Gone for Soldiers: The Grand Review of the Armies, Washington D.C. - May 23, 1865

On this day 153 years ago, 90,000 soldiers from the Army of the Potomac marched down Pennsylvania Avenue on the first of two days of military parades to celebrate the Union victory.*

[Mounted officers and unidentified units on Pennsylvania Avenue, May 1865. Source: Library of Congress]

And where was Dick Worden, my great great grandfather, at the time? Was he one of the marchers in Washington D.C.?

Alas, no.

After being invalided out shortly after Vicksburg in 1863, he had reenlisted early in the next year and went back to his old Company G of the 24th Iowa Infantry Regiment, then part of General Sheridan's Army of the Shenandoah in Virginia, which was in Georgia when the Grand Review took place.



*The men from General Sherman's Army of Georgia, 60,000 strong, traveled the same route the next day.
**Either Savannah or Augusta.


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