The Invalid Corps, which was the forerunner of the Veteran
Reserve Corps, was organized under authority of General Order
No. 105, War Department, dated April 28, 1863.
A similar corps had existed in Revolutionary times as is shown
by a Resolve of the Massachusetts House of Representatives,
adopted June 4, 1781, and concurred in by the Senate, July 6,
1781, providing that there be furnished to Captain Moses
McFarland, commanding the Invalids doing duty in and about
Boston, 146 pairs of overalls, 146 hunting frocks, 146 hats,
146 knapsacks, and 146 pairs of stockings, and that the same be
charged to the United States.
The Invalid Corps of the Civil War period was created to make
suitable use in a military or semi-military capacity of
soldiers who had been rendered unfit for active field service
on account of wounds or disease contracted in line of duty, but
who were still fit for garrison or other light duty, and were,
in the opinion of their commanding officers, meritorious and
deserving.
Those serving in the Invalid Corps were divided into two
classes: Class 1, partially disabled soldiers whose periods of
service had not yet expired, and who were transferred directly
to the Corps there to complete their terms of enlistment; Class
2, soldiers who had been discharged from the service on account
of wounds, disease, or other disabilities, but who were yet
able to perform light military duty and desired to do so. Such
men were allowed, under General Order No. 105 above referred
to, to enlist in the Invalid Corps. As the war went on it
proved that the additions to the Corps hardly equaled the
losses by discharge or otherwise, so it was finally ordered
that men who had had two years of honorable service in the Army
or Marine Corps might enlist in the Invalid Corps without
regard to disability.
By General Order No. 111, dated March 18, 1864, the title
Veteran Reserve Corps was substituted for that of Invalid
Corps, and this title is used in almost every case in the
present work, whether the reference is to transfers and
enlistments prior to March 18, 1864, or to those made subsequent
to that date.
The men serving in the Veteran Reserve Corps were organized
into two battalions, the First Battalion including those whose
disabilities were comparatively slight and who were still able
to handle a musket and do some marching, also to perform guard
or provost duty; the Second Battalion being made up of men
whose disabilities were more serious, who had perhaps lost
limbs or suffered some other grave injury. These latter were
commonly employed as cooks, orderlies, nurses, or guards in
public buildings. There were from first to last from two to
three times as many men in the First Battalion as in the
Second, and the soldiers in the First Battalion performed a
wide variety of duties. They furnished guards for the
Confederate prison camps at Johnson's Island, Ohio, Elmira, N.
Y., Point Lookout, Md., and elsewhere. They furnished details
to the provost marshals to arrest bounty jumpers and to enforce
the draft. They escorted substitutes, recruits, and prisoners
to and from the front. They guarded railroads, did patrol duty
in Washington City, and even manned the defenses of the city
during Early's raid in July, 1864.
An excellent sketch of the history of the Veteran Reserve Corps
may be found in Volume V, Series III, of the Official Records
of the Union and Confederate Armies, pages 543 to 568.
There were first and last twenty-four regiments in the Corps.
In the beginning each regiment was made up of six companies of
the First Battalion and four of the Second Battalion, but in
the latter part of the war this method of organization was not
strictly adhered to. The 18th Regiment, for example, which
rendered exceptionally good service at Belle Plain, Port Royal,
and White House Landing, Va., in the spring and early summer of
1864, and in or near Washington City in the latter part of the
summer and through the fall of that year, was made up of only
six Second Battalion companies.