Lead On Network supporter @DayAlMohamed is working to capture a lost piece of disability and veterans’ history. If you can, please donate and Share. I saw this on Facebook. I wouldn’t normally copy and paste, but this is such a fascinating story I had no idea about. Since it’s media stuff, it seems creativity-related.
The story:
It is July 1864 and Confederate General Jubal Early is at the gates of Washington DC. The city is in panic. Almost every able-bodied soldier from the Union has already been sent south with General Grant for the siege of Petersburg. The only defenders remaining are clerks, government officials, and the Invalid Corps.
Created in 1863, the Invalid Corps was made up of men who had been “disabled by wounds or by disease contracted in the line of duty” – men missing limbs, and eyes, those with rheumatism, epilepsy, bullet injuries, those with what we would now call PTSD, and many others. These men were derided as “hopeless cripples, shirkers, and cowards.” And now these “invalids” are all that stand between General Early’s 15,000 fighting men, and Washington City.
This is our history. A history of men with disabilities, of men with honor, and of men whose place in history shouldn’t be forgotten.
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