Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/345

 the assistance of needy comrades and the wives and families of those deceased who may need aid.

No person who at any time has borne arms against the United States is eligible to membership. But at occasional gatherings where Union and Confederate veterans have assembled there has always been manifest the soldierly magnanimity due a worthy foe. As the years pass by the feeling of fraternity between those who wore the blue and the gray has grown and the late War with Spain almost obliterated the last remnant of antagonism of the period of the Civil War.

The first Commander-in-Chief of the National organization was General Stephen A. Hurlbut of Illinois.

In the fall of 1865 an organization of veterans of the Union Army was made in Davenport, Iowa, under the name of the “Old Soldiers’ Association of Scott County,” of which General Addison H. Sanders was chosen president, and Captain N. N. Tyner, secretary. The Association was merged into the Grand Army of the Republic as Post No. 1, Davenport Department of Iowa.

In July, 1866, General Sanders visited Dr. Stephenson at Springfield, was instructed in the work of the order, provided with the ritual and constitution and authorized to organize Posts. A charter was issued, dated July 12th, 1866, by Dr. Stephenson, commanding the Department of Illinois, to General A. H. Sanders, Colonel R. M. Littler, General J. B. Leake, Lieutenant O. S. McNeil, Captain N. N. Tyner, Lieutenant-Colonel T. J. Saunders, A. P. Alexander, Captain A. T. Andreas, Captain J. G. Cavendish and J. W. Moore. A meeting was held in Davenport, July 24th, 1866, to organize the Post and a provisional department was formed with General Sanders as Commander. On the 26th of September a meeting of representatives of Posts was held at Davenport where a permanent department was organized. Ninety-five Posts had been organized in the State at the time of the Second Encampment, April 10th, 1867.