Orlando’s Grand Army of the Republic

The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was founded on April 6, 1866, as a fraternal organization for Union Veterans of the Civil War. Orlando’s GAR, U. S. Grant Post No. 10, was formed in 1886. Nearly 100 gravesites are enclosed within the GAR section of Greenwood Cemetery, with markers honoring veterans and family members buried there. 

From 1861 to 1865, as the nation divided over slavery and engaged in a bloody Civil War, more than 2.6 million men pledged their loyalty to the Union cause by enlisting in the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marines.¹ Among these were 200,000 African American men—many previously enslaved—who had been authorized by the Emancipation Proclamation to form US Colored Troops and defend their newfound freedom.² After the war, these Black and White Union Veterans sought to recreate the camaraderie of their units while preserving the memory of their patriotic sacrifice through the formation of civic groups and fraternal orders. 

The most prominent Union Civil War Veteran group was the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). Formed nationally in 1866, the GAR served as a way for Union veterans to rekindle the fraternity of their units.³ The organization quickly spread across the country, and in 1890 had more than 400,000 members with over 7,000 posts (posts are at the community level of the organization, akin to a club).⁴ GAR members worked tirelessly to preserve the memory of those who died preserving the Union and supporting veterans and families in need. Auxiliary groups, such as the Ladies of the Grand Army, the Woman’s Relief Corps, and Sons and Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War were also active in maintaining support for Union Veterans across the nation.⁵  

Following Reconstruction, many Union Veterans migrated South to take part in the Florida land boom and retire in a climate that eased the pain of their old battle wounds.⁶ The Florida Department of the GAR was formed in 1868.⁷ A growing number of these veterans in Central Florida led to the founding of a post of the GAR in Orlando in 1886.⁸ The U. S. Grant Post, No. 10 of the Florida Department of the GAR did not have an official meeting hall, as many GAR groups did nationally, such as the nearby Union Veteran settlement in St. Cloud.⁹ Instead, they met in the Orlando Armory.¹⁰ They did, however, have a permanent space to call their own in Orlando, one intended for their final rest, at Greenwood Cemetery.¹¹ A deed recorded on November 4, 1898, names three trustees of the GAR Section—Veterans Corporal Edward Halsey Cheney, Corporal John Williams Anderson, and Corporal Edgar Anson Richards.¹² 

The GAR Section is located in the front of the original cemetery layout, at the corner of Section I. The section faces the area laid out for Veterans of the Confederacy. On December 7, 1893, the Orlando City Council, at the request of future mayor William Jewell, approved the donation of a plot for Confederate Veterans at Greenwood Cemetery.¹³ The Confederate Veteran Section occupies a fifty-foot square plot to the east of the GAR Section.¹⁴ Three weeks after the donation of land for Confederate Veterans, on December 21, 1893, a petition was presented to the City Council that resulted in the donation of an equal sized plot for the GAR.¹⁵  

At the center of the GAR Section in Greenwood Cemetery stands a monument that was erected by U.S. Grant Post, No. 10 on Sunday, November 10, 1910.¹⁶ This modest monument is a granite obelisk topped with a finial reminiscent of a cannonball. The eastern-facing side of the monument reads “In Memory of the Army and Navy 1861-65” and at the base, a plaque has been placed with the words “To Our Unknown Soldier Dead.” According to an attendee of the Orlando GAR monument’s dedication in 1910, the monument is “small but neat, and reflects great credit upon the members of the U.S. Grant Post, and an object lesson to other Posts in the Department.”¹⁷ Greenwood Cemetery is the home to one of only sixteen monuments to Union Civil War Veterans in Florida, in stark contrast to fifty-four currently standing, which are dedicated to the memory of Confederate Veterans in the state.¹⁸  

Memorial Day events in Orlando’s past often centered around the GAR Section of Greenwood Cemetery. Originally known as Decoration Day, Memorial Day was established to honor fallen Union Veterans of the Civil War.¹⁹ As the spirit of reconciliation grew, Memorial Day events began to include Confederate Veterans. Orlando’s GAR and its auxiliary groups were frequently noted in the newspaper as decorating the graves of both sides of the conflict in Greenwood Cemetery.²⁰ As time passed, and local chapters of the Union groups disbanded, the practice was reversed, with Confederate groups decorating “Yankee” graves.²¹   

In 2006, the Sons and Daughters of Union Veterans conducted a restoration effort and held a Memorial Day event to commemorate the Union Veterans buried in the GAR Section.²² Former Greenwood Cemetery Sexton Don Price worked with these groups and the Veterans Administration to replace several headstones.²³ Price had noticed something unusual during his work in the section—the majority of the headstone inscriptions face west.²⁴ The burial plots in the GAR section face east while the inscriptions are on the back of the headstones, facing west. In addition, a low wall that surrounds the section partially obscures the inscriptions on the first row of headstones. This led Price to believe that at some point, these headstones were deliberately turned backwards in what he called “Southern Justice.”²⁵ This theory is the current topic of study by local researchers and has reignited the interest of local heritage groups who plan to restore the section to its former glory.²⁶ 

1. “Civil War Facts: 1861-1865,” National Parks Service, accessed April 14, 2024, https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/facts.htm 

2. “Black Soldiers in the U.S. Military During the Civil War,” National Archives, accessed April 14, 2024, https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/blacks-civil-war 

3. “Grand Army of the Republic and Kindred Societies,” Library of Congress, accessed April 13, 2024, https://guides.loc.gov/grand-army-of-the-republic 

4. “Grand Army,” Library of Congress. 

5. “A Brief History of the Grand Army of the Republic,” Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, accessed April 13, 2024, https://suvcw.org/brief-history-of-the-grand-army-of-the-republic 

6. William B. Lees and Frederick P. Gaske, “Remembering The Union Soldier and Sailor,” in Recalling Deeds Immortal: Florida Monuments to the Civil War (Gainesville, 2014: online ed., Florida Scholarship Online), accessed April 13, 2024, https://doi.org/10.5744/florida/9780813049960.003.0003 

7. Robert B. Beath, History of the Grand Army of the Republic (New York: Taylor & Co., 1888), 637.

8. Beath, History, 639.

9. “G.A.R. veterans gathered in front of G.A.R. Hall for a group portrait - Saint Cloud, Florida,” 1929, State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, accessed April 12, 2024, https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/156431 

10. “G.A.R. Notice,” Orlando Morning Sentinel, February 16, 1921, 23.  

11. City Council Minutes, December 21,1893, City of Orlando. 

12. Orange County, Florida, Deed Book 104: 169, City of Orlando to J.W. Anderson, E.A. Richards, and E.H. Cheney, November 4, 1898.; Richards and Anderson are both buried in Section A of Greenwood Cemetery. Cheney is buried in Cleaveland, Tennessee.

13. City Council Minutes, December 7, 1893, City of Orlando.

14. City Council Minutes, December 7, 1893, City of Orlando.

15. City Council Minutes, December 21,1893, City of Orlando.

16. E.B. Stillings & Company, Journal of the Forty-Fourth National Encampment of The Grand Army of the Republic [...], vol. 83, Minneapolis: Press of Byron & Willard Co., 1910), 110-111. 

17. Stillings, Journal, 110-111.

18. Florida Civil War Heritage Trail, Florida Division of Historical Resources (Tallahassee: Dept. of State, 2011).; There were 54 Confederate monuments in the state of Florida as of 2024. “National Monument Audit,” Monument Lab, accessed April 12, 2024, https://monumentlab.com/audit#data  

19. “Memorial Day History,” National Cemetery Administration, accessed April 13, 2024, https://www.cem.va.gov/history/Memorial-Day-History.asp 

20. “Memorial Services to be Held by U.S. Grant Post,” Orlando Evening Star, May 25, 1915, 7. 

21. “Faded Gray,” Orlando Sentinel, April 21, 1985, 229-230.

22. “Sons of Union Veterans Lucius L. Mitchell Camp No. 4 Memorial Day Program,” 2006, Orange County Regional History Center. 

23. Don Price, oral history interview by Sarah Boye, July 7, 2022.

24. Price, oral history.

25. Price, oral history.

26. Sarah Boye, "Southern Justice and the Cultural Legacy of the Civil War in Orlando,” poster, University of Central Florida, August 8, 2022.