(Photo courtesy of the Marietta College) Legacy Library, Slack Research Collection Members of Marietta Juvenile Drum Corps on the Washington County Courthouse steps.

Thousands of veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic descended on Marietta in May of 1903 to reflect on their service and honor those who had died in the Civil War.

Decades after the north and the south reunited, veterans of the conflict were still gathering from time to time to “recall the scenes of bygone years recalled by reminiscences told around the campfire,” as a headline in The Marietta Times read.

The men also visited locations throughout the city, including several cemeteries where they honored “heroes whom they knew in life and cherished in memory.

“Many a tear was shed over the last resting place of comrades who have been called to the great beyond.” The Times reported.

The group also formed “possibly the largest number of old soldiers ever in one line in Marietta,” when they paraded through the city.

(Photo courtesy of the Marietta College) Legacy Library, Slack Research Collection Major W.G. Jewell

Some 3,000 veterans marched from Greene Street, up Fourth to Washington Street, down Washington to Front and then Front Street back to Greene.

The route was too much for some of the aging soldiers who were picked up along the way by carriages.

Some members of one of the units in the parade were likely young enough to be great-grandchildren of some of the men marching.

The Marietta Juvenile Drum Corps, under the direction of Major William G. Jewell, led the second division of the parade with the best 72 young drummers in the city.

The group had been practicing for weeks, marching up and down streets, even practicing the parade route wearing a uniform with a blue jacket and pants with a white strip down the side.

The group was well led by Major Jewell who had joined the Union Army in 1861 when he was just 15. Enlisting as a musician, he served for three years and took part in nine engagements in the war.

By the end of the war, he had been promoted to drum major. Jewell planned on keeping the drum group together after the encampment.

Two years later Jewell was a passenger in a car traveling down Fourth Street near Butler.

The driver of the car, Cecil Gardner, thought he could beat a train that was about to cross the street.

He could not.

Jewell jumped from the car, got tangled in the cow catcher of the train engine and died when the train ran over him. I will spare you the horrid details of the accident.

Nearly all the drum corps members joined into the processional that escorted the body from his Fifth Street home to the First M.E. Church and finally to Oak Grove Cemetery. “Major Jewell’s death seems to have made a profound impression on the people of Marietta,” said The Times.

It most certainly would have on the young drummers who march with their teacher for the last time up the hill to his final resting place.

Art Smith is online manager of The Times and Parkersburg News and Sentinel.

He can be reached at asmith@mariettatimes.com