In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • “They Call Themselves Veterans”Civil War and Spanish War Veterans and the Complexities of Veteranhood
  • Barbara A. Gannon (bio)

In the aftermath of the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor, the Indiana state commander of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), the Union army’s largest veterans’ organization, expressed its support for war with the Spanish empire with a “unanimous, by rising vote, acclamation.” Their resolution “commend[ed] and approve[ed] the purpose of our national administration and of the people to free the island of Cuba and other Spanish colonies from Spanish cruelty and oppression.” At least some of the old soldiers had been agitating for war long before the sinking of the USS Maine; in a speech at the 1896 annual meeting, the Indiana state commander protested “the inhuman cruelties recently inaugurated by the Spanish Government in its attempts to still popular liberty in Cuba and to restore its further misrule, has filled the civilized world with horror and has aroused, on behalf of that struggling people, the sympathy of the friends of popular government everywhere.” It is not surprising, then, that when war finally came another Indiana state commander, Daniel Ryan, hailed the victories in Cuba and the Philippines. “The good news from Commodore Dewey’s victory in Manila Bay, May 1st, was thrilling the hearts of every American patriot,” which was “then followed [up by] the bottling up of the Spanish Fleet at Santiago, the embarkation of our soldiers for Cuba, the battle on land and sea in and around Santiago.” As a result of these victories, Ryan declared “our flag, our army, our navy, and our country are honored today in the eyes of nations more than ever before. We can say Praise God for the victory and honor which have come to us as a nation.”1

Despite the Indiana GAR’s support for the war with Spain, a few months later its members approved, without discussion or debate, “the indefinite postponement of a resolution . . . suggesting that those who served in the American Spanish War be admitted to the Grand Army and the Encampment.” That same year, when he issued a ruling on posts’ involvement in Spanish War veterans’ funerals, the Indiana judge advocate general made sure local posts were clear on Spanish War soldiers’ status. [End Page 528] “A Post would have the right to turn out and attend the funeral of a soldier of the Spanish-American war but the Post would have no right to use the burial service of the G.A.R. at the funeral.” Although no motivation is recorded, these types of edicts were usually in response to a question brought by local posts. Given its timing, the ruling must have applied to soldiers who had been killed or died on active duty. The GAR’s exclusion of Spanish War veterans from GAR membership and rituals indicates that veteranhood—veterans’ shared identity—did not cross generations and wartime experiences.2

To understand the relationship between the GAR and Spanish-American and Philippine-American War veterans, I examined records of veterans’ meetings, such as the one in Indiana. Since they were not welcome in the GAR, Spanish- and Philippine-American War veterans created their own organization, the United Spanish War Veterans (USWV), which, like the GAR, held annual state and national meetings, where members expressed their views of each other’s organizations and wars. Scholars have written at length about Civil War veterans and the GAR and have used GAR meeting minutes to explore everything from their political interests to their racial policies. Despite the availability of USWV records, nothing has been written about Spanish- and Philippine-American War veterans. The iconic status of Civil War veterans monopolized Americans’ understanding of the place of veterans in society, with important ramifications for perceptions of small war veterans, including members of the USWV.3

The GAR has been the subject of a number of major studies; however, little has been written about the relationship between Civil War veterans and the USWV. Mary Dearing’s Veterans in Politics: The Story of the GAR, the first scholarly examination of this group, addressed one issue: the exclusion of the Spanish War...

pdf