This bas-relief portrait of Dr. Benjamin Franklin Stephenson, M.D., 1823–1871, (by John Massey Rhind) hangs on the front, south side, of the Grand Army of the Republic monument in Indiana Plaza a small park in Washington, DC. Dr. Benjamin Franklin Stephenson founded the Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternal organization of Union veterans, on April 6, 1866 in Decatur Illinois. It grew to be the largest and most influential post civil war veterans organization. Stephenson had been surgeon of the14th Illinois Infantry during the Civil War.
Organized at Decatur Illinois, April 6, 1866.
By Benjamin Franklin Stephenson M.D.
Fraternity
Stephenson chose “Fraternity, Charity and Loyalty” as the motto of the GAR and those elements are represented on the Monument.
This striking 1884 depiction of Dr. Stephenson in full GAR regalia features the GAR Medal that also appears on the monument. (LOC)
Grand Army of the Republic
1861 Veteran 1866
The Brooklyn Public Library has this drawing of Dr. Stephenson, though as they say, “There is no known connection between Dr. Stephenson and Brooklyn, New York.”
It closely resembles this c1888 photo in the Library of Congress.
He appears considerably older in this photo published in the Washington Star in 1944, accompanying an article in which John Clagett Proctor identifies then 97 year old John Montgomery Kline as the last surviving member of the GAR's Department of the Potomac. The GAR officially dissolved on August 2, 1956 with the death of Albert Woolson the last member of the GAR.
Confederate Veteran Magazine remarked in 1909 that “The monument to Dr. Stephenson in Washington, D. C., is very handsome.” and noted that “While Dr. Stephenson was an ardent Union man, he never forgot right regard for the people of his ancestral Southland”.
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