Woman's Relief Corps

The GAR was a fraternal order of veterans that did not admit women, so women who had run local relief work formed the WRC at the GAR's request, with a national charter drawn at Denver in July 1883. It provided relief to Union veterans and their families, and its members led Memorial Day observances with children across the North.

Membership rested on loyalty to the Union cause, not on kinship to a soldier, so a WRC member was not necessarily a veteran's wife or daughter. Northern corps were mostly integrated, and there were also many all-Black corps.