A time capsule filled with objects and historical materials provides a snapshot of a particular time and place. Buried within a building or memorial as it is constructed, the contents of the container offer a tangible connection between past and present. The National Cemetery Administration (NCA) has documentation on the time capsules that were occasionally imbedded in national cemetery monuments. In 2010, however, masons working on the Soldiers and Sailors Monument at Togus National Cemetery, Maine, unexpectedly discovered one.
All cemeteries—designated as national cemeteries in 1973—affiliated with the eleven oldest branches of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers (NHDVS) feature a prominent monument, typically in the shape of an obelisk, erected several years after the Civil War. The cemetery at the Eastern Branch-NHDVS in Togus lacked such a memorial, to the distress of Luther Stephenson, governor of the branch. About 2,000 Veterans resided at the home. A group of them took matters into their own hands and erected a 26-foot-tall granite-block obelisk in 1889. They built it using stone quarried on the grounds. The 1890 National Home annual report commended the outcome: “The monument is very handsome in its rough simplicity, and is a source of pride to the men.” What went unreported was that the builders placed a time capsule inside.
The copper box, measuring 10”x 7”x 3”, was found to contain regional newspapers, National Home annual reports, and photographs. Despite the soldered lead seams, water had infiltrated the box and much of the contents were unsalvageable. To the delight of NCA historians who examined the container, however, seven members of the National Home’s engineering office had proudly autographed the box’s paper lining with their names and information about their military service. Most had served in Civil War regiments from Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York.
Also found within the monument were a green glass bottle with a rolled letter inside and the bowl of a smoking pipe. The National Cemetery Administration rededicated the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on September 15, 2010. Then-Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs Steve Muro used the ceremony to place a new time capsule under the capstone for future generations to uncover. This watertight container is an ammo box that NCA historians painted “VA blue” and filled with newspapers, challenge coins, brochures about VA and NCA, and letters from VA leadership.
By Sara Amy Leach
Senior Historian, National Cemetery Administration
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Object 86: The Roll of Honor
“The following pages are devoted to the memory of those heroes who have given up their lives upon the altar of their country, in defense of the American Union.”
So opened the preface to the first volume of the Roll of Honor, a compendium of over 300,000 Federal soldiers who died during the Civil War and were interred in national and other cemeteries. The genesis of this 27-volume collection published between 1865 and 1871 can be traced to Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs and the department he oversaw for a remarkable 21 years from 1861 to 1882.
History of VA in 100 Objects
Object 85: Congressman Claypool’s “$1 Per Day Pension” Ribbon
Founded in 1866 as fraternal organization for Union Veterans, the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) embraced a new mission in the 1880s: political activism. The GAR formed a pension committee in 1881 for the express purpose of lobbying Congress for more generous pension benefits.
An artifact from the political wrangling over pensions is now part of the permanent collection of the National VA History Center in Dayton, Ohio. The item is a small pension ribbon displaying the message: “I endorse the $1 per day pension as recommended by the Departments of Ohio and Indiana G.A.R.” The button attached to the ribbon features two American flags and the phrase “saved by the boys of ’61-65.” The back of the ribbon bears the signature of Horatio C. Claypool, a Democratic judge who ran for the seat in Ohio’s eleventh Congressional district in the 1910 mid-term elections.
History of VA in 100 Objects
Object 84: Gettysburg Address Tablet
President Abraham Lincoln is one of the most revered figures in American history. Rankings of U.S. presidents routinely place him at or near the top of the list. Lincoln is also held in high esteem at VA. His stirring call during his second inaugural address in 1865 to “care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan” embodies the nation’s promise to all who wear the uniform, a promise VA and its predecessor administrations have kept ever since the Civil War.
Ever since Lincoln first uttered those memorable words in November 1863, the Gettysburg Address has been linked to our national cemeteries. In 1908, Congress approved a plan to produce a standard Gettysburg Address tablet to be installed in all national cemeteries in time for the centennial of President Lincoln’s birth on February 12, 1909.
