A Very Large Petition

Today was one of those days where almost everything seemed to go right.
Negatives: it rained, and they pulled two soldiers instead of my nurses--apparently they had the same file numbers...
Positives: My people in legislation came through for me again.  Apparently, while pulling my nurses' files, he found two boxes on the Army Nurses Pension Act.  What was in them, you ask?
Something that made me grin like a maniac when I opened up the folder.
Petitions.  Hundreds of individual petitions sent out by the WRC to all its Corps to be signed, returned, and sent to Congress to demonstrate just how many people supported the Army Nurses Pension Act.  The names are those of WRC members, GAR members, and "friends of the soldiers."  So far, the vast majority of petitions are from Massachusetts, which, as a native, makes me extremely happy.  There was even one from the West Acton WRC Corps--West Acton is essentially Boxborough, my hometown.  There are also petitions from New Hampshire, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Kansas-there's a second box I haven't even touched so the list will grow.  I found a reference to the petition in a letter written by a WRC officer: there are over 160,000 signatures on the petition. 160,000!  Put this together with the 100,000 members of the WRC...I'm just going to let Sarah Fuller tell you.  She's the genius that put all this together, anyway.

"Our petition, 31,000 feet long, had the bonna fide signatures of 160,000 men and women of the different States, and the W.R.C. now numbers about 100,000 members, this with the endorsement of the National Pension Committee of the G.A.R. authorizing us to speak for the 500,000 comrades, gave us a backing of nearly 800,000 people.  Will our legislators disregard that force?"

Now, here's the thing.  Several other letters I've found suggest that the G.A.R. withdrew its support at one point because the WRC was asking for $25 pensions, and the G.A.R. supported $12 pensions.  The G.A.R was also rather hesitant to push for a pension for Mary Bickerdyke several years earier.  So, what exactly is the role of the G.A.R in getting this act passed, and why do they seem so hesitant at times to give it their support?