Grand Army of the Republic Records Project
More than 8,600 community-level Posts of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) have been documented to date and that information is accessible through the map link below (a link to the list of GAR Posts on foreign soil is below the map).
The current effort of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW) is to locate the records of those Posts and make the repositories know through this listing. This is a multi-year project and is updated on a monthly basis. If that information is not yet listed, it is not yet available. Should you know of the location of GAR records, please send an email to GAR Records and include: Name, Number and Location of the Post along with the complete Name and Address of the Repository where records of that Post reside.
Membership in the Grand Army of the Republic was limited to those men (and a few women) who served in the Union Army, Navy, Marine Corps or Revenue Cutter Service during the Civil War. Therefore, it was destined to eventually go out of business and in 1956 with the death of its last member, Albert Woolson, the charter was vacated.
There were no continuing national or state organizations--they existed for only a few days each year at the annual Encampment. The great majority of GAR records were maintained by the local Post. When the last member of each Post died, the records were treated as personal property and most were thrown out or burned by disinterested executors. Those records which did survive were often given to local, state and national archives, historical societies or colleges, or inherited through default by later veterans organizations such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion. Some exist in private collections and still others remain stored--unknown--in attics.
The GAR Post listings are presented in PDF (Portable Document Format). To view and print these files you need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader software on your computer. If you do not, a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader may be obtained for free on the Adobe Web site:
Send any additions, corrections and/or updates to the Chair of the SUVCW Special National Committee on Grand Army of the Republic Post Records.
Map Source: National Geographic
Canada, Mexico and Peru
Comments to: SUVCW National Webmaster
Last Updated:
(KAP)