James R. Tanner

Tanner was born on a farm near Richmondville, New York, on April 4, 1844. He worked on the farm most of the year and was educated in the local public schools, graduating from high school at the age of 16. He took courses at a business school for a year, (The title "Corporal" stuck with him for the rest of his life as a nickname.) With the Union army in retreat, Tanner was left behind to be cared for by a local farmer's family. He was captured by Confederate forces. Paroled after 10 days, he spent several weeks recovering in Fairfax Seminary Hospital before being sent home to New York. He learned to walk with artificial limbs. For his service and injuries, he received a Civil War Pension. ==Civil wartime service==

Tanner won a position as deputy doorkeeper for the New York State Assembly, then worked in a variety of positions of increasing responsibility for the next few months. During this time, he learned stenography. In October 1864, Tanner won an appointment as a clerk and stenographer in the Ordnance Department in Washington, D.C. On April 14, 1865, he was summoned to the Petersen House where Abraham Lincoln lay dying from an assassin's bullet. During the night, Tanner took the testimony of eyewitnesses to the assassination, and he was present in the room when Lincoln died at 7:22 A.M. on April 15. ==Post-war career==

Tanner left the Ordnance Department in December 1865 and moved back to Richmondville, New York. He took a job as a clerk of a committee in the state legislature, and loosen rules so that veterans could more easily qualify for pensions led to an investigation by Secretary of the Interior John Willock Noble, Tanner's superior. President Harrison then requested his resignation. He resigned on September 12, 1889. Leaving government service a second time, Tanner opened a legal practice dedicated to helping veterans win pension claims against the federal government. From 1889 until 1904, Tanner was a private pension attorney engaged in prosecuting various claims against the government. In January 1894, his legs were amputated a second time in an attempt to reduce the extreme pain from which he suffered. President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Tanner to be Register of Wills for the District of Columbia in April 1904. He held the position until his death. ==Work with veterans' organizations and Red Cross==

Tanner became a member of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) shortly after it formed. The organization was a fraternal association for military veterans who had served in Union armies during the Civil War. His fame as a disabled veteran and witness to the Lincoln assassination made him popular among GAR members, and in 1876 they elected him Commander of the New York state organization. Many attempts had been made in the previous decade to create an old soldiers' home in the state, but none of these efforts bore any fruit. Tanner was determined to see one built by the state. He enlisted the help of the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, a noted abolitionist and firebrand preacher, and held an organizing meeting in Brooklyn which raised $13,000 ($). Tanner then criss-crossed the state numerous times, making speeches and holding rallies. Tanner's efforts were so successful that in 1879 the New York State Legislature appropriated money for a 600-bed Soldiers' Home in Bath, New York. Tanner was also a member of the Union Veteran Legion, and was elected national commander of that association as well. Tanner was also active in the American Red Cross. Clara Barton founded the organization in 1881 and led it for almost a quarter century. But by the early 1900s, Barton's leadership had devolved into a cult of personality and the organization's finances were in severe straits. Barton was forced out, and new leadership established a more professional and bureaucratic organization. Among those elected to the Red Cross' board of directors was James Tanner. Tanner worked assiduously to win a Congressional charter for the reorganized American Red Cross, which was granted in 1904. Tanner later served on the organization's central committee and its executive committee. ==Death==

named for him in May 2014. Tanner died a few minutes after 8:00 P.M. on October 2, 1927, in Washington, D.C. ==Legacy==

In May 2014, cemetery officials formally redesignated the Old Amphitheater as the James Tanner Amphitheater. Tanner is buried in Section 2, Grave 877, near the amphitheater. ==References==