Organization & Pre Civil War
Created as a social club in New York city in the fall of 1858, the Highland Guard or 79th New York It was created with the help of the St. Andrews and Caledonian Societies of New York and wealthy financial backers like Samual M. Elliot and James Cameron, the brother of the secretary of war. The organization had no actual connection to the 79th Cameron Highlanders of Scotland. Only in name and in tartan did they identify with the 79th of the British Army.
Their original duty was to parade, train as heavy artillery, and also provided a guard for the Prince of Wales when he visited the United States and did the same for the Japanese Ambassador.
The unit started as a Scottish American fraternity, the 79th without knowing it, set themselves up to take part in nearly every major engagement of the Civil War and become one of the most known and traveled regiments in the Union army.
Read more about this topic: 79th New York Volunteer Infantry
Famous quotes containing the words civil war, organization, civil and/or war:
“The utter helplessness of a conquered people is perhaps the most tragic feature of a civil war or any other sort of war.”
—Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835–1930)
“The organization controlling the material equipment of our everyday life is such that what in itself would enable us to construct it richly plunges us instead into a poverty of abundance, making alienation all the more intolerable as each convenience promises liberation and turns out to be only one more burden. We are condemned to slavery to the means of liberation.”
—Raoul Vaneigem (b. 1934)
“At Hayes’ General Store, west of the cemetery, hangs an old army rifle, used by a discouraged Civil War veteran to end his earthly troubles. The grocer took the rifle as payment ‘on account.’”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone
In the ranks of death you’ll find him,
His father’s sword he has girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him.”
—Thomas Moore (1779–1852)