Presidential Visits to the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers

On the morning of October 3, 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant arrived in Dayton, Ohio, on the overnight train from Chicago, Illinois. After meeting with Dayton Mayor J.D. Morrison, he took a horse-drawn carriage to visit Veterans at the Central Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers (NHDVS). Grant was met by the Veterans of the Home with “tumultuous enthusiasm which seemed to know no bounds” and delivered short remarks thanking them for their service.[1] Grant later hosted the NHDVS Board of Managers at the White House in December 1871 where he spoke warmly about the Dayton Central Branch’s management and his desire to visit other NHDVS sites, although it is unclear if he ever did.[2]

President Grant became the first post-Civil War President to visit a branch of the NHDVS, a group of homes established to care for wounded Civil War Veterans. The establishment of the NHDVS was originally signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln in March 1865, and the first NHDVS branch opened its doors in Togus, Maine, in 1866, followed by both the Central Branch in Dayton, Ohio, and the Northwestern Branch in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1867. More NHDVS sites opened in the following decades. These National Homes were often key stops for Presidents during their tours across the Nation, bringing out large crowds.

President Rutherford B. Hayes, also a Civil War Veteran, succeeded Grant in March 1877. In September of that year, Hayes returned to his native Ohio to dedicate the Soldiers Monument at the Central Branch in Dayton. Received at the National Home by a 21-gun salute, Hayes inspected the Veterans living at the Home, after which an estimated 15,000 people gathered to watch him unveil the Soldiers Monument. The event did not go exactly to plan; the cord Hayes pulled to remove the memorial’s canvas broke, resulting in a delay while a 40-foot ladder was retrieved to finally unveil the monument.[3] Yet, after the unveiling, Hayes gave a short speech memorializing the deceased comrades of the Civil War and noting that many Veterans in the crowd were “victims of that war,” missing limbs and abilities that “enable men to succeed in life.” In addition to the Central Branch, Hayes also visited Veterans at Milwaukee’s Northwestern Branch in 1878, where he shared stories about his service with the Union Army.

James Garfield, the third Union Civil War Veteran to become President, succeeded Hayes and took office in March 1881. Three months later, Garfield sailed to Hampton, Virginia, on the presidential yacht, the U.S.S. Despatch, to visit Veterans living at the Southern Branch of the National Home. Accompanied by the branch’s governor, P.T. Woodfin, Garfield inspected the Veterans of the Home before visiting the nearby national cemetery and attending church at Bethesda Chapel. He returned to Washington, D.C. later that day.[4] It’s not clear if Garfield visited other National Homes before his death later that year.

President Grover Cleveland visited the Milwaukee National Home as part of his Midwestern Goodwill Tour in October 1887.[5] Thousands of people lined Grand Avenue as Cleveland and his presidential party took a carriage from the Plankinton House hotel to the National Home. Veterans of the Home saluted Cleveland as he drove through the grounds, cannons firing in presidential salute.[6] In July 1888, near the end of his first term in office, Cleveland signed legislation establishing another NHDVS site in Marion, Indiana.[7] However, dealing with an economic depression and several significant labor strikes in his second term, there is no record of Cleveland visiting any other NHDVS sites.

President William McKinley, the last U.S. President to serve in the Civil War, made several visits to NHDVS branches during his presidency. McKinley visited Milwaukee’s Northwestern Branch on his Western Tour in October 1899. Milwaukee’s streets were filled with thousands of school children hoping to catch a glimpse of the President as he drove by. When McKinley arrived at the Northwestern Branch, a 21-gun presidential salute was fired by the First Light Battery of the Wisconsin National Guard. McKinley toured the grounds of the National Home and gave a short address to the resident Veterans.[8] In May 1901, McKinley also visited the Pacific Branch in Los Angeles, California. He arrived at the National Home by electric car and spoke as a comrade to the Veterans, saying that there “is no relation, except that of home and family, so close and intimate and sacred as that of comradeship in war.”[9]

After McKinley’s assassination in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt assumed the presidency. Roosevelt’s first visit to a National Home was in April 1903 when he traveled to the Northwestern Branch in Milwaukee. Greeted by Milwaukee Mayor David S. Rose, Roosevelt and his party were driven to the National Home where he inspected its 2,000 Veterans.[10] After his inspection, Roosevelt gave a reverential speech to the Veterans, lauding them as men “to whose lives we turn for lessons for every generation.”[11] Roosevelt also signed the bill establishing the Battle Mountain Sanitarium in Hot Springs, South Dakota, the only branch of the NHDVS built solely as a short-term sanitarium for Veterans with respiratory issues.[12]

President William H. Taft visited several branches of the National Home during his only term in office. Taft first visited Milwaukee’s Northwestern Branch on September 18, 1909. Taft only spent four hours in Milwaukee but still took the time to inspect and interact with the local Veterans.[13] Taft next visited the Pacific Branch in October 1909, taking a special trolley car to the Home. Greeted by 2,000 Veterans, Taft congratulated them on their good fortune to spend retirement in California and praised them for their courage and sacrifice.[14] His final NHDVS visit was to the Marion Branch in Marion, Indiana, on July 3, 1911. No presidential salute greeted Taft as he drove in to the Home’s grounds.[15] Instead, Taft came bearing a message of peace, urging those who had “seen the horrors of war” to avoid its evils whenever possible.[16]

The last official visit a President made to an NHDVS site was President Calvin Coolidge in August 1927. Enjoying a summer break in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Coolidge visited the Battle Mountain Sanitarium. Strolling through the sanitarium’s wards with his family, Coolidge met with Herzon G. Day, a Civil War Veteran from Coolidge’s hometown of Plymouth, Vermont. Day actually knew Coolidge’s father and grandfather, and the two men reminisced about their boyhoods in Plymouth for about 30 minutes. Before leaving the sanitarium, World War I Veterans recovering from shell shock gifted Coolidge handmade fishing reels. Coolidge enjoyed his visit so much that he overstayed the scheduled time, delaying his train back to his residence in the Black Hills.[17]

While not all Presidents made in-person trips the Homes, some found other ways to support the NHDVS mission. Other Civil War Veteran Presidents like Chester A. Arthur and Benjamin Harrison, served as ex officio members of the NHDVS Board of Managers. Harrison also signed the Dependent Pensions Bill, granting a pension to any Union Veteran with a disability if he had served at least 90 days. Presidents Warren G. Harding and Herbert Hoover spoke outside NHDVS branches as candidates and, as President, Hoover signed Executive Order 5398, which combined NHDVS, the Veterans Bureau, and the Bureau of Pensions into the Veterans Administration. These presidential visits and actions underscore the respect and special relationship between America and its Veterans.

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[1] Cincinnati Enquirer, October 4, 1871.

[2] New York Times, December 12, 1871.

[3] Chicago Tribune, September 13, 1877.

[4] Daily Village Record (Westchester, Pennsylvania), June 6, 1881.

[5] John H. White, Jr., “President Grover Cleveland’s Goodwill Tour of 1887,” White House Historical Association, October 1, 2010.

[6] Oshkosh Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin), October 7, 1887.

[7] Chronicle Tribune (Marion, Indiana), July 23, 1888.

[8] Oshkosh Northwestern, October 17, 1899.

[9] Evening Mail (Stockton, California, May 10, 1901).

[10] Bismarck Tribune (Bismarck, North Dakota), April 4, 1903.

[11] Theodore Roosevelt, “Remarks at the Milwaukee National Soldiers’ Home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,” April 3, 1903.

[12] National Park Service, “Battle Mountain Sanitarium: Hot Springs, South Dakota,” https://www.nps.gov/places/battle-mountain-sanitarium-hot-springs-south-dakota.htm.

[13] Wausau Pilot, “Taft’s Tour,” September 12, 1909.

[14] Fresno Morning Republican, “Taft Addresses War Veterans,” October 13, 1909.

[15] George W. Stout, “Entire City Greets Taft,” Indianapolis Star, July 4, 1911.

[16] William H. Taft, “Address Delivered by Hon. William H. Taft, President of the United States, At the Marion (Ind.) Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers on July 3, 1911.”

[17] Cincinnati Enquirer, August 19, 1927.