This dissertation explores the efforts of northern soldiers’ relief organizations in bringing Union veterans home and aiding them during and after the Civil War. Part One focuses on the wartime work of the United States Sanitary Commission’s Special Relief Department in Washington, which dealt with a humanitarian crisis caused by neglect on the part of the U.S. Army as the city became choked with wounded, ill, or destitute discharged soldiers unable to get home. Employing antebellum missionary tactics, its workers relieved suffering where found but also forged vital and innovative bureaucratic mechanisms to move men homeward. By 1864, the Special Relief Department stood poised to spearhead a national system of soldiers’ homes. The Sanitary Commission leadership backed away from this challenge not out of a simple faith in American self-sufficiency, as they professed, or indifference, as many scholars suggest, but because they were daunted by mounting evidence of widespread poverty among soldiers and a societal problem beyond their reach. The withdrawal of the Sanitary Commission did not leave a vacuum as sometimes claimed. Part Two examines relief efforts in the Boston area. Previous scholarship has asserted that northern civilians turned their backs on suffering endured by discharged soldiers. On the contrary, a decentralized yet complex and multilayered network of private charities and state and local government programs saved lives and mitigated suffering. Some groups of veterans were indeed marginalized, due not to civilian antipathy towards veterans but to long-standing prejudices on the part of veterans and civilians alike against foreigners and the poor that were exacerbated by the Panic of 1873. As the Grand Army of the Republic joined the decentralized aid system, they cultivated the image of the noble discharged soldier to garner respect. Consequently, they played a major role in cementing the concept of the “unworthy” veteran in the public mind, stripping destitute veterans of the aura of the “discharged soldier.” Diverse methodologies sparked debate between aid workers who based their efforts on emerging social science and those religion-based antebellum models. This project explores this complex discourse and the varied strategies employed to assist the discharged soldier.

This thesis argues that the different reactions of the population and rival elites to executive attempts to extend term limits in Rwanda and Burundi reflect the different ways civil wars ended in these two countries. In Rwanda, a military victory resulted in institutions that placed less constraint on the ruling party, while in Burundi, a negotiated settlement placed comparatively greater constraints on the ruling party. As a result, the major party in Rwanda was more powerful than the major power in Burundi, and thus more capable to co-opt or coerce the opposition. This paper uses a most-similar case design to test the hypothesis that civil wars that end in negotiated settlements are more likely to become unstable than a civil war that ends in a military victory when executives attempt to extend their term limits and finds that the civil war outcome was instrumental in explaining the divergent reactions in both countries. This paper has important implications for those interested in post-conflict situations and executive term-limit extensions.

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