Today marks the one-hundredth anniversary of the end of the Great War, when hostilities ceased on the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918. This anniversary is now commemorated in the United States as Veteran’s Day, a time to honor American veterans, both living and dead. The day was originally known–and still is to many–as Armistice Day, for reflecting on how we can achieve peace.

Among the scores of “special days” at the World’s Columbian Exposition during the summer of 1893 was a series of days intended to honor veterans. These “Veterans Days” were originally planned for August 20-24.

The June 21, 1893, issue of the Chicago Inter-Ocean (“Fete Days are Popular”) described this plan for Veterans Days:

“… it is proposed to have a reunion of all the old soldiers of this country, irrespective of the wars they engaged in or the causes they espoused. Veterans of the Mexican war and the wearer of the blue will mingle with those who fought to dissolve the Union. The plan is to have speeches by prominent veterans from all over the country.”

Such a unified event had been in the works since the earliest month of planning for the Fair, as reported in the September 1891 issue of The Illustrated World’s Fair, which reprinted this news story from the Seward (Nebraska) Reporter:

“The proposition to hold a reunion at the coming World’s Fair of those who wore the blue and the gray has been very generally endorsed both by members of the Grand Army and by Camps of Confederate Veterans. There have been several reunions on a small scale, but that which is now proposed would be invested with a larger significance. It would tie a culmination of a long-cherished desire for complete peace and unity, demonstrating to the nation that with us there is hut one flag and one country.”

Perhaps such a collegial commingling of the blue and the grey was idealistic. Union veterans commemorated their own “Grand Army of the Republic Day” on Saturday, September 9, while the general Veteran’s Days were moved to September 11-14. On September 12, the Chicago Daily Tribune reported that:

“Veterans day at Jackson Park yesterday was celebrated informally. A number of old soldiers wearing their badges visited the grounds. There was no parade.”

The “Grand Army of the Republic Day” held at the World’s Columbian Exposition on September 9, 1893, included a parade of Union veterans and bands marching around the fairgrounds. In contrast, no parades were held for Veterans Day two days later. [Image from The Vanishing City: A Photographic Encyclopedia of the World’s Columbian Exposition. Laird & Lee, 1893.]