nationalist reunion

some nationalist leaders

From the January 9, 1869 issue of Harper’s Weekly:

THE ARMY REUNION AT CHICAGO

THE immense congregation of officers and soldiers assembled at Chicago on the 15th and 16th of December were representatives of our volunteer armies. Many were present who also belonged to the regular army, but they were not there on that account. This annual reunion has not, nor is likely ever to have, any bearing on partisan conflicts. Nevertheless it has great political significance; it is not simply the manifestation of military pride, or the expression of that fraternity which always exists among soldiers who have periled their lives in the same cause; it is something more – it is the intelligent recognition by our armies not only of the great work which they have accomplished, but also of the patriotic motives which called them to arms. The Chicago meeting was a token of our national strength and of national unity. General SHERMAN, in his address to the soldiers at the Opera-House, reminded them of this when he said: “Happily, my friends, you did not belong to that class of our people in whose hearts was planted from youth the pernicious doctrine of State power, that the citizens should love a part of the country better than the whole.”

The armies of the Cumberland, the Ohio, the Tennessee, and of Georgia have each a separate organization, and the meeting was the reunion of all four. We give an illustration of this event on page 29. On the evening of the 16th there was a grand banquet in the hall of the Chamber of Commerce, at which General SHERMAN presided. The nine immense tables bore the devices of the generals of the various armies who participated in the celebration, together with many memorials of the late war.

page 29

The material from Harper’s Weekly comes from the Internet Archive. The photograph of William T. Sherman and the other generals at the end of the war is from his memoirs (at Project Gutenberg). You can see the photo the presumed Confederate veteran at Arlington at the Library of Congress. I believe the gentleman’s ribbon shows a picture of General Lee and says, R.E. Lee Camp, Confederate Veterans, Alexandria[?], Va.”

loved a section more than the whole?

loyal to his state and his people