Veterans Day
Although Veterans Day, as a nationally recognized holiday, did not come about until after the end of the Reconstruction Era, Americans have been commemorating our country’s veterans for generations.
Shared from:
Reconstruction Era National Historical Park
November 11, 2021 9:33am
Although Veterans Day, as a nationally recognized holiday, did not come about until after the end of the Reconstruction Era, Americans have been commemorating our country’s veterans for generations.
Susie King Taylor, a nurse, educator, and wife of a veteran of the 1st South Carolina Infantry, founded a chapter of the Women’s Relief Corps where she personally rendered aid to Civil War veterans during the Reconstruction Era.
In her memoirs, published nearly 40 years after the war’s end, Taylor reflected on the importance of honoring American veterans and perpetuating their memory:
“...I look around now and see the comforts that our younger generation enjoy, and think of the blood that was shed to make these comforts possible for them, and see how little some of them appreciate the old soldiers... There are only a few of them left now, so let us all, as the ranks close, take a deeper interest in them. Let the younger generation take an interest also, and remember that it was through the efforts of these veterans that they and we older ones enjoy our liberty to-day.”
Image: Veterans of the 1st South Carolina Volunteer/33rd United States Colored Troops Infantry gather on St. Helena Island - April 14, 1912 (Penn Center Collection)