of hibernation and revival outlined by Linderman and Hess—for the most part.1 Civil War soldiers participated in group commemorative efforts before the war ended, and members of the 154th New York were no exception. On September 16, 1864, a Great Valley hotel was the site of a convention of Cattaraugus County soldiers and veterans. Their purpose was to form a Cattaraugus Soldiers’ Union. One of the objects of the organization, the Cattaraugus Freeman reported, was “to preserve the names and services of our Soldiers— those who have fallen as well as the living—their Companies, Regiments, and the Actions in which engaged.” The group also planned to insure solidarity among veterans, aid indigent veterans, and care for soldiers’ widows and orphans.2 Officers of the 154th New York played an instrumental role in establishing a Cattaraugus County branch of a national group, the United Service Society , in October 1865. The society’s objectives were similar in nature to those of the Cattaraugus Soldiers’ Union. Captain Winfield Cameron of the 154th was the first president of the Cattaraugus branch, and seven of the eleven members of the organization’s board of control were veterans of the Hardtack Regiment.3 The Cattaraugus Soldiers’ Union and the county branch of the United Service Society apparently were short-lived, victims perhaps of the hibernation . After their founding, references to them disappeared from the columns of local newspapers. A similar fate met the fledgling Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), founded in 1866 to pursue similar objectives as the two earlier societies. Destined to become the greatest Union veterans’ organization both in numbers and power, the GAR experienced a long and slow growth during the hibernation. GAR posts were established during the order’s early years in the Cattaraugus County towns of Olean and Allegany—the latter post was commanded by Warren Onan of the 154th—but they both failed. During the revival, however, more than twenty GAR posts were founded and flourished in Cattaraugus County, and a like number in Chautauqua. Veterans of the...

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