Carson City area Civil War veterans group honored by Army

The William Passmore Carlin Camp 25 of the Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War based in Reno received the U.S. Army Patriotic Civilian Service Award from Hawthorne Army Depot commander, Lt. Col. Gregory K. Gibbons.

The 20-member Carlin Camp 25 received the national recognition for exceptional patriotic civilian service in support of the Mineral County Museum’s dedication ceremony Aug. 9 at the Aurora Cemetery. The event commemorated the Aurora Veterans’ Monument and Nevada’s Sesquicentennial, and it included members wearing full dress uniforms of the Civil era and firing a civil War period mortar.

The Army citation also says, “Camp 25 demonstrated compassion and dedication in preserving the history and legacy of Aurora Union heroes who fought and worked to save the Union. Camp 25 also patriotically supported Mineral County’s Armed Forces Day held at Henry “Lefty” Mayer Field.

The Reno area SUVCW camp is named after Major General William Passmore Carlin, for whom the town of Carlin, Nev., is named. Membership is open to male descendants of Union veterans, with associate memberships available for those who either do not have, or have not yet identified a Union ancestor.

Membership applications and more information about the Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War are available at www.suvpac.org. The website for the local William Passmore Carlin Camp 25 is www.suvpac.org/camp25.html.

The national Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War organization oversees 28 departments, each consisting of one or more states, along with a department-at-large, national memberships and more than 200 community-based camps. The Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War is the successor organization of the Grand Army of the Republic that was limited to honorably discharged veterans of the Union Army, navy, marine Corps and Revenue Cutter service who served between April 12, 1861, and April 9, 1865. By 1890, the GAR membership numbered nearly 410,000 with about 8,000 posts throughout the country including 18 in Nevada. The final meeting of the GAR was held in Indiana in 1949, and the last member, Albert Woolson died in 1956 at the age of 109.

The last known Nevada GAR members was George Warren who died at age 93 in 1936 and is buried in Reno’s Hillside Cemetery off Angel Street. The last known Civil War veteran in Nevada was Union veteran William O. Phillips who died at age 95 in Reno in 1941.