Manassas Peace Jubilee

They shook hands and patted backs, as well as agreed the war had been a "misunderstanding" before consuming picnic basket lunches on the grounds of the once-contested Henry Hill, then reassembled on the courthouse lawn to listen to the speeches, and even later swapped stories across campfires.

Although the Brooklyn chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) had asked President Taft not to appear if the Confederate battle flag were to be unfurled, he (and many others) refused to stop the commemoration of the current union.

[5] President Taft drove to the event in a newfangled steam-powered automobile despite several rain-swollen streams en route (which caused him to arrive several hours late, and which turned back several accompanying congressmen and members of the press).

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered a speech and lit the Eternal Light Peace Memorial, proclaiming the old men (many 90 years old and dressed in their old uniforms) "stand together under one flag now."

A monument commemorating the Manassas Peace Jubilee was erected on the Prince William County courthouse's lawn on September 30, 1915, including two cannons as well as two anchors and 3 fathoms of chain apiece donated by then assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy Franklin D.

[11] In 1951, a frieze was unveiled in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capital in Washington, D.C. which depicts Union and Confederate soldiers shaking hands, a theme of the Manassas Peace Jubilee, as well as many historic markers in other locales during the previous decades.