1897 Reunion at Buffalo
Edward Boots, President of the Civil War Plymouth Pilgrims Descendants Society, alerted me to the following news item from The National Tribune of September 2, 1897:
BUFFALO REUNIONS
....Grizzled old men embraced each other and shed tears at the Reunion of the12th N.Y. Cav. This organization was in some of the fiercest fights of the war. The members were recruited for service from the central part of the State, from Albany to Buffalo. About 75 survivors were present. Lieut. A. Cooper, of Rochester, was re-elected President, and E. T. Scott, Secretary. Capt. Meyers and Lieut. Banta were elected a Committee on Rules, and W. W. Pew and E. T. Scott a Committee on History. Lieut. Cooper regaled his old comrades with a story of a jug of five gallons of whiskey. He said he had it in his tent and supposed none of the boys knew of it. One day they induced him to go out on a raid. When he came back the whiskey was gone, and he could never find out who the guilty soldier was. The guilty man was at the Reunion, and he made himself known. An amusing scene followed. The old veterans crowded about and told him he was a "sly old coon," to keep mum all these years.