In 1911 this somber monument was erected by the Women's Relief Corps chapter No 71 in Newton's Military Park to honor the unknown (Union) dead of the US Civil War.
The Women's Relief Corps (W.R.C.) was an offshoot of the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.), a male Union Civil War veteran's fraternal organization. They still exist today: (
visit link)
"In 1866, Union Veterans of the Civil War organized into the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) and became a social and political force that would control the destiny of the nation for more than six decades. Membership in the veterans' organization was restricted to individuals who had served in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or Revenue Cutter Service during the Civil War, thereby limiting the life span of the GAR. The GAR existed until 1956.
In 1881 the GAR formed the Sons of Veterans of the United States of America (SV) to carry on its traditions and memory long after the GAR had ceased to exist. Membership was open to any man who could prove ancestry to a member of the GAR or to a veteran eligible for membership in the GAR. In later years, men who did not have the ancestry to qualify for hereditary membership, but who demonstrated a genuine interest in the Civil War and could subscribe to the purpose and objectives of the SUVCW, were admitted as Associates. This practice continues today.
Many GAR Posts sponsored Camps of the SV. In 1925 the SV name was changed to Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW), under which its federal charter was issued in 1954. The SUVCW is legally recognized as the heir to, and representative of, the GAR.
Today, the National Organization of the SUVCW, headed by an annually elected Commander-in-Chief, oversees the operation of 26 Departments, each consisting of one or more states, a Department-at-Large, a National Membership-at-Large, and over 200 community based Camps. More than 6,360 men enjoy the benefits of membership in the only male organization dedicated to the principles of the GAR -- Fraternity, Charity, and Loyalty. It publishes "The BANNER" quarterly for its members. The SUVCW National Headquarters is located in the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
The SUVCW is one of five Allied Orders of the GAR. The other four Orders are: Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic, Woman's Relief Corps, Auxiliary to the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War and Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War."
From the Tri-Counties genealogy website we were able to find some more history of the WRC: (
visit link)
"A Post Civil War phenomenon, the Woman's Relief Corps worked through local chapters to relieve the sufferings of disabled veterans, war widows, and orphans. In the North it functioned as an AUXILIARY of the Grand Army of the Republic, but in the South, where the GAR had no equivalent, there nonetheless were units of the Women's Relief Corps.: Tampa, Florida, for example, was #5. Separate units run by black women on behalf of black veterans existed in the North; the Boston unit founded by Susie King Taylor and others in 1886 was # 67. In addition, some areas had similar organizations with names like Ladies Relief Society or Ladies Memorial Society.
These groups concentrated on cemetery maintenance and the erection of war memorials. The May 30 observance of Decoration Day in the South and Memorial Day in the North owed much to the organization efforts of these women. Their era of greatest activity was in the 1880s and 1890s, when those who had been shaped by the war had begun to age, and they feared that wartime sacrifices would be forgotten as the nation rushed on towards the twentieth century." [end]