Veteran Reserve Corps

[2] The Invalid Corps of the Civil War period was created to make suitable use in a military or semi-military capacity of soldiers who had been rendered unfit for active field service on account of wounds or disease contracted in line of duty, but who were still fit for garrison or other light duty, and were, in the opinion of their commanding officers, meritorious and deserving.

[4] The soldiers shown in the rosters of the 15th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment (where they originally enlisted) and who then transferred to the V. R. C. belong to Class 1.

[10] The uniform was trimmed in dark blue, with chevrons of rank and the background of officer's shoulder insignia having that color as a backing.

Standard forage caps were to be decorated with the brass infantry horn, regimental number, and company letter.

They furnished guards for the Union prison camps at Johnson's Island, Ohio, Elmira, New York, Point Lookout, Maryland, and elsewhere.

They guarded railroads, did patrol duty in Washington DC, and even manned the defenses of the city during Jubal Early's raid against Fort Stevens in July 1864.

[7] Several thousand also served in a Confederate counterpart, the Southern Invalid Corps, although it was never officially organized into actual battalions.

[7] Four members from Company F of the Fourteenth Veteran Reserves conducted the execution of the four conspirators linked to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on July 7, 1865, at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C.

They knocked out the post that released the platform that hanged Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt.