The Fading Ranks of the Grand Army of the Republic
Twenty elderly Civil War veterans observed Memorial Day in Lynden, marching with the local Woman's Relief Corps to honor the fallen.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Twenty aged and tottering veterans marched Monday through the City of Graves, scattering flowers over the burial spot of the 21 comrades who have gone on to the greater command. Even here in the Far West, thousands of miles from the center of the country's Civil War, the roll of the dead is greater than the roll of the living. The steps of those who remain are trembling and weak. The voices that read the beautiful words of tribute are husky and faltering. They who carry the flag stop often to rest. The Grand Army of the Republic is fading away. It is appropriate that the little children should lead them; that a loving and venerating younger generation should precede them in the march. The ceremonies in Lynden were very simple. The old soldiers and their wives were carried to the cemetery in automobiles. There at the gate the thinned ranks were closed up, and preceded by the little girls and the women of the W. R. C. they marched to the composite mound representing the graves of all those national heroes whose last resting place none but God knows. The solemn and beautiful words of the G. A. R. ritual were followed by the W. R. C. program in memoriam. This was followed by the silent march among the graves, each veteran led by a little girl in white, who bore the load of the flag the soldiers loved so well. Later on the way home, the bodies stopped at the bridge where the W. R. C., after a short ceremony, joined with the G. A. R. in scattering flowers into the flowing water that they might be swept on to the ocean, a tribute to those who went down in their country's cause at sea.
“The Grand Army of the Republic is fading away. It is appropriate that the little children should lead them.”
This piece captures the somber transition of the Civil War generation as they became increasingly frail figures in early 20th-century Lynden. While the specific veterans named in the report are long gone, the tradition of civic commemoration remains a pillar of American town life, though the 'fading' of a veteran cohort is a recurring cycle in every era.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.