Veterans and Veterans’ Organizations

Essay

Military veterans began organizing in the Philadelphia area during the waning days of the Revolutionary War. As the Continental Army disbanded, its veterans often met at City Tavern and the first general meeting of America’s first veterans’ organization, the General Society of the Cincinnati, occurred there on May 4, 1784. Just as regularly, however, veterans congregated in the streets, engaging in acts that authorities viewed as mutinous. Philadelphia-area veterans emerged from this tumult to become integral to the region’s identity and prominent in the nation’s veteran affairs.

In the era of the American Revolution, Americans expected their veterans to follow the ideal of a citizen soldier embodied by the tradition of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (519 BCE-430 BCE), a consul in ancient Rome. When summoned, he set down his plow to command an army against invaders. Sixteen days later, Cincinnatus returned to his fields. He shunned all honors. Among veterans of the American Revolution, however, many who took up arms cared less about glory than they did about collecting their promised pay and bounties. This became evident in the streets of Philadelphia.

On October 4, 1779, more than a year after the British Army ended its 1777-78 occupation of Philadelphia, a large group of militia gathered at Burns Tavern on North Tenth Street. The disdain of the tradesmen who manned the city’s militia shifted from the British to Philadelphia’s merchants, whom they accused of profiteering while avoiding service.

March of Humiliation

The militia forcibly marched four prominent merchants through town in an attempt at public humiliation. It then stormed the house of James Wilson (1742-98), a prominent political ally of the merchants. This attack on “Fort Wilson,” ended by the arrival of the Philadelphia Light Horse, resulted in five dead and seventeen wounded. Authorities soon pardoned the several militia that they arrested to alleviate the heightened class tension in the city that their captivity had produced.

Membership Certificate for the Society of CIncinnatti.
As the Continental Army disbanded, its veterans often met at City Tavern and the first general meeting of America’s first veterans’ organization, the General Society of the Cincinnati, occurred there on May 4, 1784. The membership certificate for the Society of Cincinnati shown here was created between 1845 and 1848. (Library of Congress)

Continental Army veterans shared the financial concerns expressed by the militia. In January 1781, the 2,400 veterans of the Pennsylvania Line, disgruntled about their coerced reenlistment, lack of pay, and poor conditions, mutinied. Authorities responded quickly. Joseph Reed (1741-85), president of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Executive Council, met with representatives from the disgruntled Line at its camp in Princeton, New Jersey. He addressed their grievances by granting discharges to those who sought them and by offering more favorable terms to those who chose to reenlist.

Two years later, their war won against Great Britain, veterans unified once more. Rather than going home as ordered, units from York, Carlisle, Lancaster, and Maryland joined veterans in Philadelphia to demand their promised pay. Congress deemed this a mutiny and relocated to Princeton. The protest collapsed when veterans received word that an army under the command of General Robert Howe (1732-86) was marching toward the city under orders to quell the uprising. This incident ultimately resulted in the constitutional provision granting the U.S. Congress exclusive jurisdiction over the nation’s capital.

While the Continental Army’s soldiers took to Philadelphia’s streets, its officers retired to the city’s back rooms. They created the State Society of the Cincinnati of Pennsylvania on October 4, 1783, at the City Tavern, months before the General Society held its first meeting there. This rendered the Pennsylvania Society as the ninth of fourteen constituent societies to comprise the General Society of Cincinnati, an organization proposed by Major General Henry Knox (1750-1806) at the Continental Army’s encampment at Newburgh, New York, in May 1783. The society’s founding document, the Institution, acknowledged the subordination of the military to civilian rule. It created a fraternal organization for former officers as a vehicle to advocate for a number of issues, including promised pay.

The General Society defined broad parameters for its constituent societies, located in each of thirteen states and in France, America’s wartime ally against England. The vast size of the new nation dictated to the General Society’s framers that constituent societies required a good deal of autonomy to manage their own affairs. Eighty-five members of the Pennsylvania Society signed the Parchment Roll, Pennsylvania’s draft of the General Society’s Institution, during a meeting at the City Tavern on October 13, 1783. The Pennsylvania’s Society’s original members, eventually totaling 268, elected Continental Army Major General Arthur St. Clair (1737-18) as their first president and Major General “Mad” Anthony Wayne (1745-96) as his vice president.

Besides presiding over the General Society’s first meeting at the City Tavern, George Washington (1732-99) served as its president general from 1783 until 1799, when Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804) assumed the office. Sixteen members of the Constitutional Convention belonged to the Cincinnati and eleven more became honorary members. The Cincinnati based its state headquarters at the Hill Physick Keith House (321 S. Fourth Street) following the mansion’s restoration in the 1960s.

The Shadow of Cincinnatus

VFW Commander Robert Hassler reading the charter of the Camp 13 chapter of the United Spanish War Veterans to its three remaining members.
Three New Jersey veterans of the Spanish-American War (1898), Sherman Ziegler, John Probosco, and Wesley Seayrs (foreground) were honored at a dinner held at the Corporal Joseph C. Toulson Post, VFW, in 1955. (Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries)

Philadelphia remained central to the societies that veterans formed following the nation’s nineteenth-century conflicts as they sought to preserve the camaraderie experienced in wartime. In a meeting in Congress Hall on January 9, 1854, more than 1,500 War of 1812 veterans created the Society of the War of 1812, a fraternal group for former officers. Attendees elected War of 1812 veteran Joel Barlow Sutherland (1792-61), a former congressman and a founder of Jefferson Medical College, as the group’s first president.

The Aztec Club, formed for officers who served in the Mexican-American War, also congregated in Philadelphia. The city’s Robert Patterson (1792-81), an influential mill owner and an original club member, presided over the organization from 1867 to 1881. Members met annually at Patterson’s mansion at Thirteenth and Locust Streets (later the site for a new building to house the Historical Society of Pennsylvania).

Philadelphia also became the site for the first national home for veterans. In 1826 the U.S. Navy acquired 20.7 acres at Grays Ferry Avenue from prominent Philadelphia Quaker Timothy Abbott (1767-1845) and appointed Philadelphia architect William Strickland (1788-54) as superintendent to build a permanent facility for disabled sailors. The U.S. Naval Asylum (renamed as the U.S. Naval Home in 1889) housed retired sailors until replaced by a new facility in Gulfport, Mississippi, in 1976.

Following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), veterans in Philadelphia held a mass meeting at Independence Hall to pledge renewed allegiance to the Union. This resulted in the creation of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, or the Loyal Legion.  Philadelphian George Cadwalader (1806-79), a major general in the Union army, served as the legion’s first commander-in-chief.

Fraternal Gives Way to Activist

As with previous veterans’ organization, the legion welcomed only officers. It deviated, however, by moving toward advocacy on behalf of the general welfare of the Union, its soldiers, and their widows. In this way, the Loyal Legion bridged the earlier veterans’ organizations, which remained exclusive and fraternal, with groups that later proved more inclusive and activist. Its members proved especially concerned with preserving the war’s history by gathering its artifacts.

Leaders of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) walk through two lines of the Audubon All-Girl Drum and Bugle Corps at a ceremony at City Hall in Philadelphia in 1954.
Leaders of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) walk through two lines of the Audubon All-Girl Drum and Bugle Corps at a ceremony at City Hall in Philadelphia in 1954. This ceremony was conducted as part of the VFW’s national convention, held that year in Philadelphia. (Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries)

The Grand Army of the Republic formed in Decatur, Illinois, a year after the Loyal Legion’s creation, to advocate on behalf of all Civil War veterans. This established a model for American veterans of ensuing wars who formed the Veterans of Foreign Wars (1914), the American Legion (1919), Vietnam Veterans of America (1978), and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (2004). It also built on the tradition of activism exhibited by veterans of earlier wars from the Philadelphia area.

Each new generation of veterans established a presence in the Philadelphia area and set out to serve their communities. For example, the Bridesburg-Lawton Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2 (4638 Richmond Street), whose members first mustered on July 24, 1902, continued to be active in community service for more than a century. The post’s original leader, Robert S. Hansbury (1863-22), organized the American Veterans of Philippine and China Wars, a forerunner to both the regional American Veterans of Foreign Services and the national Veterans of Foreign Wars created by a national encampment of veterans in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1914. Members of the Bridesburg-Lawton post contributed to the inaugural Philadelphia Veterans Parade (2015) by sending its motorcycle “Riders Group,” the oldest in Philadelphia.

Grand Army Museum

The John Ruan House (4278 Griscom Street), once the home to Philadelphia’s Grand Army of the Republic Post #2, became the Grand Army of the Republic Museum and Library. Post #2 had constituted one of the largest and most influential Grand Army of the Republic posts in the United States. Its members worked to display the many books, artifacts, and memorabilia they collected to educate the public about the war.  To ensure the continued maintenance and accessibility of the collection, in 1926 Post #2 members created a corporation, Philadelphia Camp Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, to carry on their work.

Such engagement was longstanding and widespread. In 1926, the American Legion hosted its first baseball World Series in Philadelphia.  This type of civic engagement enabled the legion’s employment committee to lobby successfully for a pledge from the Pennsylvania Railroad to hire a percentage of men over the age of forty during the Great Depression.

Such efforts derived, however, from posts that often remained segregated by race. Initially, policy dictated this. Unable to join Post #2 of the Grand Army of the Republic, in 1867 Philadelphia’s African American veterans of the Civil War chartered Charles Sumner #103. Although the military desegregated in 1953, local veterans’ posts continued to reflect the region’s residential segregation patterns. For example, in 1954, an influx of many Puerto Rican World War II and Korean War veterans  in Philadelphia resulted in the creation of Latin American Legion Post #840 of the American Legion.

In the suburbs, the Veterans of Foreign Wars granted separate Black and white posts to Coatesville and Kennett Square. In West Chester, veterans created two American Legion posts within three months of one another in 1919. The Bernhhard F. Schegel  Post 134 began with fifteen members, all white, while fifteen African American veterans created Nathan Holmes Post 362. Still, the two posts worked closely with one another. They jointly orchestrated activities and parades, occupied seats on the county’s veteran council, and sent delegations to the funerals of each other’s members. Their members also joined the same local Veterans of Foreign Wars post.

Soldiering On

Members of the Air Force presenting the Philadelphia Veterans Advisory Commission with a plaque.
The Philadelphia Veterans Advisory Commission, established in 1957, worked to alert veterans to benefits they were entitled to and help with their distribution. In this 1961 photograph, representatives of the commission are receiving a plaque from the United States Air Force to recognize their work. (PhillyHistory.org)

The activist spirit promoted by veterans organizations became embraced by individuals such as Philadelphian John Alferi (1881-1974), a World War I veteran and member of the James J. Cochran Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 251. On December 14, 1931, Alferi led a “Veterans’ Bonus Brigade” of fifty veterans on a four-day protest march from Philadelphia to the nation’s capital to call for early payment of bonuses promised by Congress. Although this march attracted little public attention, it inspired an army of veterans who came to call Alferi “Mr. Bonus Army.” The 1931 action inspired the better-known “Bonus Army” march on Washington by thousands of veterans during the summer of 1932.

The region’s activist veterans also included Smedley D. Butler (1881-40), a native of West Chester, Pennsylvania, the most decorated marine in American history at the time of his death. Butler, twice awarded the Medal of Honor, wrote an exposé of war profiteering entitled War is a Racket (1935). Butler supported veterans’ lobbying and visited the Bonus Army while it encamped in Washington to encourage its marchers. He toured the country in 1933 to recruit members for the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Years later, over Labor Day weekend in 1970, veterans staged another protest march when 150 members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War walked from Morristown, New Jersey, to Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and on to Valley Forge, drawing on the area’s Revolutionary-era symbolism. Aided by the Philadelphia Guerrilla Theater Company, the group dramatized its allegations of the American military’s misconduct in Vietnam, analogous to many acts allegedly perpetuated by the Red Coats in colonial America. At Valley Forge the veterans, joined by over a thousand protesters, conducted a peace rally that featured antiwar speeches delivered by veterans, political leaders, and celebrities.

While the Vietnam War divided the country, Greater Philadelphia’s veterans groups projected unity in lobbying to honor veterans in the naming of the city’s new sports arena completed in 1971. Veterans Stadium served as the home field for Philadelphia’s professional baseball and football teams, the Phillies and the Eagles, until its demolition in 2004.

The unity of Philadelphia area veterans also led to the creation of the Philadelphia Veterans House (4108 Baltimore Avenue) in 1994. Initially a facility to provide short-term housing and meals for veterans commuting for treatment at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Philadelphia Veterans House began to provide shelter to homeless veterans in January 2012. Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter (b. 1957) cited this initiative as essential to his announcement in December 2015 that Philadelphia had effectively ended homelessness among the city’s veterans.

The activist spirit persisted. This was exemplified by the mural Communion Between a Rock and a Hard Place, dedicated in 2012 at 4129 Woodland Avenue near the Veterans Affairs Medical Center. A product of the Philadelphia-based Warrior Writers organization and the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, it depicted parallel worlds of Baghdad and Philadelphia: the spheres of soldier and citizen. Philadelphia area veterans worked to bridge these realms from the beginning. They created organizations that became central to serving local communities. Moreover, they effectively raised their voices to address issues of concern to veterans, regionally and nationally. Often they provided models of re-integration for their nation’s other veterans to follow. The history of greater Philadelphia’s veterans, characterized by organization and activism, offered a model for the nation.

Robert J. Kodosky is an associate professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of Psychological Operations American Style: The Joint United States Public Affairs Office, Vietnam and Beyond. (Author information current at time of publication.)

Copyright 2015, Rutgers University

Gallery

James Wilson's House (Fort Wilson)

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

On the morning of October 4, 1779, the house of James Wilson went from being the residence of a wealthy Philadelphia merchant to becoming a stronghold against a rowdy group of militiamen taking action against war profiteers. Constructed primarily of brick, Wilson's house was at the southwest corner of Third and Walnut Streets as depicted by Benjamin Ridgway Evans in this 1888 watercolor. As the militiamen paraded four detained merchants through the streets of Philadelphia, Wilson and other members of the Republican Society used Wilson's house as a refuge. When the militiamen stopped outside of “Fort Wilson,” one of those inside, Captain Robert Campbell, agitated the militia, drawing an attack that set fire to the first floor, killing Campbell. Wilson and his associates held the militiamen at bay until Joseph Reed and the City Troop of Light Horse were able to stop the attack. All told, six people died and seventeen were wounded.

Joseph Reed (1741-1785)

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

When Joseph Reed halted the militia attack on Fort Wilson in 1779, he had already gained years of experience assisting in the Revolutionary War and participating in newly established political positions. Born in Trenton, New Jersey, on August 27, 1741, Reed grew up in Philadelphia and attended classes at the Academy of Philadelphia (the modern University of Philadelphia). He obtained additional education from the College of New Jersey (Princeton University) and traveled to London, England, to study law. He opened a law practice in Philadelphia, but closed it to become President of Pennsylvania's Second Provisional Congress, which debated how Pennsylvania should react to the developments of the First Continental Congress. Serving the Revolutionary cause led Reed to a position as secretary (and later adjutant general) to George Washington. Reed resigned from the Continental Army in 1777 and began working with the Pennsylvania Assembly to prosecute treason cases. Members of the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council elected Reed as their president in 1778. The Fort Wilson event occurred during the final month of Reed's first annual term and with his support, the Council pardoned the militiamen. Reed remained president of the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council for an additional two terms, before losing his seat in 1781. Reed continued to practice law through his own firm and for the Continental Congress from 1781 until his death in 1785.

Society of Cincinnati Membership Certificate

Library of Congress

In the era of the American Revolution, Americans expected their veterans to follow the ideal of a citizen soldier embodied by the tradition of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (519 BCE-430 BCE), a consul in ancient Rome. When summoned, he set down his plow to command an army against invaders. Sixteen days later, Cincinnatus returned to his fields. He shunned all honors. Among veterans of the American Revolution, however, many who took up arms cared less about glory than they did in collecting their promised pay and bounties. This became evident in the streets of Philadelphia. As the Continental Army disbanded, its veterans often met at City Tavern and the first general meeting of America’s first veterans’ organization, the General Society of the Cincinnati, occurred there on May 4, 1784.

The membership certificate for the Society of Cincinnati shown here was created between 1845 and 1848. It states: “Be it known that _____ is a member of the society of the Cincinnati, instituted by the Officers of the American Army, at the Period of its Dissolution, as well to commemorate the Great Event which gave Independence to North America, as for the laudable Purpose of inculcating the Duty of laying down in Peaces Arms assumed for public Defence, and of uniting in Acts of brotherly Affection, and Bonds of perpetual Friendship the Members constituting the same.”

28th Infantry Division Homecoming

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

The 28th Infantry Division was formed from the Pennsylvania National Guard, then drafted into federal service when the United States entered the war. Affectionately referred to as the "Keystone Division," because of its red keystone-shaped shoulder patch, the division originally consisted entirely of men from Pennsylvania. Under the command of General Charles H. Muir, the 28th was made up of the 55th and 56th Infantry Brigades and the 53rd Field Artillery Brigade. In July of 1918, the 28th earned its nicknamed "The Iron Division" when it stubbornly repelled German attacks during the Second Battle of the Marne. During its stalwart defense, the 28th suffered 324 casualties, double that of other divisions. The division also saw action in the Aisne-Marne offense, the Oise-Aisne offensive, and the Meuse-Argonne offensive. During its homecoming, the 28th Infantry Division, pictured here, received a grand welcome as it paraded on Chestnut Street.

American Legion Parade 1926

Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries

When the American Legion held its national convention in Philadelphia in October 1926, corresponding with the sesquicentennial of the Declaration of Independence, the parade included this historic taxi used in World War I to transport General Joseph Gallieni’s army to the Battle of the Marne. The Battle of Marne, fought September 5-12, 1914, was considered the culmination of the German advance into France. The battle resulted in an Allied victory against the Germany army, a turning point in the war. The taxi was shipped to Philadelphia from France to take part in this parade.

Air Force Presenting a Plaque to the Veterans Advisory Commission

PhillyHistory.org

The Philadelphia Veterans Advisory Commission, established in 1957, worked to alert veterans to benefits they were entitled to and help with their distribution. In this 1961 photograph, representatives of the commission are receiving a plaque from the United States Air Force to recognize their work. Colonel C.R. Everson (second from left) is presenting the plaque to Councilman Leon J. Kolankiewicz (center). Kolankiewicz, who served in World War I, advocated for Polish wartime and peacetime relief and was the first Polish-American councilman-at-large elected in Philadelphia.

The Veterans Advisory Commission remained active in Philadelphia in the first decades of the twenty-first century, especially in addressing the needs of homeless veterans.

Audubon Welcome for National VFW Leader

Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries

Leaders of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) walk through two lines of the Audubon All-Girl Drum and Bugle Corps at a ceremony at City Hall in Philadelphia in 1954. This ceremony was conducted as part of the VFW’s national convention, held that year in Philadelphia. The color guard of the Oaklyn-Audubon-Beetlewood VFW Post 4463 stands behind the officials: J. Howard Berry (Treasurer of the VFW encampment corporation), Michael Byrnes (Deputy to the Mayor of Philadelphia), Wayne E. Richards (National VFW Commander), and Charles C. Ralls (former Commander-In-Chief).

Spanish War Veterans Honored

Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries

By 1955, when this photograph was taken, only three members survived of the Camp 13 chapter of the United Spanish War Veterans of Salem, New Jersey. Because six members were required to sustain a chapter, they returned their charter to Veterans of Foreign Wars state headquarters in Trenton. The three veterans of the Spanish-American War (1898), Sherman Ziegler, John Probosco, and Wesley Seayrs (foreground) were honored at a dinner held at the Corporal Joseph C. Toulson Post, VFW. VFW commander Robert Hassler (wearing cap) is reading the charter to the men for the last time.

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Related Reading

Bellesiles, Michael A. A People’s History of the U.S. Military: Ordinary Soldiers Reflect on Their Experience of War, from the American Revolution to Afghanistan. New York: The New Press, 2012.

Davies, Wallace Evan. Patriotism on Parade: The Story of Veterans’ and Hereditary Organizations in America, 1793-1900.  Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1955.

Dearing, Mary R. Veterans in Politics: The Story of the G.A.R. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1952.

Dickinson, Paul and Thomas B. Allen. The Bonus Army: An American Epic. New York: Walker & Company, 2006.

Rumer, Thomas A. The American Legion: An Official History, 1919-1989. New York: M. Evans & Company Inc., 1990.

Sargent, Winthrop, ed. Journal of the General Meeting of the Cincinnati in 1784. Philadelphia: The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1859.

Taylor, Richard H. Homeward Bound: American Veterans Return from War. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2007.

Topmiller, Robert J. and T. Kerby Neill. Binding Their Wounds: America’s Assault on Its Veterans. Boulder and London: Paradigm Publishers, 2011.

Waters, W.W. B.E.F.: The Whole Story of the Bonus Army. New York: AMS Press Inc., 1970.

Wecter, Dixon. When Johnny Comes Marching Home. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1944.

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