May 2026 Meeting Summary
At our dinner meeting on May 27th Dr. Brian Matthew Jordan gave an excellent program about his book: Marching Home, Union Veterans and their
unending Civil War. Attendance at the meeting was 58.
The Civil War visited unprecedented violence on the United States. That violence was also inscribed on the bodies and minds of the nearly two million men who donned Union blue between 1861 and 1865. Dr. Jordan addressed the following key questions:
- How did Union veterans make sense of their physical, psychological, and emotional wounds as the nation plunged into the years of Reconstruction?
- How did the politics of the post war years complicate their reintegration to civilian life and personal healing?
- Why were so many veterans so unwilling to let go of the war and its legacy, and what urgent messages do those ex-soldiers have for us today?
While Confederate troops returned to homes that shared their sense of defeat and wounded pride, Union soldiers encountered northern civilians who were determined to shield themselves from the grisly realities of the battlefield – eager to put the war behind them.
On May 23, 1865, the victorious Union Army paraded through the streets of Washington D.C., marking an end to the bloody Civil War. The soldiers were cheered and feted, and hailed with a banner that read: “The Only National Debt We Can Never Repay Is the Debt We Owe Our Victorius Union Soldiers.” For generations, this romantic vision of a bitterly won peace has dominated our understanding of the war’s legacy. However, Dr. Jordan dispelled that narrative.
Many veterans simply could not forget, could not move on, and found little sympathy in a nation ready to move on. While northerners were willing to salute the
heroism of Union soldiers, they remained terribly illequipped to mitigate the challenges of their homecoming. Battling physical pain and psychic trauma that was barely understood, Union veterans came together to share and honor memories that no one else would.
More images from the meeting:
