Grand Army of the Republic/Woman’s Relief Corps Monument A Century Old

Anyone who has spent time walking along the south side of Capitol Square has inevitably noted a rather large, dark, natural boulder featuring a bronze plaque. Though easy to mistake as a hulking sample of stone, it is in fact the last Civil War monument erected on Capitol Square.

The large boulder previously stood near a private home on South Washington Avenue, owned by lawyer Jason Nichols and his family. According to an article in The [Lansing] State Journal, he “experienced a distinct shock when he was first asked for it by the women of the Relief corps,” adding “he knew of no purpose and no organization into whose care and keeping he would rather give the boulder.”

               The Lansing chapter of the Women’s Relief Corps formed several decades earlier, in 1884. Originally called the Woman’s Relief Corps, it was a fraternal-style organization open to all patriotic women who supported the Union during the Civil War. In the early days, the WRC supported the state Home for Veterans in Grand Rapids, lobbied for veterans’ pensions, and raised money to aid struggling local veterans and their families.

               The WRC also served as a female auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Republic, the largest northern Civil War veterans association in late nineteenth century America. Though WRC members did not have to be related to, or descendants of, GAR members, most were. Old Lansing newspapers are full of reports of joint GAR/WRC events, ranging from dinners to card parties and lectures.

               Not surprisingly, the two like-minded organizations often held simultaneous or joint conventions. Inevitably, this rotating annual event stopped in Lansing every few years, where some portions—including the famous evening ‘campfires’—took place in the Capitol’s legislative chambers. (Thankfully those fires were just metaphorical!)

               It was natural, then, that when the WRC prepared to unveil a new Capitol monument honoring the “boys” of the GAR, that they would coordinate the event with a Lansing GAR/WRC convention in the summer of 1924.

               Mrs. Pruddence Bowman, president of the Lansing WRC, presided over the June 11, 1924, event, which was attended by WRC representatives from across the state, as well as many GAR members and other veterans. The Michigan Industrial School Boys’ band provided music, and Capitol Superintendent W.W. Brown accepted the marker on behalf of the state.

               “There is no man, woman or child who is not thrilled by the notes of these rare days when the remnant of those who so gallantly wore the blue, more than 60 years ago, march behind their tattered flags, on the streets of our cities.”

               “We grow more thoughtful on such days, and feel a new veneration for the men who fought to preserve the Union,” Brown affirmed, foreshadowing the veterans parade scheduled for the next day.

               As was typical for the time, two young girls dressed in white and wearing wreaths, officially unveiled the monument. Naturally, both were descendants of Union soldiers.

Valerie Marvin

Capitol Historian & Curator