A proud Confederate vet
Following the War Between the States, the South lay in great devastation. Many farms and homesteads lay burned to the ground and poverty and despair was a constant companion.
Veterans returned home from the war with many physical and emotional issues. One Union soldier was found roaming aimlessly through a rail yard in tattered clothing. The man could only mumble and had a far away look in his eyes. He carried a sign around his neck which read simply "Michigan." He was placed on a train and dropped off in Kalamazoo.
Whereas many vets didn't carry mental scars to this degree, many had numerous problems which returned home with them. Sizeable portions of the state budgets of Mississippi and other states were devoted to artificial limbs because so many men had lost arms and legs in battle.
The Southern states would eventually begin to fund pensions for Confederate veterans and until the last few years, a few of these pensions were still being paid to the widows of Confederate veterans.
Yet prior to the pensions, the vets had very little they could count on. Various organizations arose to meet the challenge. The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the United Confederate Veterans sought to help the veterans who had split their blood for their various states. Many of the early monuments to the Confederate veterans were placed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
The organization grew rapidly throughout the 1890s culminating with 1,555 camps represented at the 1898 reunion. The next few years marked the zenith of UCV membership, lasting until 1903 or 1904, when veterans were starting to die off and the organization went into a gradual decline.
The national organization assembled annually in a general convention and social reunion, presided over by the Commander-in-Chief. These annual reunions served the UCV as an aid in achieving its goals. Convention cities made elaborate preparations and tried to put on bigger events than the previous hosts.
The gatherings continued to be held long after the membership peak had passed and despite fewer veterans surviving, they gradually grew in attendance, length and splendor. Numerous veterans brought family and friends along too, further swelling the crowds. Many Southerners considered the occasions major social occasions. Perhaps thirty thousand veterans and another fifty thousand visitors attended each of the mid and late 1890 reunions, and the numbers increased.
On May 13, 1910, members of the General Clanton's Camp 1072, United Confederate Veterans held their 11th annual reunion at Pollard, Alabama.
Mayor H.D. Finlay addressed the reunion; "I recalled that nearly seven years ago this same body of veterans met in Pollard. I scanned the then thin ranks in my mind and I found that some of my nearest and dearest friends had fallen by the wayside. It occurred to me that I still had some noble friends among your ranks and figuring on the same basis of it being seven more years before you come to us again, the opportunity to welcome you might be forever gone," stated Finlay.
Finlay also mentioned the earlier days when Confederate troops trained in the Pollard area. "Go back fifty years to yonder hillside and you will find us training and disciplining as noble and brave a body of soldiers as ever went on a battlefield."
The last Confederate soldier died in the 1950s, yet their memory is carried on today by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederates Veterans.
The modern day Sons of Confederate Veterans is the direct heir of the United Confederate Veterans. The group organized at Richmond, Virginia in 1896. The organization is a non-political, non-racial organization with a mission to preserve the deeds of the fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers and so forth who fought and died in a conflict that had the deepest impact on American history and society.
