Grand Review: Pioneers

[paulcalloway]

We're all familiar with this Grand Review image - I really like these guys in front of the brass band.



http://i11.tinypic.com/2uzz0c9.gif


Closeups attached.

Link to the LOC image. (http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/I?cwar:9:./temp/~ammem_Q68G::displayType=1:m856sd=cwpb:m856sf=0280 5:@@@)

[brown]

Guess they wanted everyone to know who they were. Neat image. Two questions:
1) are the straps on the Pioneers a centeen and haversack? No leather gear b/c they have no weapons?
2) does anyone know what the parade route was? maybe what street that is and/or which face of the Capitol we are seeing.

Thanks for posting!
Lindsey

[clairemorris]

Great close-up Paul, thanks for putting it on the forum.

I wonder what the pioneer on the second line (behind the mounted men), fifth from the left has stuffed into his sack coat/haversack, you can see a large object sticking out?

Claire Morris
69th New York (UK)

[Wounded_Zouave]

Duplicate post... see below

[Wounded_Zouave]

Guess they wanted everyone to know who they were. Neat image. Two questions:
1) are the straps on the Pioneers a centeen and haversack? No leather gear b/c they have no weapons?
2) does anyone know what the parade route was? maybe what street that is and/or which face of the Capitol we are seeing.

Thanks for posting!
Lindsey

I can't answer your first question, but as for the second, that's Pennsylvania Avenue looking southeastly toward the Western face of the capital. The column is about to make a right turn onto 15th Street, go North a block before going left (West) on Pennsylvania Avenue again, passing in front of the White House and the Review Stand.

http://www.visitingdc.com/images/pennsylvania-avenue.jpg

Here is a neat post-war poem by Francis Bret Harte that describes a ghostly vision of the Grand Review. It reads in part:

And I saw a phantom army come,
With never a sound of fife or drum,
But keeping time to a throbbing hum
Of wailing and lamentation:
The martyred heroes of Malvern Hill,
Of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville,
The men whose wasted figures fill
The patriot graves of the nation.

Entire poem: http://www.civilwarpoetry.org/union/postwar/2ndreview.html