WAR MEMORIES 
 OF A CHAPLAIN 
 
 TR UMBULL 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
-1 
 
 ("JO 
 
WAR MEMORIES 
 OF AN ARMY CHAPLAIN 
 
, 
 
WAR MEMORIES 
 OF AN ARMY CHAPLAIN 
 
 BY H. CLAY TRUMBULL 
 
 Formerly Chaplain of the Tenth Regiment of Connecticut Volunteers, 
 later Chaplain of the Society of the Army of the James, Chaplain of 
 the Department of Connecticut of the Grand Army of the Repub 
 lic, Chaplain of the Massachusetts Commandery and of the 
 Pennsylvania Commandery of the Military Order of the 
 Loyal Legion of the United States, and Chaplain-in- 
 Chief of the Commandery-in-Chief of the Military 
 Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 NEW , 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 1898 
 
Copyright, 1898, 
 
 H. CLAY TRUMBULL. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Many books about the American Civil War have 
 been written to show the movements of the armies 
 and the characteristics of personal commanders. 
 Little, however, has been written to show the 
 thoughts and feelings of the soldier in active army 
 service. The standpoint of a regimental chaplain 
 gives him the opportunity to speak on this subject 
 with peculiar acquaintance and sympathy. 
 
 Archbishop Ireland of St. Paul, who was chap 
 lain of the Fifth Minnesota Regiment in that war, 
 writing on this subject to the author of this vol 
 ume, says : " The point that you intend treating 
 is new, and will reveal the real spirit of our armies 
 more than descriptions of battles and military move 
 ments. As I know, a chaplain can write much 
 better than any one else about the inner spirit of 
 armies." 
 
 Missiles of destruction, means of defense, and 
 modes of warfare, change from generation to gen 
 eration ; but emotions of the heart and influences 
 that affect these in times of peril and of privation, 
 of joy and of sorrow, of hope and of fear, are ever 
 the same, while the human heart is human, and the 
 sources of strength and of weakness are as they are. 
 
 v 
 
 220890 
 
vi Preface 
 
 In the belief that there are lessons out of the sol 
 dier experiences and emotions of a former genera 
 tion for those who are called to soldier service in 
 the present day, these pages are submitted by one 
 whose memories of army chaplain service will be 
 fresh and vivid while life remains. 
 
 This entire work, including the foregoing Preface, 
 was written and in type before the actual begin 
 ning of our speedily ended war with Spain, but 
 the Publishers deemed it inexpedient to issue the 
 volume at that season of the year. This explana 
 tion will account for the absence of any mention of 
 corroborative incidents out of that war. Chapters 
 of old-time experiences like these have, however, a 
 value apart from the question of their timeliness. 
 Their fitness is for days of war or of peace our 
 days or the days of others. 
 
 H. C. T. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 September, 1898. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 i 
 
 PLACE AND WORK OF A REGIMENTAL CHAPLAIN . i 
 
 II 
 ARMY CHAPELS AND RELIGIOUS SERVICES . . 15 
 
 III 
 DISCLOSURES OF THE SOLDIER HEART ... 39 
 
 IV 
 A CHAPLAIN s SERMONS ..... 65 
 
 V 
 
 A CHAPLAIN s PASTORAL WORK . , . .105 
 
 VI 
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE HOME MAIL . . 133 
 
 VII 
 DEVOTION TO THE FLAG 153 
 
 VIII 
 
 DESERTERS AND DESERTIONS . , , . 177 
 
 vii 
 
viii Contents 
 
 IX 
 SOLDIER GRAVES AND SOLDIER BURIALS . . 203 
 
 X 
 
 UNDER A FLAG OF TRUCE . . . . 233 
 
 XI 
 PRISON EXPERIENCES . . -253 
 
 XII 
 GLIMPSES OF GENERAL GRANT .... 305 
 
 XIII 
 
 LlNKINGS WITH THE NAVY .... * 335 
 
 XIV 
 
 SEEING SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION . , 367 
 
 INDEX 413 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Selected and arranged under the supervision of Mr. William Martin Johnson. 
 
 Army Chapel before Richmond . . Frontispiece 
 
 colors and our Connecticut state ensig 
 pulpit when the chaplain conducted ser 
 
 From ferrotype taken at the time. 
 
 Our national colors and our Connecticut state ensign were stacked 
 behind the pulpit when the chaplain conducted service at it." 
 
 OpposUt page 
 
 Evening Service on Deck of Cahawba ... 24 
 
 " In the evening I led a prayer-meeting on the crowded deck." 
 By I. W. Taber. 
 
 Man Overboard in Port Royal Harbor ... 42 
 
 " Stop that steamer 1 shouted our colonel. You ve lost a man 1 " 
 By Carlton T. Chapman. 
 
 Service in Woods on New Market Road ... 90 
 
 " In the drizzling rain of a wintry Sunday morning." 
 By Gilbert Gaul. 
 
 In the Yankee Hospital, Charleston . . .128 
 
 " As I rose from my knees I saw that we were not alone." 
 By Alice Barber Stephens. 
 
 Distribution of Home Mail in Libby Prison . . 144 
 
 " With outreached hand, as though he would clutch the letter instantly, 
 he called aloud, Here ! here ! here 1 " 
 
 By I. W. Taber 
 
 Carrying Colors aboard Transport at St. Augustine . 160 
 
 d reverent mien, as the 
 th of the extended pier t 
 
 By R. F. Zogbaum. 
 
 "With bared heads and reverent mien, as the colors and the guard 
 moved down the length of the extended pier to the waiting vessel. " 
 
 IX 
 
List of Illustrations 
 
 Opposite fage 
 
 Execution of Deserter at Deep Bottom . . .182 
 
 " The firing party took position in front of him a dozen paces distant." 
 By Gilbert Gaul. 
 
 Burials at Fort Wagner 210 
 
 on soldiers were dead on 
 , and in the ditch before 
 
 By A. C. Redwood. 
 
 " Hundreds of Union soldiers were dead on the parapet of the 
 fort, and in the ditch before it." 
 
 Flag of Truce on Kinston Road .... 244 
 
 " 1 put myself under the Confederate cavalry escort." 
 By Gilbert Gaul. 
 
 Morning Scene at Columbia Jail .... 278 
 
 " Some of us would arrest his attention while she passed over the paper." 
 By R. F. Zogbaum. 
 
 General Grant on New Market Road . . . 308 
 
 " There s only one man in this army who wears three stars. " 
 By T. de Thulstrup. 
 
 Bombardment of Fort Sumter 364 
 
 " A huge shot from the fort struck the iron pilot-house in which he stood." 
 By R. F. Zogbaum. 
 
 Colored Servants Studying at Night .... 382 
 
 " These boys were poring over their treasured books." 
 By C. D. \Veldon. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 PLACE AND WORK OF A REGIMENTAL CHAPLAIN 
 
 When our Civil War broke out, in 1861, but 
 little was known about regimental chaplains. Our 
 regular army was hardly more than a skeleton 
 organization. A regiment was rarely all in one 
 place. Small battalions were doing garrison duty, 
 or were on outpost service. There were post 
 chaplains at various stations where military needs 
 required the gathering of soldiers, but a regi 
 mental chaplain was so little called for that his 
 position and duties were hardly known. 
 
 The standard military dictionary of that time de 
 fined " a chaplain " as " a commissioned officer or 
 clergyman who performs divine service." Accord 
 ing to army regulations a chaplain was entitled to 
 the pay and rations of a captain of cavalry ; but 
 that provision did not indicate his rank, his sphere, 
 or his duties. The only specific utterance on this 
 point in the Articles of War was, that a chaplain 
 could be courtmartialed " like any other officer," 
 in case of a misdemeanor. 
 
 With the formation of the great volunteer army 
 of the United States, the regimental chaplaincy 
 
^i : War- Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 sprang into prominence. In the lack of specific 
 regulations as to the rank, uniform, and duties of a 
 chaplain, great variety in these particulars naturally 
 showed itself. Many new chaplains adopted the 
 ordinary uniform of a captain of cavalry, with the 
 shoulder-straps, sash, and sword included. In a 
 number of instances the position was given to an 
 irreligious layman, as a mere matter of favor to a 
 friend of the regimental commander. Soon, how 
 ever, Congressional enactments measurably righted 
 these incongruities. It was required that a chap 
 lain be a duly authorized clergyman of a religious 
 denomination ; that his rank should be that of 
 " chaplain, without command ; " and that he should 
 be borne on the field and staff rolls next after the 
 surgeon, who ranked as a major. 
 
 It was still, however, an open question as to what 
 precise service a regimental chaplain could perform 
 to best advantage, and who was best fitted for that 
 service. There were many applicants for this posi 
 tion who were duly authorized clergymen, yet who 
 were not in demand in parishes where they were 
 familiarly known, and who did not make good 
 chaplains when appointed. There were others who 
 were well fitted for excellent work in pulpit and 
 parish at home, who were poorly fitted by their 
 experience and training for the peculiar demands 
 of army life in camp and campaigning. Yet others 
 were eminently adapted, or quickly adapted them 
 selves, to the new state of things which the army 
 
Place and Work of a Chaplain 3 
 
 life opened up during our Civil War, and they 
 became representative regimental chaplains. There 
 was a place and a work for these men, and they 
 found and filled it. 
 
 The position of a regimental chaplain was unique. 
 He was a commissioned officer, yet without com 
 mand. No question of relative rank brought him 
 into rivalry with any other officer. He could be 
 welcomed alike by a major-general or by a second 
 lieutenant without the fear of any seeming incon 
 gruity of association, if only he had the power of 
 making himself personally or socially agreeable or 
 useful. Yet he could be among the enlisted men 
 as one entirely with them in sympathy, without any 
 thought on the part of either that he was stepping 
 out of his sphere or crossing the line which divided 
 commissioned officers as a class from enlisted men 
 as a class. 
 
 In this a chaplain had a position utterly unlike 
 any other person in the army ; and it was his own 
 fault if he did not avail himself of it, and improve 
 its advantages. Any other commissioned officer 
 in the army was shut off from being entirely free 
 with an officer of a higher or of a lower rank than 
 his own; and the line that separated officers and 
 enlisted men in the army was so positive and real 
 as to admit of little communication between them 
 except in positive duty. Hence an officer of any 
 grade was glad to meet in his army life one person 
 to whom he could speak with entire freedom, if his 
 
4 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 chaplain had the qualities and experience to fit him 
 for such fellowship. And the enlisted men could 
 have no such communication with the supposed 
 upper world of officerdom as was secured to them 
 by a sympathetic and tactful chaplain. 
 
 Our soldiers commissioned officers and en 
 listed men were as a class reverent. Men who 
 took their lives in their hands, and who faced death 
 in their ordinary work, were glad to have one who 
 in any sense stood as God s representative, pray in 
 their behalf and invoke God s blessing on them. 
 Sick, wounded, or dying, soldiers welcomed the 
 loving ministry of a chaplain. Soldiers were glad 
 when words of prayer, and other timely services, 
 were spoken above the grave of a dead comrade. 
 
 Every soldier was human, and because he was 
 human he welcomed human sympathy. Away from 
 home and friends, he was glad to have a chaplain 
 show an interest in him and his dear ones, and to 
 invite his confidence concerning matters that most 
 deeply affected himself personally. If the chaplain 
 came to his tent, the soldier loved to show him his 
 home photographs, and to tell him of his latest 
 home letters. 
 
 Preaching to soldiers, in camp and garrison and 
 field, was a phase of the chaplain s duties and ser 
 vice that enabled him to get a hold upon the man s 
 respect and sympathies ; and the pastoral work 
 among the men at all times, in their tents, and as 
 they marched and rested, was a yet more potent 
 
Place and Work of a Chaplain 5 
 
 means of a chaplain s power over their hearts for 
 good. The more he did for them wisely, the more 
 he could do, and the more they loved and trusted 
 him accordingly. 
 
 There were times when the very presence of the 
 chaplain with his regiment on the eve of battle, or 
 while already under fire, was inspiriting to officers 
 and men, who were encouraged to feel that they 
 had God s blessing while one of God s representa 
 tives was immediately with them. Said a brave 
 but rough officer in a New England regiment, with 
 reference to this influence over the soldiers as 
 soldiers, " We count our chaplain as good as a 
 hundred men in a fight." That particular officer 
 seemed, in his conduct, to care little for the chap 
 lain as a public teacher of morals, or as setting a 
 Christian example, but he did value his inspiring 
 power over the men in the discharge of their duty 
 as brave and faithful soldiers. 
 
 A notable illustration of the opportunity and 
 power of a good regimental chaplain in the face of 
 the enemy is furnished in the memorable service 
 of Chaplain William Corby, of the Eighty-eighth 
 New York Regiment, during the battle of Gettys 
 burg. It was toward the close of the first day of 
 that crisis conflict, while the Third Corps was being 
 driven back, and the roar of battle was sounding 
 on every side, that General Hancock called on 
 General Caldwell to have his division ready to 
 move into action. The Irish Brigade, under Gene- 
 
War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 ral Thomas Meagher, stood in column of regiments, 
 closed in mass, awaiting the order to move forward. 
 It was in that testing moment, of which the bravest 
 soldier feels the oppressive solemnity, that Chap 
 lain Corby proposed to give absolution to all the 
 men before going into the fight. Most of the men 
 in that brigade were Catholics, and those who were 
 not were glad to share reverently in the benefits of 
 the service. General St. Clair Mulholland, then a 
 colonel in that brigade, has told of that service, and 
 Father Corby, just before his death, in 1897, at 
 tested the accuracy of this narrative. 
 
 " Father Corby stood on a large rock in front of 
 the brigade. Addressing the men, he explained 
 what he was about to do, saying that each one 
 could receive the benefit of the absolution by 
 making a sincere Act of Contrition and firmly re 
 solving to embrace the first opportunity of confess 
 ing his sins, urging them to do their duty, and 
 reminding them of the high and sacred nature of 
 their trust as soldiers, and the noble object for 
 which they fought. . . The brigade was standing 
 at ( Order arms ! As he closed his address, every 
 man, Catholic and non-Catholic, fell on his knees, 
 with his head bowed down. Then, stretching his 
 right hand toward the brigade, Father Corby pro 
 nounced the words of the absolution : 
 
 " Dominus noster Jesus Christus vos absolvat, 
 et ego, auctoritate ipsius, vos absolvo ab omni vin- 
 culo, excommunicationis interdicti, in quantum 
 
Place and Work of a Chaplain 7 
 
 possum et vos indigetis deinde ego absolve vos, a 
 peccatis vestris, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus 
 Sancti, Amen. 
 
 " The scene was more than impressive it was 
 awe-inspiring. Near by stood a brilliant throng of 
 officers who had gathered to witness this very 
 unusual occurrence, and while there was profound 
 silence in the ranks of the Second Corps, yet over 
 to the left, out by the peach orchard and Little 
 Round Top, where Weed and Vincent and Hazlitt 
 were dying, the roar of the battle rose and swelled 
 and re-echoed through the woods, making music 
 more sublime than ever sounded through cathedral 
 aisle. The act seemed to be in harmony with the 
 surroundings. I do not think there was a man in 
 the brigade who did not offer up a heartfelt prayer. 
 For some it was their last ; they knelt there in their 
 grave-clothes. In less than half an hour many of 
 them were numbered with the dead of July 2. 
 Who can doubt that their prayers were good ? 
 What was wanting in the eloquence of the priest 
 to move them to repentance was supplied in the 
 incidents of the fight. That heart would be incor 
 rigible indeed that the scream of a Whitworth bolt, 
 added to Father Corby s touching appeal, would 
 not move to contrition." 
 
 Father Corby said of this scene : 
 
 " In performing this ceremony I faced the army. 
 My eye covered thousands of officers and men. I 
 noticed that all, Catholic and non-Catholic, officers, 
 
8 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 and private soldiers, showed a profound respect, 
 wishing at this fatal crisis to receive every benefit 
 of divine grace that could be imparted through the 
 instrumentality of the Church ministry. Even 
 Major-General Hancock removed his hat, and, as 
 far as compatible with the situation, bowed in 
 reverential devotion." 
 
 Who can doubt that the men of that brigade 
 fought the better in that battle for their chaplain s 
 presence and service of then ? 
 
 Inevitably, courage was the standard in active 
 army service. Every soldier must be ready to 
 meet danger or death, and, if he failed in that 
 supreme test of a soldier in time of war, he was 
 every way a failure. A chaplain had a duty to in 
 spire men for their service for their country. If he 
 was himself a coward, or seemed unready to face a 
 soldier s perils, no words from him could have 
 weight with his men. His influence for good was 
 destroyed among them. If, on the other hand, their 
 chaplain shared their dangers bravely, his men 
 gave him more than full credit for his courage and 
 fidelity, and were the readier to do their duty under 
 his direct appeals. 
 
 Two soldiers were overheard speaking of the 
 chaplain of another regiment than their own, in 
 contrast with theirs. 
 
 " He s always on picket with his regiment," they 
 said, " and he s always ready to go with it into a 
 fight. You don t catch our Holy John up there." 
 
Place and Work of a Chaplain 9 
 
 " You don t mean that our chaplain s a coward, 
 do you ? " asked the other in a scornful tone. 
 
 " Oh, no ! I don t say he s a coward; but, when 
 ever there s any firing ahead, he has to go for the 
 mail." 
 
 "Well, but he s got to go for the mail, you 
 know." 
 
 " Yes ; but, if the firing is sudden, he can t stop 
 to get his saddle on." 
 
 And the soldiers laughed together over this pic 
 ture of their frightened chaplain. That chaplain 
 could not preach a soldier s duty of courage to 
 men who saw that he gave way to unsoldierly 
 cowardice. But there were many brave and 
 tender-hearted regimental chaplains in the Army 
 of the Union, and in the other army as well ; and 
 they were loved and honored, and were useful 
 accordingly. 
 
 In the important volume, " Regimental Losses 
 in the American Civil War," compiled by Colonel 
 William F. Fox from the official records at Wash 
 ington, there is a chapter showing the loss of officers 
 in action, from army and corps commanders to 
 officers of the regimental staff. Chaplains receive 
 honorable mention in this chapter. " It will doubt 
 less be a surprise to many," says Colonel Fox, " to 
 note the number of chaplains killed in battle. 
 These gallant members of the church militant 
 were wont to take a more active part in the fight 
 ing than has been generally credited to them." He 
 
io War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 mentions the names of eleven " among the chap 
 lains killed in action," and says that " in addition, 
 there were several who lost their lives by the dis 
 eases incident to the hardship and exposure of a 
 soldier s life." 
 
 Specifying a few as illustrative of the many, he 
 says : " Chaplain Arthur B. Fuller, of the Six 
 teenth Massachusetts [a brother of Margaret Fuller 
 Ossoli], had resigned from the service, and had just 
 received his discharge, when he learned that his 
 regiment was about to go into action at Fredericks- 
 burg. Crossing the river in the boats with the for 
 lorn hope, he joined the skirmishers of the Nine 
 teenth Massachusetts, who were then fighting their 
 way through the streets. He fell dead, rifle in hand, 
 in front of a grocery store on Caroline Street." 
 Chaplain Frank Butler of the Twenty -fifth New 
 Jersey " was killed at the siege of Suffolk, while 
 carrying water to some wounded men." He was 
 characterized as " a noble fellow." 
 
 Chaplain Orlando N. Benton, of the Fifty-first 
 New York, fell at New Berne, and General Reno 
 states, in his official report, that he " was killed 
 while nobly encouraging the men to do their duty." 
 Of Chaplain Thomas L. Ambrose of the Twelfth 
 New Hampshire, " killed in the trenches at Peters 
 burg," it was declared that "a braver man never 
 lived ; a truer man never wore the garb of 
 Christianity." 
 
 As showing that the courage and efficiency of 
 
Place and Work of a Chaplain 1 1 
 
 regimental chaplains were not confined to one side 
 of the line, Colonel Fox mentions that " at Resaca 
 among the Confederate dead which lay so thickly 
 in front of the Twenty-seventh Indiana, was a family 
 group : a gray-haired chaplain and his two sons." 
 
 Official reports of battles, from commanders of 
 regiments and brigades and from those of higher 
 rank, as well as the various state histories of the 
 war, bear ample public testimony to the courage, 
 efficiency, and faithfulness of regimental chaplains 
 who fell in battle, or who wore out their lives in 
 ministry to soldiers. Nor were those who died 
 during the war the only chaplains who won honor, 
 or who deserved it. Many a chaplain who did 
 good service then has shown in other prominent 
 spheres since then that he was of the sort to serve 
 faithfully his fellows, his country, and his God, 
 wherever his lot was cast 
 
 From among the large number of those who 
 could be included in such a list, it is sufficient to 
 mention a few representative regimental chaplains, 
 of different denominations, in different parts of the 
 country, who have exhibited marked ability and 
 efficiency as prelates, pastors, college presidents 
 or professors, editors, or in other public spheres. 
 
 Archbishop John Ireland of St. Paul, so eminent 
 for his loyalty to American institutions and his 
 zeal in promoting good citizenship and public 
 harmony ; General John Eaton, superintendent of 
 freedmen, United States Commissioner of Educa- 
 
1 2 War Memories of a Chaplahi 
 
 tion, president of Marietta College, editor, and 
 author; Bishop Lawrence McMahon of Hartford, 
 loved and honored in his strong diocese; Bishop 
 C. C. McCabe, now of Texas, efficient pastor, church 
 builder, missionary secretary, and general Chris 
 tian worker ; President H. L. Wayland, formerly of 
 Kalamazoo College, Michigan, now of Philadel 
 phia, teacher, pastor, and editor; President H. S. 
 DeForest, instructor in Yale, pastor in Iowa, and 
 then at the head of Talladega College, Alabama ; 
 Very Rev. William Corby, for a time president of 
 the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, and after 
 wards provincial general for the United States, of 
 the Order of the Holy Cross; and Dr. Albert 
 Zabriskie Gay, warden of Racine College, Wiscon 
 sin, after several successful rectorships. 
 
 Also Professor John Henry Thayer of Andover 
 Theological Seminary and of Harvard University ; 
 Professor M. B. Riddle of Hartford Theological 
 Seminary, and of Western Theological Seminary ; 
 Professor Norman Fox of William Jewell College, 
 editor and pastor; Archdeacon C. C. Tiffany of the 
 influential diocese of New York ; Dr. Samuel J. 
 Nicolls of St. Louis, moderator of the Presbyterian 
 General Assembly; Dr. Arthur Edwards of Chicago, 
 editor of the North Western Christian Advocate ; Dr. 
 J.T. Gibson, editor of the Presbyterian Messenger; 
 Dr. J. A. Worden, superintendent of the Sunday- 
 school department of the Presbyterian Church ; Dr. 
 Frederick H. Wines, prominent in connection with 
 
Place and Work of a Chaplain 13 
 
 organized charities in Illinois and the country at 
 large ; Dr. B. H. Agnew of Pittsburg and Philadel 
 phia, now secretary of the Board of Ministerial Re 
 lief in the Presbyterian Church ; and Dr. George H. 
 Hepworth of Boston and New York, pastor, editor, 
 and world-wide special correspondent. 
 
 In the great constellation of prominent pastors 
 before and after their chaplain service there were 
 the Rev. Drs. A. L. Stone of Boston and San 
 Francisco, J. M. Manning of Boston, A. H. Quint 
 of New Bedford, Horace James of Worcester and 
 Greenwich, Henry C. McCook of St. Louis and 
 Philadelphia, Augustus Woodbury of Providence, 
 Joseph H. Twichell of Hartford; J. C. Kimball of 
 Massachusetts, Oregon, and Connecticut; Henry 
 Hopkins of Massachusetts and Missouri ; Moses 
 Smith of Connecticut and Michigan ; A. L. Frisbie 
 of Connecticut and Iowa ; Edward B. Willson of 
 Salem; George Wilson Chalfant of Pittsburg; G.W. 
 Collier of Ohio ; Edward H. Hall of Cambridge ; 
 " Father Leo," of Winsted, the loved Franciscan 
 leader ; John H. Moors, whom the Unitarians called 
 " Bishop of Western Massachusetts ; " Frederic 
 Denison of Rhode Island ; Hiram Eddy, taken 
 prisoner at Bull Run, and fresh in his Master s 
 service at fourscore ; and Charles Babbidge, who 
 was with the Sixth Massachusetts in the streets of 
 Baltimore, the first Harvard graduate having a 
 commission in the war, and who was still stalwart 
 at more than ninety years of age. 
 
14 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 And what shall I say more ? for time will fail me. 
 Their names are written on high, and ought to be 
 borne in mind below as competent and worthy, 
 bearing well their part as chaplains and as citizens, 
 faithfully serving their God and their country. 
 
 On the Confederate side there might be shown a 
 corresponding record of faithful regimental chap 
 lains. There were those who fell in battle, coura 
 geous at their posts, and there were those who died 
 in service, worn out in loving work for needy soldiers. 
 There were those who survived the war, coming to 
 fresh prominence as bishops, and college presidents, 
 and editors, and pastors, and workers generally. 
 While I was a prisoner of war, there were some 
 fourscore Federal chaplains in Libby Prison at one 
 time; and nearly the same number of Confederate 
 chaplains were held in Northern war prisons. 
 
 With the sphere and duties of the regimental 
 chaplain as they were, he had an opportunity of 
 observing phases of army service unfamiliar to 
 other volunteer officers, and some of his observa 
 tions are essential to a complete view of the Civil 
 War. Others have had much to say of the plans and 
 movements of commanders. Comparatively little 
 has been said of the spirit and emotions of the sol 
 diers as soldiers. We know more of the strategy 
 of the generals than of the human side of the rank 
 and file in our armies. Hence an attempt to show 
 these would seem to be justified. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 ARMY CHAPELS AND RELIGIOUS SERVICES 
 
 The regimental chaplain in active service did not 
 always have a building, or a tent, in which to con 
 duct religious services ; neither did he always have 
 to preach, or to conduct prayers, in the open air. 
 It was sometimes one thing and sometimes another ; 
 and this very variety gave an added attractiveness 
 and zest to the chaplain s ministry and work, in 
 the gatherings of his men for their instruction and 
 influence. 
 
 The first service which I conducted as a chaplain 
 was just before I joined my regiment in the field. 
 It was in the rendezvous camp of a new regiment 
 at Hartford. Both regiment and chaplain were raw 
 as to service. A small table had been borrowed 
 from a neighboring house, and set in the open air 
 on the parade-ground, as a reading-desk for me. 
 A flag was thrown over it. On this rested a large 
 Bible and a hymn-book. As I took my place be 
 hind it, in the presence of the assembled regiment, 
 I saw that an open pack of cards was on the Bible, 
 as if in mischievous desire to test the new chaplain. 
 Without being disturbed or annoyed, I quietly 
 
 15 
 
1 6 War Memories of a CJiaplain 
 
 gathered up the cards, and put them out of sight, 
 saying in a low tone to the colonel, who stood at 
 my side, " Hearts are trumps to-day, and I ve a full 
 hand" 
 
 A group of singers from the enlisted men was 
 ready to lead in the singing, and all were reverent 
 in the hour of worship. As I addressed the regi 
 ment from the words of Jesus to the son of the 
 widow of Nain, " Young man, I say unto thee, 
 Arise," I felt that the Master himself was mak 
 ing the same call to every one of us that day. I 
 felt, even then, that it would be easy to find a 
 chapel and a pulpit in army service anywhere ; 
 and I was more and more firm .in this belief as 
 time went on. 
 
 My next formal service as a chaplain was in the 
 small, close cabin of a rolling propeller off Cape 
 Hatteras, on my way to my regiment in New Berne, 
 North Carolina. It was on a Sunday morning. My 
 congregation was of officers and men from different 
 regiments, on their way to their several commands. 
 Yet we could feel that God was as truly there, and 
 could be as truly worshiped, as in Solomon s Tem 
 ple or in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 When I reached my regiment, I found there a 
 large and commodious chapel-tent, sent from Con 
 necticut as a gift of the unique and efficient " Chap 
 lains Aid Commission" in that state. That tent 
 could cover several hundred people, and it was in 
 every way suitable for its purpose. We enjoyed 
 
Army Chapels and Services i 7 
 
 its use on Sundays and week-day evenings as long 
 as we were within its reach. Our regimental band 
 gave us appropriate instrumental music, and we 
 had good leaders for our congregational singing. 
 One Sunday afternoon there was an army com 
 munion service in the New Berne Presbyterian 
 Church, which had been deserted by both pastor 
 and people. Three regimental chaplains officiated 
 at the service. A cavalryman played the organ. 
 Soldiers officers and men made up the congre 
 gation. Two enlisted men, in their uniforms, 
 served as elders, or deacons, in the distribution of 
 the elements. There could be no doubt that all be 
 longed to the church militant. It was an impres 
 sive and memorable service. The familiar hymn, 
 
 " Soldiers of Christ, arise, 
 And put your armor on," 
 
 had peculiar appropriateness there, as then sung. 
 
 When on my first scout, of two weeks, with the 
 regiment, having no tents with us, and not stopping 
 at any place long enough to build booths, we could 
 secure a wayside religious service only by holding 
 it in the evening under the trees, in the light of a 
 blazing camp-fire. Yet as I stood in such a group, 
 reading my little Bible as the basis of a practical 
 talk to them, while officers and men, just out of 
 one fight and expecting another, stood or sat with 
 upturned earnest faces, I felt that I had never before 
 known what it was to be able to find God every- 
 
l8 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 where, and to point out to others the signs of his 
 sure presence. 
 
 My talk, that evening, was from the words of the 
 loving Jesus in Luke 12 : 4, 5 : "And I say unto 
 you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the 
 body, and after that have no more that they can do. 
 But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear : Fear 
 him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast 
 into hell ; yea, I say unto you, Fear him." These 
 words were pressed because of the comfort in them, 
 not as words of alarm as to the present or the future. 
 We need have no fear of any enemy unless he is 
 also God s enemy. If we are at peace with God, 
 and in right relation to him, we can defy the uni 
 verse and be sure of spiritual victory. 
 
 The battle of Kinston was on a Sunday morning. 
 The enemy was stationed on either side of, and 
 behind, a little church, or chapel, on the west bank 
 of the Neuse River. In obeying an order to ad 
 vance and drive the enemy from that position, our 
 regiment lost more than one-fourth of all its officers 
 and men in line that day. It was remarked, with 
 grim humor, that it was hard work " going to 
 church " that morning ; yet there was service for 
 all, and no mistake. 
 
 In January, 1863, our division was ordered to 
 take transports, leaving our horses, our heavier 
 baggage, and our larger tents behind. We ex 
 pected to be back at our old camp within two or 
 three weeks at the longest. We never returned to 
 
Army Chapels and Services 19 
 
 that place. We were landed on St. Helena Island, 
 opposite Port Royal, South Carolina, and remained 
 there for weeks. From that point we went to Sea- 
 brook Island, in North Edisto Inlet, to have a part 
 in the siege of Charleston. 
 
 It was surprising how quickly old soldiers could 
 make themselves comfortable in such circumstances. 
 Our pioneers (enlisted men detailed for making 
 roads, building temporary bridges, and doing gene 
 ral constructive, or destructive, carpenter work) 
 soon after our landing at St. Helena Island had a 
 very large rustic open chapel, or chapel -booth, 
 made of posts and poles, with pine branches inter 
 woven, set up at one side of the camp, with seats in 
 it made of double poles supported on small posts, 
 or legs. A cracker-box, turned over at a bevel, 
 on a tree-trunk, and covered with pine branches, 
 served for a pulpit or reading-desk. Every Sun 
 day morning this was draped with fresh and fra 
 grant yellow jessamine, with its green leaves and 
 graceful vines, while the long gray Southern moss 
 aided to make the place attractive to reverent wor 
 shipers. If our denominational church -erection 
 societies could secure as delightful chapels for all 
 whom they desire to aid, they would be eminently 
 successful in their good work. 
 
 Attendance at chapel services was entirely vol 
 untary in our regiment. There were regiments 
 where the commanding officer required attendance 
 at the church service on Sundays, or where he 
 
2o War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 ordered out the regiment for such service; but I 
 preferred to have officers and men entirely free to 
 attend or remain away as they were inclined. Our 
 colonel was kindly ready to do as I preferred in 
 this matter ; and I felt that the influence of a chap 
 lain over the men would be greater if he sought to 
 gain a hold on them by his personal work among 
 them, and left it to them to come or not to the 
 religious gatherings where he led in worship and 
 addressed those present In special cases, where 
 my commander desired to have me address the 
 men on a particular subject, of importance to the 
 discipline or morale of the command, he ordered out 
 the regiment to be preached to in the chapel ; but 
 that was an exceptional case. 
 
 In all cases I had the full support of the officers, 
 from the colonel down, in my work as a chaplain. 
 The drum corps or the colonel s bugler sounded 
 the " church call " at the hour of service, and the 
 colonel and most of the officers attended the ser 
 vices. A lieutenant-colonel who commanded the 
 regiment for a time after my joining it, had been 
 trained in the English army, and was a soldier in 
 the Crimean War. Although not a religious man, 
 he came to value highly the influence of a chaplain, 
 and of religious services, on the soldiers, as soldiers 
 and as men. He wished me to lead in prayer at 
 the close of daily dress parade, and I was glad to 
 do so. This was quite a different matter from en 
 forced chapel attendance. It was a recognition of 
 
Army Chapels and Services 2 1 
 
 the chaplain s place and work in the regiment as a 
 regiment ; and it marked the regiment s recognition 
 of God as over all. Its influence proved beneficial 
 and effective, in the regiment and beyond it. 
 
 In performing this service I took my place, in 
 chaplain s uniform, at dress parade, as at reviews, 
 next to the surgeon on the right of the line. With 
 the officers I advanced to the front, at the close of 
 parade, when we presented ourselves to the colonel. 
 Instead of dismissing us at that time, he said : 
 " Take your places, gentlemen, for prayers." At 
 this, the line of officers divided in the center, and 
 passed right and left to the rear of the colonel, and 
 faced toward the center of the parade-ground. The 
 orderly sergeants of the two right and the two left 
 companies wheeled their companies, and brought 
 them into place, facing inward, as the two sides 
 of a hollow square, of which the remainder of the 
 regiment was the third side, and the line of officers 
 was the fourth. The chaplain stepped forward and 
 took his position at the left of the colonel. As he 
 said, " Let us pray ! " the colonel and every officer 
 and man in the regiment uncovered his head, and 
 stood in reverence during the prayer. While this 
 service was somewhat out of the ordinary course, 
 it was impressive, and came to be valued by the 
 regiment. Officers from other regiments were fre 
 quently present to look on, and the effect of the 
 service was good. 
 
 Soldiers, like sailors, are rarely scoffers at religion, 
 
22 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 even though they may be rough and profane. They 
 are glad to have a chaplain pray for them, even 
 though they do not always pray for themselves, and 
 they are often bluntly reverent. For instance, at a 
 gathering of army officers, at a banquet, since the 
 war, a veteran general, standing at the table near me 
 while a chaplain asked a blessing, quietly reached 
 down and took the table-knife from the side of his 
 plate, at the close of the blessing, and, bringing its 
 hilt sharply to his chest, gave a military salute with 
 it before returning it to its place, saying seriously : 
 " I always salute my Maker." That knife gesture 
 was the general s "Amen." 
 
 There were a few instances in our regiment in 
 which this innovation of prayers at dress parade 
 disturbed the consciences of enlisted men, but the 
 lieutenant-colonel in command quietly met these as 
 a disciplinarian. A Catholic soldier came to him, 
 and said he did not want to remove his hat during 
 prayers by a Protestant chaplain, for this was a 
 matter of conscience with him. The lieutenant- 
 colonel s prompt and abrupt answer was : " I ve 
 nothing to do with your conscience. You can 
 think what you please. But the chaplain is on 
 my staff. I call on him for his duty. I call on 
 you for your duty. When the chaplain says, at 
 dress parade, Let us pray, that is my order to 
 you, Take off your hat. If you don t take your 
 hat off, I ll take your head off." 
 
 That settled the question from a military stand- 
 
Army Chapels and Services 23 
 
 point. The soldier s opinions and beliefs were left 
 unmolested, but his formal actions must conform 
 on parade to the colonel s orders. In such ways 
 the chaplain s position and work were plainly rec 
 ognized as a part of the regimental service, and this 
 gave him an advantage in his personal efforts to 
 win and serve the men. 
 
 But such instances as this were quite exceptional ; 
 in the long run there was no practical hindrance to 
 my work as a chaplain as growing out of the differ 
 ences between Catholics and Protestants. My first 
 department commander, General John G. Foster, 
 was a Catholic. He gave hearty approval of my 
 work for the men ; and I had reason to be grateful 
 for his readiness to promote that work by any 
 means in his power. His good wife was as an 
 angel of mercy in the hospitals at New Berne after 
 the battle of Kinston; and our men were never tired 
 of telling of her kneeling in prayer by the bed of 
 one of our wounded lieutenants, a Baptist Chris 
 tian, as his spirit was passing away in the Foster 
 General Hospital. Major- General Gillmore, at the 
 head of the Department of the South, was likewise 
 a Catholic ; as also was Major-General John Gibbon, 
 commander of the Twenty -fourth Army Corps at 
 the close of the war. Both were ready at any time 
 to aid me in my chaplain s work. 
 
 I was prompt to act in securing the services of 
 a priest in any emergency when a soldier needed 
 him; and there was hardly a Catholic soldier in 
 
24 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 the regiment who did not voluntarily attend our 
 chapel services at one time or another. All of 
 them welcomed my prayers by their side when sick 
 in the field hospital, or when lying wounded on the 
 field. On one occasion, on my returning to the 
 regiment after a brief leave of absence, I found a 
 veteran Catholic soldier quite sick in his tent. As 
 I came to his bedside he said faintly, with a smile : 
 " I m glad to see yez, Misther Chaplain. I thought 
 I d be afther dying whiles yez wus gone; and I 
 wanted yer riv rince to prepare me for heaven." 
 
 As the army service of my regiment was along 
 the Atlantic coast from Virginia to Florida, we 
 were frequently in transports while moving from 
 one point to another. This gave an opportunity 
 for religious services on shipboard, which were 
 welcome and impressive to both officers and men. 
 When we moved from St. Helena Island to North 
 Edisto Inlet, expecting to take an active part in an 
 immediate attack on Charleston, we were crowded 
 together, on the steamer Cahawba, more than eleven 
 hundred strong, from our regiment and the Fifty- 
 sixth New York. In the evening I led a prayer- 
 meeting, and made an address, on the crowded deck^ 
 where all felt that this might be their last night on 
 earth. No one objected to being prayed for then. 
 All hearts were open to loving counsel at such 
 a time. Some of those who are still living will 
 never forget that service of prayer and song under 
 the starlit sky. 
 
Army Chapels and Services 25 
 
 While at Seabrook Island I was asked by Com 
 mander George W. Rodgers of the navy to con 
 duct a prayer-meeting for his men on the monitor 
 Catskill, in the pilot-house of which he was killed, 
 soon after this, by a shot from Fort Sumter. This 
 service was a novel experience. An iron monitor 
 was a suffocating place to be in, below the deck. 
 The quarters were close and cramped at the best. 
 But the sailors of the navy were bluff, hearty, and 
 reverent. They listened with attention. They 
 joined in singing familiar hymns with a zest that 
 would have gladdened a Methodist congregation 
 in revival time. Their commander was with them 
 at this service ; and their manner showed that they 
 recognized the presence of their Great Commander. 
 
 Taken prisoner, under peculiar circumstances, at 
 Morris Island, I was in new conditions as a chap 
 lain for several months in Charleston, Columbia, 
 and Richmond. While ministering to our wounded 
 soldiers in the prison hospital at Charleston, I 
 worked side by side with the Sisters of Mercy, and 
 our Christian co-operation in beneficent efforts was 
 every way pleasant. When I found a Catholic sol 
 dier, I was glad to call their attention to him, and 
 they, on the other hand, would frequently come to 
 me, saying, " Chaplain, here is a Protestant soldier 
 who would like your ministry." Bishop Lynch, of 
 Charleston, was frequently in the prison hospital 
 directing and aiding the Sisters, and I valued his 
 kind services. Later, he visited Columbia Jail to 
 
26 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 see several of our Union officers who were of his 
 communion ; and whenever I met him, then or 
 after the war, I had reason to recognize and appre 
 ciate his kind Christian courtesy. 
 
 It was easy to conduct religious services in the 
 rooms where I was a prisoner with other officers, 
 in Richland Jail, Columbia, and there I led in 
 prayer every evening, and conducted a service with 
 preaching every Sunday. As a friend outside sug 
 gested to me, there was this advantage in preach 
 ing in prison, I was " sure of my audience," All 
 must attend, and none could leave before the ser 
 vice was over. But compulsory attendance does 
 not in itself secure profitable religious services. 
 In Columbia Jail there were, in other rooms and 
 in adjacent buildings, enlisted men of both army 
 and navy who could not be reached from the 
 officers rooms. I therefore asked permission of 
 the Confederate authorities to hold a Sunday ser 
 vice for their benefit in the jail yard. Consent was 
 given, on condition that I would not refer, either 
 in prayers or remarks, to matters in contest in the 
 war. Of course, I acceded to this requirement, for 
 of our men s loyalty and patriotism I had no doubt 
 or fear ; and thenceforward I held weekly services 
 there as well as inside. 
 
 The first Sunday I preached to my new congre 
 gation in the jail yard, I stood on the jail steps 
 while the post commandant stood back of me, and 
 one of his soldiers stood, with a fixed bayonet, at my 
 
Army Chapels and Services 27 
 
 left hand on the steps, to punctuate a sentence in 
 case I should touch on forbidden topics. If any 
 thing could keep a preacher within the bounds of 
 strict orthodoxy in his pulpit utterances, it would 
 be such formidable heresy-hunters as these at such 
 a time. But I was found to be safe so far, and soon 
 the members of the Confederate guard who were 
 not just then on duty, as well as friends of the 
 commandant from outside, were attentive and in 
 terested listeners to this preaching of a prisoner 
 to the prisoners. 
 
 After my release from prison, I took passage on 
 the steamer Arago, then in the government service, 
 from New York to Port Royal. I found on board a 
 priest who was going as an army chaplain, deputed 
 by Archbishop Hughes, at the request of Bishop 
 Lynch, to minister not only to our soldiers, but to 
 such Catholics of the diocese of Charleston as were 
 then within our lines. Having had no experience 
 as an army chaplain, he was glad to talk over mat 
 ters connected with his new field of service, and we 
 cordially co-worked for the common cause. 
 
 The day after our start from New York was 
 Sunday. There were on board some three hundred 
 soldier passengers from various commands, return 
 ing to duty. I suggested to my fellow-chaplain 
 that we ought to have some religious service on 
 board, and that we might arrange to conduct it 
 together. He feared that such a service would 
 /lot be approved by the commander of the vessel. 
 
28 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 I said that I knew Captain Gadsen very well, and 
 was sure he would welcome our work. Accord 
 ingly I went to the commander and obtained his 
 hearty consent. At this I told the other chaplain 
 that he might conduct the service, and I would 
 make the address, or vice versa, as he should 
 prefer. He replied that, if I would conduct the 
 service, he would make the address. 
 
 When notice was given throughout the vessel 
 that there would be a religious service on deck at 
 noon, conducted by the Catholic and Protestant 
 chaplains together, all were interested, and all 
 wanted to be present. That harmonious and joint 
 service was a fresh illustration of the truth that, 
 where the spirit of Christ is, there is liberty. 
 
 Rejoining my regiment at St. Augustine, I had 
 other experiences as a chaplain and with places 
 of gatherings for a chaplain s congregation. Every 
 Protestant clergyman had left town when the Con 
 federates evacuated it. Only the Catholic priest, 
 a lovely-spirited Christian pastor, was still at his 
 post. As my quarters were near the Catholic 
 Church just across the plaza I saw him fre 
 quently, and enjoyed Christian counsel with him. 
 Protestant residents were glad to attend the army 
 chaplain s services, if they attended any. The con 
 valescent camp of the Department of the South, 
 then at St. Augustine, furnished a large contingent 
 of officers, in addition to the regiments on duty 
 there. There was, therefore, quite a congregation, 
 
Army Chapels and Services 29 
 
 and quite a pastoral field for the single army chap 
 lain on duty there at that time. 
 
 We held regular services, at one time in the 
 Presbyterian Church, and at another time in the 
 Episcopal Church. I conducted a service with 
 preaching in the forenoon ; a Sunday-school in the 
 afternoon ; a prayer-meeting in the evening, on 
 Sundays ; and on Wednesday evening we had a 
 mid-week prayer-meeting. This was in addition 
 to special services in the hospitals, in the military 
 barracks, and in the meeting-places of the colored 
 people. 
 
 These occasional brief services at various places 
 were an important part of a chaplain s public work, 
 aside from his personal interviews, including prayer 
 and counsel, with the men, in his tent or in theirs, 
 on hospital cots, or on the field when disabled or 
 dying. I had taken with me from the North a 
 then newly arranged collection of Bible texts, in 
 the form of a wall roll for display in a hospital 
 or a sick-room, known as the " Silent Comforter." 
 The texts were classified under appropriate heads 
 for every day in the month, on thirty-one pages, 
 the pages being turned to sight day by day. The 
 texts, being printed in large type, could be read 
 at quite a distance by the men on their cots. The 
 timely and well-chosen words would perhaps strike 
 the eye of a weary and homesick soldier as he 
 looked toward them from his bed of pain, bring 
 ing memories of a comforting truth he had been 
 
30 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 familiar with in a Christian home, or, again, it 
 would come home to his heart as a new and needed 
 truth. 
 
 A copy of this " Silent Comforter " I had sus 
 pended in our chapel-tent, and in my own tent, and 
 in each ward of our army hospital at New Berne. 
 Its texts for the day gave a suggestion for familiar 
 words to the inmates of the hospital when I came 
 to pray with them ; and again they furnished a 
 theme for our mid-week prayer-meetings. It often 
 seemed as if the words for the hour had been 
 meant of God for us, in the circumstances in which 
 we found ourselves that very day. They did not 
 grow commonplace and meaningless from frequent 
 use. A copy of that " Silent Comforter" hangs on 
 my library walls to-day, its pages having been 
 turned day by day for more than thirty years with 
 out its words growing stale through much repeti 
 tion. On the contrary, they have gained added 
 preciousness because of their varied memories and 
 sacred associations, and they speak things new 
 and old continually to all who look at them. 
 
 In addition to a similar use of the " Silent Com 
 forter " in St. Augustine as in New Berne, a copy 
 of it was suspended in the military guard-house of 
 the provost-marshal, at the old government quar 
 ters west of the plaza. There it was made use of 
 in the chaplain s visits to those who were in con 
 finement because of offenses against military disci 
 pline. There, as elsewhere, it showed that every 
 
Army Chapels and Services 3 1 
 
 heart is human, and that God s truth comes home 
 to every human heart. Memories of hours of re- 
 lio-ious service, and of conversation in connection 
 
 o 
 
 with them, in that St. Augustine guard-house, are 
 dear to the chaplain s heart, to the present day, be 
 cause of the soldiers who were there manifestly 
 reached for good. 
 
 Both Sundays and week-days we had services for 
 a time in the old Catholic chapel of Fort Marion, 
 formerly the " Fortress San Marco," on the sea 
 front of St. Augustine, at the upper end of the town. 
 This fort, of coquina rock, or shell marl, a con 
 glomerate of small sea-shells and sand, abundant 
 in the vicinity, was built by the Spanish. Begun 
 more than two centuries ago, it was a hundred 
 years in building, and while in the possession of 
 the English for twenty years, after 1763, it was said 
 to be the " prettiest fort in the king s dominions." 
 When bombarded by the English general, Ogle- 
 thorpe, in 1741, it stood the bombardment like 
 modern earthworks. The solid shot embedded 
 themselves in the coquina rock as in a sponge, so 
 that the material was strengthened instead of being 
 fractured, in the progress of the siege. 
 
 This fort, with its castellated battlements, its 
 formidable bastions, its lofty and imposing sally 
 port still surmounted by the royal arms of Spain ; 
 its portcullis, moat, and drawbridge ; its round and 
 ornate coquina sentry-boxes, at each principal para 
 pet angle ; its commanding lookout tower, and its 
 
32 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 stained and moss-grown massive walls, impressed 
 an observer as a relic of the long-gone past. Its 
 frowning guns, and its guard of veteran soldiers, 
 combined to make it, at that time, a representative 
 beleaguered fortress. 
 
 Its heavy casemates, its gloomy vaults, its dark 
 passages, and its then recently discovered dungeon, 
 (where, according to popular report, were found 
 skeletons chained to rusty ring-bolts) ; the dark 
 tally -lists on the moldering walls, speaking of 
 weary prisoners in other dreary days, all were 
 calculated to awe or solemnize an imaginative 
 mind. The old Catholic chapel was in the central 
 casemate, directly opposite the sally-port. It had 
 an elaborate entrance or portico, a niche for a holy- 
 water receptacle, and an altar fixed against the 
 opposite wall. 
 
 This chapel was a quaint and solemn place for a 
 religious service. Our Catholic soldiers valued its 
 hallowed associations, and our Protestant soldiers 
 were glad to be there. Memories of our gatherings 
 in that place, and of personal interviews between 
 chaplain and soldiers there, and elsewhere in that 
 fort, are among the most intense and vivid im 
 pressions of war time with survivors of that army 
 congregation. 
 
 When our regiment went to Virginia, in the 
 spring of 1864, to have a part in General Grant s 
 campaign there, fresh experiences were once more 
 the order of the day. At first the army movements 
 
Army Chapels and Services 33 
 
 were so rapid that there was no opportunity to 
 secure chapel-tents from the base of supplies, or to 
 build chapel-booths at the front. The only way 
 to gather the men for worship was on the open field 
 where we bivouacked, by the roadside as we halted 
 on a march, or in a shady ravine within reach, if 
 we had a few hours of rest in a wooded region. 
 
 For instance, after several days of fighting and 
 of moving from point to point along the lines before 
 Bermuda Hundreds, we found a few hours of rest 
 in which to have an open-air prayer-meeting on 
 the evening of a Sunday in May. It was a delight 
 ful service, all the more so because of its contrast 
 with our fierce activities, between which it was 
 a lull. No drum or bugle call was then permissible 
 to summon our gathering, so near the enemy. A 
 blazing brush-heap was the rallying-point, and the 
 singing of a familiar hymn served for a " church 
 call." Officers and men assembled quietly. Some 
 threw themselves on the ground to listen ; some 
 stood in the firelight, or back in the shade. God s 
 words were read by the burning pile. They were 
 heard with interest by brave-hearted and tender 
 soldiers. The prayers were free, simple, earnest, 
 and trustful. The songs of praise were full of ten 
 derness and melody. Spoken words at such a time 
 were from heart to heart. The roughest of the 
 men were chastened and subdued. All were reve 
 rent and thoughtful. There were thoughts of 
 home and of praying loved ones. There were 
 
34 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 thoughts of duty and of danger in the present, and 
 of consequences in the future, near and remote. 
 No audience could be a more sympathetic and 
 hopeful one than such a gathering of soldiers by 
 an evening camp-fire, in the face of the stern reali 
 ties which then confronted us. 
 
 At the close of that meeting, a young soldier 
 from a New York regiment, who happened to be 
 present, came to tell me of his longing to be at 
 peace with God, even if he must be at war with 
 men. He was an only son from a Massachusetts 
 home. He had been religiously brought up, but 
 had wandered far from the right. The evening s 
 summons had reached his heart. He longed to be 
 back at his Master s feet. It was good to help that 
 dear soldier into light and peace. That evening 
 wayside gathering for prayer and counsel was a 
 specimen of many in a chaplain s army life. 
 
 When, however, General Grant s headquarters 
 were fixed at City Point, and the siege of Peters 
 burg and Richmond was fairly entered on, there 
 were possibilities to veteran soldiers in the way of 
 cabin and chapel building not before attained by us 
 in camp or in campaigning. Perhaps the greatest 
 height of field-chapel construction was reached by 
 a regiment of New York Engineers, in front of 
 Petersburg, in a beautiful rustic chapel built of pine 
 logs and poles with the bark on. It was in pointed 
 Gothic style, with a graceful spire of the same 
 material as the building itself, and was a most 
 
Army Chapels and Services 35 
 
 attractive and picturesque structure. Yet while 
 this was the summit of such work, there were many 
 other rustic chapels built along the lines, which 
 would not have been deemed possible during the 
 first year of the war. 
 
 Near the New Market Road, a few miles below 
 Richmond, in the winter of 1864-65, where our regi 
 ment had its camp from November to March, our 
 pioneers built a rustic chapel that answered its 
 purpose admirably. A stockade of pine logs or 
 posts formed side walls and gable ends. A large 
 canvas tent-fly, sixty feet by forty, furnished by the 
 Christian Commission, stretched over ridge-pole 
 and rafters, with supporting posts, was an appro 
 priate cover. Spring pole benches provided easy 
 seats for several hundred persons. 
 
 An attractive reading-desk, or lectern, was formed 
 by setting a small tree trunk into the earthen floor, 
 and surmounting it with a cracker-box cover, with 
 a rustic border in fitting forms. Two grapevines 
 seemed to be climbing this post, as if coming up 
 from the ground, and crossing each other in their 
 ascent in the form of Gothic arches. The floor of 
 the chapel was covered with sawdust from a neigh 
 boring deserted saw-mill, so as to absorb the moist 
 ure from the Virginia ground in the rainy season. 
 A sheet-iron stove, also from the Christian Com 
 mission, enabled us to warm it. Arms for candle 
 sticks projected in the form of a cross from the 
 central supporting pillars. A picture of President 
 
36 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 Lincoln in a rustic frame was on the central pillar. 
 Dark green vines and boughs adorned the columns, 
 and also the walls, while scarlet holly-berries showed 
 themselves in relief among the clustering leaves. 
 Small pine-trees were either side of the reading- 
 desk. Our national colors and our Connecticut 
 state ensign were stacked behind the pulpit as an 
 appropriate background when the chaplain con 
 ducted service at it. Across the entire rear end 
 of the chapel, behind the pulpit, was a wide shelf 
 for reading-matter for the men, and two rude tables 
 near the shelf, with writing materials on them, were 
 for their convenience. 
 
 In order to give emphasis to the importance of 
 this regimental chapel as a place of worship and as 
 a means of good to officers and men, it was, while 
 yet unfinished, formally dedicated in an opening 
 service on the Sunday afternoon of its first occu 
 pancy. The entire regiment was in attendance. 
 Prominent officers from other regiments, and many 
 enlisted men, were present. Chaplain Janeway, of 
 a Pennsylvania regiment, had a part in the dedica 
 tion services. The sermon was from i Kings 6:12: 
 " Concerning this house which thou art in build 
 ing, if thou wilt walk in my statutes, and execute 
 my judgments, and keep all my commandments to 
 walk in them ; then will I perform my word with 
 thee." The theme was: "Religion Indispensable 
 Everywhere " especially in the army ; and a place 
 for worship was a reminder of this. 
 
Army Chapels and Services 37 
 
 This chapel was a great convenience to our regi 
 ment, and it was admired by many from outside. 
 The chaplain of a cavalry regiment, an Episcopal 
 clergyman, coming to see it one week-day, was so 
 delighted with the artistic form and surroundings 
 of its rustic pulpit that he lifted up his hands, on 
 seeing it for the first time, and exclaimed : " I de 
 clare, Chaplain, it s enough to make a man religious 
 to look at that pulpit." 
 
 As there were many fresh recruits sent to our 
 regiment during that closing winter of our war, the 
 new chapel was much used and valued by them. 
 In addition to our usual religious services we had 
 there lectures and addresses of various kinds for 
 their benefit, and they availed themselves of it as a 
 place to read and write in. It well repaid all efforts 
 put forth to make it attractive. It was occupied 
 until the regiment was started on the march which 
 ended at Appomattox Court House. Its memories 
 and influence still live. The rustic reading-desk, 
 fitted with an appropriate base, and sent North, 
 when that move was made, is preserved as a valued 
 relic in the chaplain s home, where its lessons are 
 for children and for children s children. 
 
 When fighting was over, there was yet other army 
 service to be performed before all the regiments 
 could be sent home and disbanded. From April 
 to September, 1865, our regiment was stationed just 
 outside of the city of Richmond. A commodious 
 chapel-tent was set up there, for the joint occu- 
 
38 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 pancy of the Tenth Connecticut and the Eleventh 
 Maine. Many impressive services were held in it. 
 The officers of both regiments were generally in 
 attendance. The waiting, restless soldiers, relieved 
 of the pressure of constant active service, needed 
 words of encouragement, stimulus, reminder, and 
 caution. And the brave soldiers were ever respon 
 sive to such words. In time of peace, as in time 
 of war, a soldier congregation was the most hope 
 ful of congregations. 
 
 At last the chaplain s parting words were spoken 
 to his disbanding congregation. The camp was 
 broken up. The soldiers returned to their homes. 
 There can never be a reunion here of that scattered 
 charge. But those who heard aright and wor 
 shiped truly in the chapel tents of that army ser 
 vice shall meet again in " the true Tent which the 
 Lord pitched, not man," and shall go no more out 
 forever. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 DISCLOSURES OF THE SOLDIER HEART 
 
 "In buttoning up his soldier coat, the soldier 
 covers his heart from sight, and you cannot tell 
 from outside appearances whether he has a heart 
 or not." The soldier, as a soldier, represses all 
 signs of emotion, and even seems at times to be 
 uninfluenced by ordinary feelings of tenderness and 
 sympathy. But now and then you get a glimpse 
 of the soldier heart in a way to convince you that 
 that heart is human, and that the keeping it covered 
 from sight is a ceaseless struggle between the outer 
 and the inner man. 
 
 Soon after I joined my regiment at New Berne, 
 North Carolina, I was asked to conduct a funeral 
 service over two men of a Massachusetts regiment 
 in a local army hospital. Going to the hospital, 
 which was a dwelling-house taken possession of 
 by the military authorities, I was at first shocked by 
 the absence of all ordinary signs of respect for the 
 dead, and I should have then said that the soldiers 
 were utterly without feeling in the presence of their 
 dead comrades. 
 
 The front door of the house opened directly on a 
 
 39 
 
4O War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 main street of the city. In the hall, just inside the 
 door, lay the two bodies, uncoffined, wrapped in 
 army blankets. Soldiers stood or sat about, on 
 the front stairs and on the door-step, or passed in 
 and out over the bodies, chatting unconcernedly, 
 while the enlisted men who had been detailed as 
 hospital nurses were making preparations for re 
 moving the bodies to an army burial-place just out 
 side the city. But as this chatting went on, one of 
 the " unfeeling " soldiers turned toward a comrade, 
 who had been detailed as a hospital nurse, and, 
 pointing to one of the bodies, said, in low, gentle 
 tones: "Jem, have you cut a lock of Bill s hair? 
 I reckon his mother would like it. My mother 
 would." That utterance gave me my first glimpse 
 of the soldier heart, buttoned over by the soldier 
 coat. I never again had a doubt of that heart. 
 
 As I was returning from my home, after a brief 
 leave of absence on one occasion, I saw a young 
 soldier waving a kindly good-by to friends, as our 
 train left the station. He was in the seat just 
 before me. As the cars moved off he dropped his 
 head on the back of the seat in front of him, and 
 sobbed as though his heart would break. Pres 
 ently he mastered his feelings, and, straightening 
 himself up, he sat with a stern face and fixed ex 
 pression, as a cold, immovable soldier. 
 
 Reaching forward, I touched him gently on the 
 shoulder, and asked tenderly : 
 
 " Have you been long in service, my friend ? " 
 
Disclosures of the Soldier Heart 41 
 
 "Two years and a half," he replied, " and now 
 I ve re-enlisted for three years more. I ve just had 
 my thirty days at home," (a veteran, on re-enlisting 
 for three years, was given a thirty days furlough,) 
 <l and am going back to my regiment." 
 
 " It is hard," I said, " to leave the dear ones 
 behind." 
 
 " Yes, sir, it is. I can move forward under fire 
 without flinching. I can see men drop by my side, 
 wounded or dead, and not quiver. I can suffer all 
 I have to in camp, or on the march, and not mind 
 it. But I can t bid good-by to my wife and 
 children for three years, and not make a baby of 
 myself." 
 
 And I thought him all the more of a man for 
 that. 
 
 Several months later I saw that young soldier, 
 as an artillery sergeant, in a redoubt commanded 
 by my brother on the Bermuda Hundreds front It 
 was in an hour of critical action. He was direct 
 ing the men who were serving heavy guns in a 
 fierce fight. There was no show of weakness in his 
 looks or manner then. He was cool and collected, 
 and gave no sign of concern for himself or thought 
 of home dear ones. The soldier coat covered from 
 sight the soldier heart, but it was there all the same. 
 
 In the opening of the year 1863, Port Royal 
 harbor, South Carolina, was the rendezvous of 
 army transports preparatory to a move against 
 Charleston. One Sunday afternoon, fifty or more 
 
42 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 vessels of all sizes, crowded with armed men, were 
 in sight of each other, while busy preparations were 
 making for the landing of troops. Officers and 
 men realized that they were there for active service, 
 and they were facing the fact of impending battle 
 and death. It was no time for unsoldierly thought 
 or feeling. Bristling forts guarded the entrance to 
 the harbor, and ironclads, gunboats, and line-of- 
 battle ships were to be seen among the transports. 
 
 The sea was still agitated from a storm of a few 
 days before, and a stiff breeze was blowing. A 
 steamer, towing two small boats with a man in 
 each, moved past the schooner transport, on the 
 decks of which our regiment was crowded. When 
 a little distance from us, as the steamer changed 
 her course, one of the boats was brought directly 
 forward of and capsized by the other. Instantly 
 from a score of voices on our deck the cry rang 
 out : " A man overboard ! A man overboard ! " 
 
 " Stop that steamer," shouted our colonel. 
 " You ve lost a man." 
 
 " Let go that stern boat," cried another. " Cast 
 off that line ! Quick ! quick ! " 
 
 Oh, how slowly those moved who could give 
 help! How time dragged! How hearts jumped 
 in vain longing ! It seemed an age before the poor 
 fellow rose to the surface from under the capsized 
 boat. At length he was seen some distance astern, 
 struggling in the boiling wake of the now slowing 
 steamer. He beat the waves as if he could not 
 
Disclosures of the Soldier Heart 43 
 
 swim, and we feared he must go down unaided. 
 Oh, what a feeling of hopeless helplessness! Oh 
 for wings ! Oh for power even to walk the waves! 
 It was so hard to wait and do nothing. An oar 
 floated near the man, which he seemed not to see. 
 
 " Catch that oar!" called one. 
 
 " Why don t you cast off that boat?" cried an 
 other. 
 
 " Hurry! Do hurry ! " called a hundred voices. 
 
 Every effort for the drowning man s rescue 
 seemed fearfully protracted; yet for us, at our 
 greater distance, we could only wait and watch 
 and pray. 
 
 "Will he bear up till help comes?" was the cry 
 of our hearts. 
 
 The tide was sweeping him out toward the sea. 
 At length the long-delayed boat was manned, and 
 it shot out in his pursuit. 
 
 " Now, give way, boys ; give way ! " cried the 
 stentorian voice of one of our excited captains, 
 whose inspiring call was heard by the men in the 
 boat, and the stalwart oarsmen bent every nerve to 
 their task. 
 
 Every eye on our vessel, and on a score of 
 others, was strained toward the struggling man, 
 and every heart beat in responsive sympathy with 
 those who were striving to save him. Officers and 
 men fairly held their breath as they watched in 
 tently that fearful life-chase. 
 
 "God help him!" gasped one watcher impul- 
 
44 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 sively ; and fifty bursting hearts re-echoed that 
 prayer. 
 
 " There ! he s gone," cried a score of voices, as 
 a wave hid him from view. 
 
 " No, he s up again," was the joyous response. 
 
 " Give way, boys ! Now, give way ! " was once 
 more the inciting cry. 
 
 Again and again the receding speck in the waters 
 was for a second lost behind a dashing wave. As 
 often a despairing cry came from the hearts of the 
 anxious watchers, and again as many hearts took 
 new hope in the reappearance of the object of in- 
 tensest interest and sympathy. 
 
 The boat drew near the speck. It was now but 
 a single length behind. 
 
 " Steady, now ! steady, or you ll run him down," 
 was the call from our quarter-deck. 
 
 A man in the bow of the boat reached forward. 
 The drowning one caught at the outstretched arm, 
 and in a minute more was drawn into the boat. 
 
 "He s saved! He s saved! Thank God ! Thank 
 God ! " burst from the lips of all about me. A 
 cheer went up from the watching soldiers, although 
 some were under too great strain to join in it. 
 
 Officers looked at each other with pale faces 
 and tearful eyes, under the severe reaction of that 
 terrible strain. Strong men were weak. Careless 
 ones were serious. Some actually took to their 
 berths under the exhaustion following that tension 
 of the nerves. 
 
Disclosures of the Soldier Heart 45 
 
 Yet only one man had been in danger, in the 
 presence of thousands who were gathered to face 
 death and to lay down their lives, or to take life, 
 without flinching. Soldiers who would march 
 boldly up to the cannon s mouth, or who would 
 face volley after volley of musketry and not shrink 
 or shirk, would pale and shudder at the thought of 
 a poor fellow dying needlessly before their eyes 
 when there was a possibility of his saving. This 
 incident gave me a fresh glimpse of the soldier 
 heart, and showed anew that it is not in poetry 
 
 alone that 
 
 " The bravest are the tenderest, 
 The loving are the daring." 
 
 Tender as the soldier s heart was, it was even 
 truer and more loyal to the country for which his 
 life was given up. At times there was a momen 
 tary struggle between the drawings of natural 
 affection and the claims of patriotism, but patriotism 
 was sure to triumph. Two loving brothers were 
 side by side in my regiment. As they were moving 
 forward in a charge, near Kinston, North Carolina, 
 one of them fell dead, shot through the heart. His 
 brother, uttering a cry of grief, threw himself on 
 the body as if his own life were going out. Then, 
 as his comrades were pressing forward, he rose to 
 his feet, and, choking down all show of feeling, he 
 took his place in the ranks and went on in the 
 deadly charge. 
 
 Thoughts of home mingled with thoughts of 
 
46 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 army service in the heart of the average soldier 
 boy, for the soldiers in our Civil War were hardly 
 more than boys, as a rule. A battery boy shot in 
 the wrist was given chloroform in the field hospital 
 at Whitehall, North Carolina. While he was un 
 conscious, his hand was amputated and the stump 
 bound up. I was kneeling by his side as he came 
 again to his senses. Looking vacantly about him 
 at first, his eyes slowly turned to the bandaged 
 stump, and he realized the truth. Tears stood in 
 his eyes as he exclaimed unselfishly, "What will 
 my mother do now?" It was for her sake that he 
 grieved over his lost right hand ; but he did not 
 grudge his gift to his country. 
 
 " There goes a hand for the Union," said another 
 brave soldier, as his forearm was shot away. 
 
 More than once a wounded soldier called out to 
 me after a battle, as he saw I was taking the names 
 of the dead and wounded to report them in a home 
 paper : " Say slightly wounded, Chaplain." 
 
 He wanted to spare anxiety to his home dear 
 ones, true soldier that he was. 
 
 Tenderness and courage went together always. 
 As I was going from shelter-tent to shelter-tent, 
 visiting the men of my regiment, one hot Sunday 
 afternoon in the summer of 1864, at Deep Bottom, 
 Virginia, I found a little fellow crying bitterly with 
 homesickness. As I talked with him tenderly, I 
 found he was disappointed, and so almost heart 
 broken, because of his lack of home letters which 
 
Disclosures of the Soldier Heart 47 
 
 he had looked for. I spoke words of sympathy and 
 cheer, and as I left him I thought he was still too 
 much of a boy to be away from home in the army. 
 
 A few weeks later my regiment stood in battle 
 line, repelling one of the fiercest attacks of the 
 enemy we had met in our three years of service. 
 As I stood by my colonel and my brigade com 
 mander, just back of the line of battle, I saw that 
 homesick boy hurrying into his place in the ranks. 
 He had been out all night on picket duty, and, 
 coming into the camp in the morning, he had 
 learned of the regiment s new move, and had hur 
 ried to be with his comrades in their peril. Hardly 
 had he taken his place and fired his first shot when 
 he fell with a bullet through his lungs. Tearing 
 open his coat, and gasping for breath, as his life- 
 blood gushed out through his death-wound, with 
 never a whimper or a groan, he looked along 
 the unwavering line, and called out cheerily with 
 his failing breath, " Fire away, boys ; fire away ! " 
 And the homesick boy, who was the heroic soldier, 
 found his final rest. 
 
 As two regiments of our brigade were endeavor 
 ing to wrest an important position from the enemy 
 on the north bank of the James River, on a hot 
 July day, a man of the Eleventh Maine was shot 
 through the body, and was evidently dying. His 
 commander, seeing him there under the broiling 
 sun, and realizing that he had but a little while to 
 live, called to some men to carry him to a shady 
 
48 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 place at the rear. The brave fellow, taking in the 
 whole situation, said cheerily, " No, no, colonel. 
 That would take two men from the front, and every 
 man is needed here now. I can just as well die 
 here." And die there he did. What surpassing 
 love for their country and ours was that of these 
 tender-hearted, brave-souled soldiers ! 
 
 " Many with crossed hands sighed for her ; 
 But these, our brothers, fought for her, 
 At life s dear peril wrought for her, 
 So loved her that they died for her." 
 
 Many a soldier, weak in body but strong in 
 patriotic devotion, was surer to be on hand when 
 the order came to fall in for a fight than when his 
 rations were distributed day by day. Yet this was 
 not because he " would rather fight than eat," but 
 because his country s call to him for service was a 
 stronger appeal than his natural appetite. 
 
 There was a frail soldier boy in our regiment, 
 who was sick at Annapolis and on the transports 
 off Cape Hatteras and in the " Swash," but who 
 was in line of battle at Roanoke Island, standing 
 up bravely through it all. Giving way to weakness 
 after this fight, he was unable to do ordinary duty 
 in camp until the battle of New Berne came on, 
 and then he was again in line of battle through that 
 fight. This state of things went on for nearly two 
 years with this man. It seemed to need a battle 
 call to give him strength to rise up in his weak 
 ness for a life-and-death conflict; but that call was 
 
Disclosures of the Soldier Heart 49 
 
 sufficient. And after using all his failing strength 
 in his last battle, he at last lay down in his tent to 
 yield up his patriotic soldier life. 
 
 After nearly three years of hard service in our 
 regiment, one young officer grew sluggish in duty, 
 and his fellow-officers thought him inclined to 
 inaction, and lacking in his old-time zeal and fear 
 lessness. He was simply worn out with the work 
 he had been doing, in the exposures to which he 
 had been subjected. At length he was mustered 
 out at the close of his term of service, and he 
 started for home from his Virginia camp with but 
 little life remaining to him. Reaching the railroad 
 station in Connecticut nearest his home, he took a 
 stage-coach for a ten-mile drive to the old home 
 stead. Getting down from the stage-coach before 
 the farmhouse home, he walked up toward the 
 house, and was met and welcomed by his patriotic 
 old father. 
 
 " Father, I ve come home to die," he said. 
 
 And those were his last words. He staggered, 
 in growing weakness, into the house, and lay down 
 to die. His last strength had been reserved for 
 this home stretch ; and all his fellow-officers then 
 knew that he had been the true and brave soldier 
 to the end. 
 
 This self-abnegating devotion to country of the 
 soldier heart was not in solitary cases merely ; it 
 prevailed in families and communities, and was a 
 characteristic of our citizen soldiers as a class. A 
 
50 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 soldier in our brigade, out of a Maine family of 
 patriots, was an illustration of this. At the opening 
 of the war, a father and five sons from that family 
 volunteered for army service. 
 
 One son was wounded at the first Bull Run, but 
 was soon once more at the front. After a year s 
 service the father was mustered out for disability. 
 One son was killed at Antietam, a second at Port 
 Hudson, a third at Gettysburg. The son who was 
 wounded at Bull Run received another wound 
 before Petersburg, and started for home on sick 
 leave. Leaving the stage-coach at nightfall, at the 
 point nearest his father s house, he started across 
 the fields on foot. Weak from his wounds, and 
 weary, he wandered from the path in a blinding 
 sleet storm, and finally sank down exhausted, to be 
 frozen to death but a stone s throw from the dear 
 old patriot homestead whose shelter he was seeking. 
 
 The fifth and only surviving son, a soldier in the 
 Eleventh Maine, in our brigade, had been wounded 
 at the Deep Run fight in August, 1864, and was 
 at home when his last dead brother was brought 
 in. He soon after rejoined his regiment, where, in 
 the later months of the war, I saw him, and he then 
 apologized to me for being on light duty because 
 of his wound, instead of in more active service, as 
 if he wanted to have me know that he was not 
 shirking. Were there ever such soldier hearts as 
 the hearts of our average citizen soldiers ? 
 
 There was no show of heroism on the part of 
 
Disdosiires of the Soldier Heart 5 1 
 
 the average soldier, any more than there was a 
 show of sentiment. He simply was a loving- 
 hearted hero, without saying anything about it, or 
 making a demonstration of his feeling. Indeed, a 
 soldier tried to cover up his emotion ; and in this 
 effort he would frequently act as if he were ready 
 to laugh, when he felt a good deal more like cry 
 ing. A joke, indeed, often took the place of an 
 oath, starting a laugh instead of a groan or a sob, 
 as the feelings must find vent in some way. 
 
 Bivouacking in a field in North Carolina, when 
 on a hurried move into the interior of the state, we 
 were crowded together on the frozen ground on a 
 wintry night, mules and wagons near officers and 
 men. As we were trying to sleep, every once in a 
 while a mule would give one of those nerve-strain 
 ing brays that shook the ground and curdled the 
 blood, and seemed absolutely unbearable. After 
 this had gone on for a while, one of the men was 
 heard calling to his fellow, as if a pleasant thought 
 had just struck him, as another of those unearthly 
 brays quivered along the ground : " Steve, Steve, 
 I m going to carry one of those canaries home 
 with me." This sally was a relief to all of us ; and 
 some were asleep before we were fairly through 
 laughing over the ludicrous comparison. 
 
 As we marched along, far into the evening, on 
 one of the days of that raid, the column stopping 
 from time to time in the depressing air of a 
 malarial swamp, we grew tired and heavy, and 
 
52 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 longed for a change. As we halted again, a speci 
 men Yankee soldier drawled out : 
 
 " I don t wonder that North Car liner women 
 chew snuff." 
 
 " How so ? " 
 
 " Why, I should think they d get discouraged if 
 they didn t." 
 
 The laugh over that joke was all the more of a 
 relief because there was nothing in the joke. 
 
 Coming around Cape Hatteras on a rolling pro 
 peller in a storm, it was hard to keep up a show of 
 cheerful spirits. Several privates of a New York 
 regiment whose term of two years service had ex 
 pired lay on some bales of pressed hay congratu 
 lating themselves that they were going home at 
 last. One of them took out his discharge paper 
 and feasted his eyes on its wording. 
 
 " I say, Bill, hear this : No good reason is 
 known why John Wilson should not re -enlist. 
 Thunder ! I know more than a dozen reasons. In 
 the first place, I want somebody else to try it." 
 
 While before Petersburg, doing siege work, in 
 the summer of 1864, our men had wormy "hard 
 tack," or ship s biscuit, served out to them for a 
 time. It was a severe trial, and it taxed the temper 
 of the men. Breaking open the biscuit, and finding 
 live worms in them, they would throw the pieces 
 in the trenches where they were doing duty day by 
 day, although the orders were to keep the trenches 
 clean, for sanitary reasons. 
 
Disclosures of the Soldier Heart 5 3 
 
 A brigade officer of the day, seeing some of 
 these scraps along our front, called out sharply 
 to our men : " Throw that hardtack out of the 
 trenches." Then, as the men promptly gathered 
 it up as directed, he added : " Don t you know 
 that you ve no business to throw hardtack in 
 the trenches ? Haven t you been told that often 
 enough ? " Out from the injured soldier heart there 
 came the reasonable explanation : " We ve thrown 
 it out two or three times, sir, but it crawls back." 
 
 About that same time I was accompanying our 
 brigade commander in a tour of observation along 
 our front. As he stopped in the trenches where 
 the men were keeping up a sharp fire, he saw them 
 opening a fresh box of ammunition, of which they 
 constantly needed a new supply. Noting the care 
 ful wrapping of the cartridges in their neat pack 
 ages of a dozen each, he said pleasantly to the 
 soldier who was taking them out : 
 
 " Uncle Sam is very careful that his boys shall 
 have good cartridges while in his service." 
 
 " Yes, sir; I wish he was half as careful of their 
 hardtack," was the keen and respectful reply. 
 
 This dry humor in the expression of strong feel 
 ing showed itself in the ordinary soldier in every 
 phase of his service. There was a contempt for 
 cowardice and for shirking that must be spoken 
 out ; for all felt the danger to themselves of giving 
 way to temptation in that line, and they stayed 
 each other up by helping to keep public sentiment 
 
54 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 right. A coward or a shirk was a constant butt 
 of ridicule. 
 
 At Bermuda Hundreds, Virginia, when we first 
 reached there, in May, 1864, a detail of two hun 
 dred and fifty men was made from our regiment for 
 fatigue work during the night, throwing up an em 
 bankment in our front. Among the men sent out 
 was a notorious shirk from one of the companies, 
 who was never ready to fight or to work. 
 
 As I sat in my tent writing, that evening, I heard 
 a man outside stumbling in the darkness over the 
 tent-ropes at the rear of the field and staff tents. 
 The sentry in front of the colonel s tent called out : 
 
 " Who goes there ? " 
 
 " Me," piped a weak voice. 
 
 " Who s me?" 
 
 " Prince, of Company T." 
 
 " What are you doing here ? You were sent 
 out on fatigue. Why aren t you with the men ? " 
 
 " I lost my way, and couldn t find em." 
 
 " Corporal of the guard ! " called out the sentry. 
 " Here s Prince, of Company T. He s lost those 
 two hundred and fifty men he took out with him." 
 
 The regimental estimate of its champion shirk was 
 hissed out in that call to the corporal of the guard. 
 
 Perhaps the most trying service to which a sol 
 dier could be called, and that which tested most 
 sorely his courage and his character, was his ser 
 vice as a prisoner of war, an experience to which 
 thousands of soldiers were called, and in which 
 
Disclosures of the Soldier Heart 55 
 
 they were all put to the test, and stood it nobly. 
 There they had greatest need of sympathy and 
 affection, and there the manifestation of these feel 
 ings was most admirable and most comforting. 
 
 It was in the midsummer of 1863 that I was a 
 prisoner of war in Charleston, South Carolina. 
 Coming under the suspicion of being a spy, in con 
 sequence of an incident while on a visit through 
 the lines, under a flag of truce, in North Carolina 
 the year before, I was separated from my prison 
 comrades of the Union army, and was shut in the 
 common jail, among murderers and desperadoes 
 from the streets of Charleston in the worst days of 
 the Southern Confederacy. 
 
 The condition of things on our side of the lines, 
 at the time of my capture, seemed dark at the best. 
 Battles had gone against us. Generals had disap 
 pointed us. Gettysburg still hung in the balance, 
 at our latest news from the North. I had heard 
 cheers in the streets of Charleston over the news 
 of the draft riots in New York City, as I was 
 brought toward the jail. To be a prisoner at such 
 a time, with the gallows confronting one, and not 
 a human being to give a word or a look of sym 
 pathy, was a strain on any soldier heart, that tempted 
 one to despair as to the earthly outlook. 
 
 I never had such a glimpse of the bottomless pit 
 as in the scene before me in that jail at that time. 
 The air itself was stifling in the foulness of those 
 close-shut and heated wards. And the moral 
 
56 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 atmosphere was yet more dense and intolerable. 
 Blasphemy and obscene speech poured out un 
 ceasingly from the lips of demon-like men, half 
 clothed or actually naked, who glared and wrangled 
 and struggled in that seething mass of sin-cursed 
 humanity. Occasionally the cry of " Murder ! " 
 centered all attention for the moment in ruffians 
 who were rolling on the floor in the angry clutch of 
 deadly hatred, and the strong arms of other ruffians 
 were taxed to their utmost in separating the bitter 
 combatants. And all the while the air seemed 
 fouler and fouler, and the place itself more hope 
 lessly suffocating. 
 
 Shrinking from the pollution which pressed me 
 at every turn, I found my way into one of the cells 
 opening into the court where the multitude 
 thronged and swayed; and there I clambered up 
 on to the stone window-bench before one of the 
 barred openings through the heavy walls of the 
 jail, and, drawing up my knees so as to keep within 
 the recess of the narrow opening, I bowed my head 
 on my knees, and gave way to my feelings in the 
 utter weakness of despair. I could not live any 
 longer as I was. I did not want to live. I must 
 be out from there. Anywhere, anywhere, even by 
 way of the gallows, out from that hell upon earth ! 
 
 Just then it was, as I huddled there in that jail 
 window with my face against my drawn-up knees, 
 that I was touched gently on the shoulder, and a 
 kindly voice said to me, 
 
Disclosures of the Soldier Heart 57 
 
 " You seem troubled, my friend. Maybe you re 
 hungry. Cheer up ! Here s some bread." 
 
 I looked up, as much surprised as despairing 
 Elijah when the angel came and touched him 
 under the juniper bush in the desert. And there, 
 just below me, was the winsome face of a young 
 man who seemed all unlike the other inmates of 
 that place of horrors, who was reaching up to me 
 a loaf of soft white bread. 
 
 "Thank you! Thank you!" I said instinctively. 
 " It s not bread I m wanting." 
 
 " Oh ! but you look hungry," he added. " You ll 
 want it by and by. It s good bread." And he 
 laid the loaf on my knees, and turned away into 
 the surging crowd, out of my sight again. 
 
 It was good bread, a baker s loaf, in marked 
 contrast with our coarse cornmeal prison fare ; but 
 that was not what I was longing for. I was, in 
 deed, hungry, oh, how hungry! but not for bread. 
 My heart was hungry for human sympathy, for just 
 such words and looks as he brought me with that 
 loaf. 
 
 As he disappeared into the crowd, I raised my 
 head, and drew a full long breath again. A crush 
 ing weight seemed lifted from my shoulders. I 
 dropped myself off from that window bench and 
 stood erect. I was another man. I was in another 
 place, a larger, freer place. The wall of the gloomy 
 jail had moved outward. Its ceiling had been 
 uplifted. The air was purer. I was glad I was 
 
58 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 alive. And life was worth living. And all be 
 cause of that glimpse of a brother soldier s heart 
 
 Who was he ? I turned to find him. Pushing 
 through the crowd, I pressed on till I saw him be 
 fore me. Reaching out my hand, and laying it on 
 his shoulder, I said : " Look here, my friend ! Who 
 are you ? How came you here ? " Not knowing 
 who I was, Union or Confederate, he answered 
 cheerily: "Oh! I m a Yankee soldier. I m from 
 away up in Connecticut; but I m fast, down here, 
 now." 
 
 It will be believed that that answer brought us 
 nearer together. I learned that he also was under 
 suspicion as a spy, but that he had been longer in 
 that place, and had better adapted himself to it, than 
 I had. And in the spirit of a brave, true-hearted 
 soldier, he had come to a fellow-sufferer, with love 
 in his heart and a loaf of bread in his hand, and 
 had given me life and help and cheer. That was 
 like a true soldier prisoner. 
 
 A little later, when I was released from special 
 confinement, and was with the other Union army 
 and navy prisoners in Columbia Jail, I had another 
 glimpse of the soldier heart, and of the soldier-sailor 
 heart, in special trial. The siege of Charleston 
 was in progress. An attempt was to be made by 
 the Confederate forces to blow up the New Iron 
 sides in the Union fleet. They were desirous of 
 obtaining information from some of the sailor 
 prisoners concerning the modes of approach to 
 
Disclosures of the Soldier Heart 59 
 
 that vessel, in order that they might reach it most 
 effectively. They supposed it would be an easy 
 matter to bribe one of the Yankee sailors to give 
 this information, and they gave orders to one of 
 the non-commissioned officers on guard over these 
 prisoners to do this, but to no purpose. 
 
 Then a commissioned officer tried it, with the 
 same result. Afterwards the captain of the guard 
 himself made the attempt, but was unsuccessful. 
 At length a staff officer of General Beauregard 
 came up from Charleston to show how this could 
 be done. He took those sailors one by one, and 
 told each man that, if he would answer a few ques 
 tions about the New Ironsides, he would be liberally 
 paid for it, and would be sent through the lines to 
 go free to his Northern home. That was a tempt 
 ing offer to half-starved men, in a cramped and 
 heated prison, food, money, liberty, for answers to 
 a few questions. But among all those Union sailors, 
 not one American jack-tar could be seduced from 
 duty. They all had brave and loyal hearts, as was 
 made clear to those who had this glimpse of those 
 hearts. 
 
 Yet later, in that same Columbia Jail, we were 
 all brought to another test. There was a threat of 
 retaliatory measures on the part of both govern 
 ments. General Burnside had executed two Con 
 federate prisoners as spies in East Tennessee. The 
 authorities at Richmond had selected two Federal 
 officers, from Libby Prison, for execution in retali- 
 
60 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 ation. Our government at Washington had picked 
 two Confederates to execute in case the hostages 
 were harmed. There was talk of following this up 
 until the prisons were emptied. 
 
 Looking at this threat from the prisoners side 
 at that time was very different from talking it over 
 now as war history. It was, to say the least, not a 
 cheering prospect. Some of us were inclined to 
 grumble. One afternoon, as a group of us sat to 
 gether in the Columbia jail, it was said by one that 
 we had enlisted to fight, and not to be strung up 
 like dogs, and it wasn t fair on the part of our 
 government to leave us in this plight. 
 
 Just then a lieutenant from a Maine regiment, 
 hearing our talk, stalked into our room from the 
 room beyond, and, standing up before us, said 
 pluckily : 
 
 "Well, fellows, do you want to know how 
 I feel about this thing ? I ll tell you. I enlisted 
 to serve my government, and I m going to stick to 
 my agreement. If my government thinks I can 
 serve her best by being hanged, I m ready to be 
 hanged. That s all there is about that." 
 
 " Bully for you, Lieutenant Ware ! " was the an 
 swer of one of our number, and we were all agreed 
 with him. His was the true soldier heart. 
 
 Soldiers were bright and tender and brave. They 
 were unselfish and devoted. Nothing that their 
 country needed of them was denied or begrudged. 
 They kept back no part of their country s ransom, 
 
Disclosures of the Soldier Heart 6 1 
 
 nor complained they of the mode and manner of 
 its payment. 
 
 At the close of the war I saw a Virginia land 
 owner near the field of Mechanicsville, where 
 General McClellan fought one of his severe battles 
 in the summer of 1862. This man said that he 
 went out to the field after our troops had retired 
 from it. He noticed a little fellow lying wounded 
 in the hot sun. As he looked pityingly at the boy, 
 the boy gained courage to make a request : 
 
 " Neighbor, won t you get me a drink of water ? 
 I m very thirsty." 
 
 " Of course I will," said the man, and he brought 
 the water. 
 
 Encouraged by this, the little fellow asked again : 
 "Won t you get me taken to the hospital? I m 
 badly wounded." 
 
 The man said : "Well now, my boy, if I get you 
 taken care of, and you get well so that you can go 
 home again, will you come down here and fight me 
 and my folks once more ? How about that ? " 
 
 It was a hard test for a wounded prisoner boy, 
 but that boy stood the test. Looking his captor in 
 the eye, he said firmly : "That I would, my friend." 
 
 " I tell you," said that man, " I liked that pluck. 
 I had that boy taken to the hospital and good care 
 taken of him." 
 
 Because a soldier had to button his soldier coat 
 over his heart, and not give way to ordinary emo 
 tions of affection or anxiety, he was all the more 
 
62 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 susceptible to influences immediately about him 
 which appealed to his tenderest feelings. Home 
 ties were for the time being suspended. He must 
 not think much of father or mother, of brother or 
 sister, of wife or children, or of another self from 
 whom he was far separated. Dwelling on such 
 thoughts would tend to draw him away from pres 
 ent prevailing duty. Yet his heart must have vent, 
 and as a consequence it went out with peculiar 
 affection toward an army comrade by his side, who 
 was congenial in spirit, or whose needs appealed to 
 his sympathies. It was this that made army friend 
 ships so close and precious, and that gave them, in 
 many a case, a touch of romance beyond the crea 
 tions of fiction. There was every grade of these 
 friendships, from the most refined and poetic to 
 the most commonplace and even ludicrous ; yet in 
 them all was the disclosure of the true soldier heart. 
 During the last year of the war there was an in 
 flux of substitutes and " bounty jumpers," including 
 foreigners of all descriptions, in place of the volun 
 teer Americans who had before filled our ranks. 
 Among these substitutes, desertions were numer 
 ous, and executions were frequent. There was, in 
 my regiment, an intelligent Swede, by the name 
 of Lundman, in whom I became quite interested. 
 The Swedes were as a class good soldiers and good 
 men. This one helped me in the putting up of my 
 chapel-tent, and he afterwards brought one of his 
 countrymen to me who could not speak English, 
 
Disclosures of the Soldier Heart 63 
 
 but who wanted to talk with me. One day I learned 
 that he had deserted and been arrested, and was 
 now in the care of the provost-marshal. An Irish 
 man came to me with the first news of this affair. 
 
 " Misther Chaplain," he said, " I ve gravous news 
 for ye. Yer frind, Misther Lanman, who was 
 afther fixin yer tent for ye, sthrayed off the picket 
 line, and they found him, and I think they re call- 
 in him a desarter." 
 
 Then, with this mild putting of the facts, he be 
 gan to plead for his tent-rnate as I had never heard 
 one man plead for another of another nationality. 
 It was evident that here was one of those peculiar 
 and powerful army loves that take the whole heart, 
 as only a soldier affection can. My own heart was 
 moved in sympathy, as the poor fellow poured out 
 his for his other self. 
 
 " For the love of God, Misther Chaplain, save him 
 ev ye can ! For God s sake spake to the Gin ril ! 
 O God ! I d die ev they shot im ! And I know 
 he was niver afther maneing it." 
 
 In his rude, tender speech, he told how he had 
 come to love the Swede. 
 
 " It s never I saw him till we got to the camp 
 togither ; but ev he wuz me own brother I couldn t 
 luv him more. Ev he wuz me own counthryman I d 
 niver be here a spakin for him. He had mighty 
 atthractive ways on him. He cud spake Swadish 
 and Jarman and Inglish, but he cud only write 
 the Swadish. And he waz for asking me to write 
 
64 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 down a little song for him, that he cud write it out in 
 Inglish. And there he wuz three days at the writ- 
 in . Ah ! he wuz a grate figurist. I d go across the 
 ocean with that man all alone in a ship. Why, 
 would you b lave it ? he was afther markin out on 
 a paper the whole of a compass, ye see. And sez 
 he, I ll be makin a sailor uv ye, Pat Nothin 
 wuz a mysthery to him. And the more I saw uv 
 him, the more I wuz thinkin uv his ways, and the 
 more plazin they were to me." 
 
 The eloquence of unselfish love was in this plea 
 for his friend, and I could not refuse to do what I 
 might in the Swede s behalf. I went to the provost- 
 marshal s quarters, and found that the evidence of 
 desertion was clear, and that the man did not even 
 deny it. On my return the Irishman was watching 
 for me. 
 
 " Hev you seen him, yer riv rince ? Can yer 
 riv rince do anythin for him ? " 
 
 Then he told me feelingly how he hoped my 
 prayers at dress-parade, and my " tacheings at the 
 meetings " had had a good influence over him ; as 
 if he wanted his friend to be ready at the last for 
 the sad end that threatened him. 
 
 Appomattox Court House ended the war, leaving 
 the Swede unshot, and his Irish tent-mate happy ; 
 but the incident of that army friendship freshly 
 impressed me with a sense of the tenderness of 
 the uncommon common soldier s heart. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 A CHAPLAIN S SERMONS 
 
 Our Civil War, with its national outbreak and 
 uprising, brought to all citizens new conditions of 
 life, and new needs and duties. Ordinary guides of 
 conduct and belief appeared in a new light when 
 looked at in the lurid flames of fratricidal strife. 
 The very pages of the Bible read differently when 
 searched for counsel and suggestion in a state of 
 things never before known or conceived of by the 
 lover of God s word. 
 
 It was a typical experience that was told of by 
 the patriotic clergyman who had been a zealous 
 advocate of peace at all times down to the attack 
 on Fort Sumter. 
 
 When, on Saturday, April 14, 1861, the old flag 
 was there hauled down under the hostile fire of 
 those who had been trusted as its defenders, and 
 the aroused North was in the white heat of a 
 righteous indignation, this clergyman thought of 
 his call to preach on the morrow. The only fitting 
 text, he said, that he could find in that Bible, which 
 had seemed to him until now to enjoin only peace 
 and non-resistance, was the command of the Prince 
 
66 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 of Peace : " He that hath no sword, let him sell 
 his garment, and buy one." 
 
 When clergymen were appointed as chaplains in 
 the Federal army they found that their divinity- 
 school teachings and their pulpit training and ex 
 perience were not sufficient to enable them to meet 
 the new demands on them for their soldier congre 
 gations in camp and in campaigning. Old sermons, 
 preached in the quiet of home life, or in the self- 
 seeking struggles of business and money-getting 
 activities, were not adapted to the needs and trials 
 of men who had left home behind them, and were 
 living and dying in self-sacrificing devotion to their 
 God-given government and their loved and im 
 periled country. 
 
 A worthy and devoted clergyman, who had stood 
 well as preacher and pastor at home before his 
 appointment as chaplain, was bemoaning the hope 
 lessness of his best endeavors to meet the necessi 
 ties of his present position before he had learned 
 the peculiar needs of soldiers. 
 
 " Will they listen to your preaching, Chaplain ? " 
 he asked. " My men don t seem to want sermons. 
 When I came out, I had picked out about fifty of 
 the best sermons I had, but none of them seem to 
 suit. I have cut them down as well as I could, 
 until I have almost spoiled their plan ; but the 
 colonel tells me they are too long; and all the 
 others seem to think so. Soldiers don t appear to 
 like preaching." 
 
A Chaplain s Sermons 67 
 
 On the other hand, the clergyman who as an 
 army chaplain recognized the fact that at home he 
 never saw such a congregation as was before him 
 in his new charge, that he had never been with 
 men who were so inspired, so tempted, so beset, or 
 so imperiled, and that neither he nor they had ever 
 lived and faced death in such a time, with its pecu 
 liar conditions and necessities, would not think of 
 looking to old experiences for counsel and guid 
 ance, or to old sermons for words of sympathy and 
 incitement and cheer to his men. He would find 
 fresh calls for help in his and their surroundings, 
 in the look of their eyes, and in the expression of 
 their features, and he would feel that he must say 
 what he had never been moved to say in any 
 former sphere of existence, or utterly fail to meet 
 their requirements. Thus aroused and inspired, 
 many an army chaplain who had been a good 
 preacher at home became a better preacher in the 
 field, because he was a new man in the new needs 
 of the new hour and sphere. 
 
 Being appointed to an army chaplaincy with 
 out training or experience as a clergyman, I had 
 none of the helps, and none of the hindrances, 
 of service in a previous ministerial sphere. I was 
 not, on the one hand, bound by a sense of conven 
 tional limitations in sermon-making ; and, on the 
 other hand, I lacked many of the advantages of 
 study and practice in formal religious discourse. I 
 came to my new duties as a new man, and I have 
 
68 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 thought that the lessons of my peculiar experience 
 might be of benefit to others, as illustrating the 
 wonderful fitness of the Bible to every condition 
 and need of man, and the readiness of men to 
 recognize this truth as made clear to them. 
 
 Joining my regiment at New Berne, North Caro 
 lina, in the autumn of 1862, I preached my first 
 sermon there on the Sunday after my arrival, be 
 fore officers and men, in our large chapel-tent. I 
 announced my position and work in the words of 
 our great Commander, in Luke 22 : 27, 
 
 " I am among you as he that serveth." 
 
 The test of a soldier s efficiency was service. It 
 was his duty, and it should be his joy, to serve his 
 God, his country, and his commander. In addition 
 to all this, I, as a regimental chaplain, had the duty 
 and the joy of serving every officer and man in the 
 regiment in my public and my private ministra 
 tions. That was my starting-point. On that plane 
 I was sure of a welcome. Thenceforward I had 
 no fear of being misunderstood as to my chaplain s 
 rights and privileges. 
 
 Not long after there came a proclamation from 
 President Lincoln appointing a national Thanks 
 giving Day. In New England, Thanksgiving Day 
 was pre-eminently the home festival of the year. 
 If the scattered members of a family could be to 
 gether at the old homestead only once in twelve 
 months, they would choose that day for the re 
 union. They looked forward with pleasant antici- 
 
A Chaplain s Sermons 69 
 
 pations to that festival as the time when they 
 might once more sit together at the family table 
 and be happy. But here were Connecticut boys 
 in the field, doing picket duty in front of the 
 enemy s lines, with no possibility of going home, 
 seriously requested to celebrate Thanksgiving Day. 
 It seemed hardly less than a mockery. 
 
 Friends of the soldiers in Connecticut sent to 
 the regiment a good supply of turkeys and cran 
 berries, of apples and hickory nuts, for an extra 
 regimental dinner ; but these accompaniments of 
 Thanksgiving could not make the missing family 
 gathering. The call to give thanks suggested sad 
 thoughts rather than joyous ones on its first pres 
 entation. But a church service, with a Thanksgiv 
 ing sermon, was a matter of course on that day, 
 and I sought to conduct one adapted to the pecu 
 liar circumstances of the occasion. 
 
 My text was from Psalm 23 : 5, 
 
 " Thou preparest a table before me in the pres 
 ence of mine enemies : thou anointest my head 
 with oil ; my cup runneth over." 
 
 As showing that these words were not used 
 merely by accommodation from their verbal fitness, 
 I recalled that they were spoken by David, who 
 had been brought up in the quiet of a country home 
 life, and been called to leave his home and go out 
 to war. He knew what it was to be away from his 
 dear ones and in the face of enemies. Yet he 
 recognized God s goodness to him there, and he was 
 
70 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 glad to give God thanks for all that he had had of 
 good, for all that he still had, and for all that 
 he could look forward to in faith and hope. 
 Then I drew a parallel between David s case and 
 ours, and gave reasons why a day of thanksgiving 
 was eminently fitting and timely, just as we were 
 situated. I think that that Thanksgiving Day in 
 the field brought fresh lessons of God s goodness, 
 and of the fulness and fitness of God s words in the 
 Book of Books, to many in that soldier congrega 
 tion, as it certainly did to the chaplain. 
 
 As the months of the war dragged wearily on 
 without the longed-for progress toward a satisfactory 
 close ; as general after general failed of coming up 
 to popular expectation ; as campaign after campaign 
 ended in disaster or was practically fruitless; as 
 party dissensions divided the loyal people at home, 
 the spirits of officers and men in the field were 
 sorely strained, and despondency seemed to be 
 replacing hope and courage in many a heart. In 
 December, 1862, our immediate command, under 
 General John G. Foster, made a move toward the 
 Weldon Railroad, in North Carolina, in conjunction 
 with the Army of the Potomac in its advance on 
 Fredericksburg, Virginia, under General Burnside. 
 Our command was successful, although with heavy 
 loss to our regiment, while General Burnside s cam 
 paign ended disastrously. It was a depressing time 
 to all of us. I tried to bring a cheery message to 
 the men from the Bible pages. 
 
A Chaplain s Sermons 71 
 
 My text was from Psalm 60 : 12, 
 
 " Through God we shall do valiantly : for he it 
 is that shall tread down our enemies." 
 
 This psalm is said, in its title, to have been 
 written " when Joab returned, and smote of Edom 
 in the valley of salt twelve thousand," and it was 
 written "to teach," that is, to be handed down from 
 generation to generation ; therefore its lessons are 
 for us as well as for the Israelites, and we ought 
 to try to find them out and improve them. 
 
 The Edomites were descendants of Esau, as the 
 Israelites were descendants of Jacob. All were 
 descendants of Isaac, and were originally brethren. 
 As brethren they first became estranged over a 
 mess of colored pottage, and finally were at open 
 war with each other. The Edomites closed their 
 borders against the Israelites, and afterwards came 
 out against them "with much people, and with a 
 strong hand" (Num. 20 : 18-21), seeking to destroy 
 their corporate nationality, saying, " Come, and let 
 us cut them off from being a nation " (Psa. 83 : 4). 
 They became, we are told, " confederate " (Psa. 
 83 : 5) against the loyal people of Israel. 
 
 They had at the start an advantage over their 
 Northern brethren. They were trained to hunting, 
 to the use of arms, and to strife. Their brethren 
 were a people of peaceful habits and pursuits, illy 
 fitted to contend in warfare, but whose spirits could 
 not be broken, and who would not give up their 
 faith in God, who had assured to them their heritage. 
 
72 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 Finally, David, the God-chosen ruler of Israel, 
 by his favorite commander, Joab, overpowered the 
 warlike confederates in the Valley of Salt, and then 
 David, in order to make peace secure, "put gar 
 risons in Edom ; throughout all Edom put he 
 garrisons, and all they of Edom became David s 
 servants. And the Lord preserved David whither 
 soever he went " (2 Sam. 8 : 14). 
 
 The application of these facts to our condition 
 of then was easily shown ; and it was not difficult 
 to make evident our personal duty in the existing 
 condition of affairs. The advantage of such a 
 Bible parallel to soldiers in service was, that the 
 words of encouragement and exhortation came not 
 as from their chaplain, but as from the Word of 
 God, which they were bound to honor and heed. 
 
 A Christian officer of my regiment expressed 
 himself as pleased with the appropriateness of this 
 sermon, but he added that of course there could 
 not be found another such Bible parallel to give 
 encouragement to men in our condition. Yet, as 
 the months went by, both he and the chaplain found 
 that there was no lack of Bible parallels for one 
 who was in need of them, and who sought their 
 inspiration and guidance. 
 
 Days grew darker in prolonged campaigning, 
 and with the depressing influence of repeated fail 
 ures and defeats. Many grew tired of the contest, 
 and many lost hope that good would come of its 
 continuance. At home there were those who 
 
A Chaplain s Sermons 73 
 
 clamored for peace at any price. In the army 
 there were dissatisfaction and evil foreboding. In 
 our department of the South, the expedition against 
 Charleston seemed a failure. In the West, Vicks- 
 burg still held out, and the Mississippi was yet 
 closed. The Army of the Potomac seemed never 
 to succeed. What was there to be hopeful over ? 
 Men s hearts failed them because of weary inaction 
 or of disastrous defeat. 
 
 In February, 1863, when the condition of affairs 
 was peculiarly disheartening, as our command was 
 inactive on St. Helena Island, and the news from 
 the North tended to depress officers and men, I 
 announced a sermon on the times for Washing 
 ton s Birthday, which came that year on a Sunday. 
 I preached from Exodus 14 : 15, 
 
 "And the Lord said unto Moses, Wherefore 
 criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of 
 Israel, that they go forward." 
 
 The opening of the sermon was a portrayal of 
 the condition of affairs between the Egyptians and 
 the Israelites, who had long dwelt together in har 
 mony, but were now in hostility. The Egyptians 
 had feared that they should lose their control of 
 the government through the multiplying and the 
 activity of the Israelites, descendants of pilgrim 
 fathers. The census was a constant menace to 
 them. So they had set themselves to oppose and 
 oppress their neighbors, and, failing of success by 
 such means, they came to open warfare. 
 
74 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 At first the Israelites were enthusiastic and hope 
 ful. They thanked God that he was leading them, 
 and they rejoiced that their moral stamina was 
 being brought to the test. They were confident 
 that their troubles would soon be over. But they 
 found that final victory was not so speedy nor so 
 easy as they had anticipated. Before long they 
 were surrounded by difficulties. It seemed impos 
 sible for them to advance. They could not retreat. 
 The enemy was in their rear. The sea was before 
 them, and no transportation was at hand. They 
 appeared to be entrapped, outgeneraled, undone. 
 " They were sore afraid," not from a lack of per 
 sonal courage, but from a sense of hopelessness. 
 Then the grumbling began. 
 
 How many regrets there were that this last ex 
 pedition had been attempted ! Officers and men 
 groaned over the matter, and wondered why their 
 leaders had done as they had. Was Moses a knave, 
 or a fool ? Had he planned the destruction of his 
 army, or didn t he know any better ? Why must 
 such a man be in such a place of responsibility ? 
 Was there a Hebrew corporal who couldn t do 
 better than this general ? If there were no better 
 commanders to be had than Moses and Aaron, why 
 keep up this murderous conflict ? The original 
 "peace men" grew confident. They boasted to 
 Moses that they had foretold this. "Is not this 
 the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, 
 Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians ? 
 
A Chaplains Sermons 75 
 
 For it had been better for us to serve the Egyp 
 tians than that we should die in the wilderness." 
 
 It is probable that even Moses himself grew 
 anxious, although he kept up his courage and his 
 faith. Then it was that God spoke out to Moses, 
 to show what he would have him do in this emer 
 gency : "Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak 
 unto the children of Israel, that they go forward." 
 God s order was simple and explicit. " Go forward," 
 difficulties or no difficulties. The people went for 
 ward, without transportation. God bared the bed 
 of the Red Sea. The Israelites crossed on dry 
 ground safely. The Egyptians were overwhelmed. 
 There was no doubt, after that, as to victory. 
 
 God foresaw the cost of obedience, and its gain, 
 when he said to the Israelites " Go forward." The 
 Israelites trusted him sufficiently to obey. Who 
 supposes that in the palmy days of Solomon the 
 glorious, when Judea was the brightest kingdom of 
 earth, and all nations looked to it with admiration 
 and longing, those who reveled in its delights, and 
 shared in its benefits, regretted that their fathers 
 had heeded God s voice in their time of doubting? 
 What God had said to the Israelites, God said to 
 Union soldiers at this time. If we would go for 
 ward, our children at least would rejoice in our 
 obedience. 
 
 There were occasions when a text in its time 
 liness was a sermon in its teaching, as truly as 
 
76 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 was the elaboration of an extended Scripture 
 parallel. Early in 1863, our division was put on 
 army transports in the waters of North Carolina, 
 and sent to sea under sealed orders. When those 
 orders were opened, we found we were to have an 
 active part in the siege of Charleston. As Sunday 
 came while we were on our way, I preached to my 
 regiment on the deck of a crowded transport We 
 were anticipating a speedy share in hard fighting, 
 and there was an extra readiness to heed a chap 
 lain s words in view of the seriousness of the hour. 
 I took two texts for the occasion, 
 
 " When the host goeth forth against thine ene 
 mies, then keep thee from every wicked thing" 
 (Deut 23 : 9). 
 
 " And it shall be, when ye are come nigh unto the 
 battle, that the priest shall approach and speak unto 
 the people, and shall say unto them, Hear, O 
 Israel, ye approach this day unto battle against 
 your enemies : let not your hearts faint, fear not, 
 and do not tremble, neither be ye terrified because 
 of them ; for the Lord your God is he that goeth 
 with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to 
 save you " (Deut. 20 : 2-4). 
 
 The lessons of these texts were obvious. Success 
 in every righteous conflict depends on God. He 
 who would have God s help must be God s servant. 
 As God s servant he must be true to God. When 
 a soldier is called to face death as a servant of God 
 he must keep himself from evil, so that he may be 
 
A Chaplain s Sermons 77 
 
 near to God and trustful in him. Thus pure and 
 thus trustful, he may be fearless and courageous. 
 God will go with him, and will save him living or 
 dying. The special temptations of the soldier, and 
 his moral and spiritual perils, were pointed out in 
 detail. 
 
 One Sunday, in the summer of 1863, when my 
 regiment was doing picket duty in front of the 
 enemy, on Seabrook Island, in the waters of South 
 Carolina, and I could not gather an audience at 
 any center for a religious service, I selected a 
 timely text, in I Peter 5 : 8, and went from post to 
 post of the picket line, repeating the text and 
 briefly enforcing its lessons, 
 
 " Be sober, be vigilant [or, watchful] ; because 
 your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh 
 about, seeking whom he may devour." 
 
 The men had a duty to be watchful against ene 
 mies, and they realized that they must be sober 
 and alert if they would guard against being sur 
 prised. I reminded them that there was a spiritual 
 enemy who was more to be dreaded than any flesh- 
 and-blood foe whom they were watching against, 
 and I suggested ways in which the Devil might 
 harm them on the picket front. 
 
 During the siege of Charleston I was taken pris 
 oner on Morris Island, and was for several months 
 confined in jail at Charleston and Columbia. 
 
78 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 There I found new conditions confronting me, in 
 preaching to my audience of prison soldiers ; but 
 the Bible never failed to furnish texts and lessons 
 that seemed designed for just our peculiar case. 
 After a time I was taken from Columbia to Rich 
 mond, and was an inmate of Libby Prison. 
 
 More than nine hundred officers were crowded 
 together in that comfortless prison-house just then. 
 The annoyances of heat in summer and cold in 
 winter, and of vermin at all seasons, added to the 
 nerve-straining trial of confinement and inaction at 
 a time when the calls to a part in the great con 
 flict outside were louder and more imperative than 
 ever, and taxed the patience and temper of all 
 beyond ordinary endurance. Profanity and foul 
 speech were the special vices of the place, promoted 
 and intensified by the always scanty and often re 
 pulsive fare of prison life. This was the state of 
 things as I preached my first sermon there. My 
 text was Mark 7 : 14-16, 
 
 "And when he had called all the people unto 
 him, he said unto them, Hearken unto me every one 
 of you, and understand : there is nothing from 
 without a man that entering into him can defile 
 him ; but the things which come out of him, those 
 are they that defile the man. If any man have ears 
 to hear, let him hear." 
 
 Here was a complete discourse by itself, with in 
 troduction, teachings, and added warning. It was 
 worthy of our special attention and improvement. 
 
A Chaplain s Sermons 79 
 
 Speech is more than food. Poor fare is not so 
 defiling or destructive as foul language. It were 
 better to be slowly poisoned to death than to 
 poison the air about us by the outgiving of evil in 
 fluence from our inner being. It is never a gain to 
 ourselves to speak out bad thoughts that we are 
 conscious of holding. Giving them expression 
 increases the defilement within ; it defiles us ex 
 ternally, and it tends to defile others who may be 
 about us. It were preferable to die holding in our 
 evil thoughts than to live giving them expression, 
 with the sure consequences of such a course. Only 
 in a place as crowded and comfortless as Libby 
 Prison could this truth be felt as we felt it there. 
 
 When their first term of army enlistment was 
 nearing its close, while the end of the war seemed 
 as remote as ever, the soldiers were invited to re- 
 enlist for three years more. It was not a tempting 
 proposition. The men of our regiment were in 
 poor quarters, with worn-out tents that could not 
 protect them from the rain. Their clothing was 
 old, and they could get no new supply. They were 
 in arrears of pay. The prospect was dark for any 
 successful campaigning. On a stormy day in Janu 
 ary, 1864, the poorly clad men stood in the rain 
 and were asked to pledge themselves for another 
 three years of similar service. They responded 
 with heroic alacrity. A large majority of those 
 who were competent to service came forward as 
 
8o War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 veteran volunteers. A furlough of thirty days was 
 granted to all such veterans, and special transporta 
 tion was furnished them by the government. On 
 the Sunday before the re-enlisted men were to start 
 on their home furlough, I preached a sermon to 
 them in the Presbyterian Church at St. Augustine, 
 Florida. My text was from Mark 5 : 19, 
 
 " Go home to thy friends, and tell them how 
 great things the Lord hath done for thee." 
 
 Pointing out that there were some things in our 
 experiences of God s goodness that he did not wish 
 us to publish abroad, and that there were others 
 that he wanted us to tell of for the good that might 
 come of it, I suggested that re-enlisted veterans had 
 a duty to tell others of the gain that had come to 
 soldiers in God s protection of them thus far, in 
 his raising of their standard of personal manhood, 
 and in his increase of their love of country, as they 
 began anew to serve that country at whatever cost 
 it might be to them. In the spirit of that counsel 
 those soldiers went to their homes as missionaries 
 of patriotism and unflinching loyalty. 
 
 It was after months of severe service in the siege 
 of Charleston that our regiment had been ordered 
 to Florida, to do guard duty at St. Augustine, 
 where was the convalescent camp and hospital of 
 the department. This was comparatively light and 
 easy work. It was what soldiers called "a soft 
 thing." The climate was delightful. Tropical, or 
 
A Chaplain s Sermons 8 1 
 
 semi-tropical, flowers and foliage and fruit abounded. 
 There was pleasant society there, including some 
 favored health-seekers from the North, and there 
 was relief from the constant strain of more active 
 service. It was for this reason, indeed, that our 
 regiment, sadly depleted by losses in battle, and 
 worn down by prolonged endurance in siege work, 
 had been assigned to duty just there in order to 
 rest and recuperate. It was there that I rejoined 
 my command when released from prison. As the 
 spring of 1864 opened, after the return of our re- 
 enlisted veterans, preparations were making, farther 
 north, for a fresh and vigorous campaign under 
 General Grant, now in command of all the armies 
 in the field. Rumors came of our being speedily 
 ordered to Virginia, to co-operate with the till then 
 often unfortunate Army of the Potomac, and these 
 rumors were by no means generally welcomed. 
 
 Rest and inaction among soldiers inevitably 
 tended to lower the tone of zeal and courage. The 
 memory of battles, with their severe losses, caused 
 our men to shrink from new active service at the 
 front. Companionships of various sorts formed in 
 the place of our sojourn made, to some, the thought 
 of going away peculiarly distasteful. An expedi 
 tion along the southern coast on army transports 
 was anything but attractive, in view of the trying 
 experiences off Cape Hatteras, and in the " Swash," 
 in the Burnside expedition at the beginning of our 
 regimental service. Murmurings began to be 
 
2 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 heard among the men, and there were unfavorable 
 comments on the part of too many of the officers. 
 Some said : 
 
 "We ve done our share of fighting. I want 
 somebody else to try it." 
 
 " It isn t fair for one regiment to do more than 
 any other." 
 
 " Besides, it s no use for men to be killed without 
 accomplishing anything; and that seems to be the 
 way in this war." 
 
 Remarks like these were only making a hard 
 matter worse. We should have to go where we 
 were ordered, whether we liked to or not; and it 
 was my duty to inspire officers and men to their 
 best part wherever they were in the coming hard 
 struggle. I gave notice of a sermon on " the move 
 to Virginia," and set at work to prepare it. Our 
 Sunday services were being held at that time in the 
 little Episcopal church just south of the plaza. My 
 text was from Numbers 32 : 6, 
 
 " Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit 
 here?" 
 
 The first third, and more, of the sermon, was 
 simply an explanation of who spoke these words, 
 and under what circumstances. Without saying 
 just what I was doing, I naturally selected those 
 points in the Bible story which tended to make 
 more obvious the parallel between our case and 
 that of the ancient Israelites. 
 
 The children of Israel were engaged in a struggle 
 
A Chaplain s Sermons 83 
 
 for their national heritage, which had been assured 
 to their pilgrim fathers, Abraham and Jacob. The 
 war had been prolonged beyond all expectation, and 
 some of them had become tired of the dragging 
 contest. A new campaign was to open under 
 Joshua, an energetic and experienced general. The 
 soldiers of Reuben and Gad were loath to have a 
 part in it, and wanted to remain where they were. 
 It was not that these soldiers lacked courage or 
 patriotism, but they felt, for the time, that they had 
 had as much fighting as they cared for. Perhaps, 
 too, the fact that their first move must be across 
 the water, on the brink of which they stood, im 
 pressed them unpleasantly, in remembrance of their 
 earlier Red Sea expedition. At all events, they did 
 not wish to join the army of the Jordan. More 
 over, their long inaction in the place where they 
 were had tended to dampen their ardor for a new 
 campaign. While they were in the sandy desert, 
 where they suffered most, and had most to do, they 
 longed for an order to move forward in order to 
 hasten the end of the war, but now they had had 
 a fresh taste of civilized life. They had made 
 acquaintances among the Midianites, and this had 
 not, in all cases, elevated the standard of either 
 morality or patriotism. 
 
 The region where they rested was an attractive 
 one. Gilead was on the eastern border of the land 
 for which they fought, stretching " unto the sea of 
 the plain, even the salt sea" (Josh. 12 : 3). It was 
 
84 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 the land of the cypress, the palm and the olive, a 
 health-giving locality. (All this was true of Flor 
 ida.) It was also the cattle-growing region of the 
 Confederate rulers, "a land for cattle," and, "be 
 hold, the place was a place for cattle." (Just before 
 this time an appeal from General Beauregard had 
 been made known, urging the repossession of 
 Florida as the source of cattle supply for the Con 
 federate armies. This was fresh in all our minds.) 
 As a whole, Gilead was so desirable a place for the 
 war-sick soldiers that many of them would have 
 been willing to spend their days there. (This was 
 the way many of our soldiers felt.) "And the chil 
 dren of Gad and the children of Reuben came and 
 spake unto Moses, . . . saying, ... If we have found 
 grace in thy sight, let this land be given unto thy 
 servants for a possession, and bring us not over 
 Jordan." 
 
 " And Moses said unto the children of Gad and 
 to the children of Reuben, Shall your brethren go 
 to war, and shall ye sit here?" Moses knew his 
 soldiers, knew how brave and true they were, and 
 he confidently appealed to their best nature. He 
 reminded them of their duty to see this thing 
 through before they turned aside for anything else. 
 Nor was his appeal in vain. The Reubenites and 
 Gadites responded loyally to his call, and sprang 
 forward for new service. They even asked the 
 privilege of doing the skirmishing for the whole 
 army in the new movement. "We ourselves/ they 
 
A Chaplain s Sermons 85 
 
 said, " will go ready armed before the children of 
 Israel, until we have brought them unto their place. 
 . . . We will not return unto our houses, until the 
 children of Israel have inherited every man his in 
 heritance." "And Moses said unto them, If ye will 
 do this thing, . . . then afterward ye shall return, 
 and be guiltless before the Lord, and before Israel ; 
 and this land shall be your possession before the 
 Lord. But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have 
 sinned against the Lord ; and be sure your sin will 
 find you out." 
 
 In applying this incident to the case of my 
 hearers, I reminded them that this was the way of 
 brave and true men always. In a life-and-death 
 struggle like ours, active service was our duty, 
 active service was our pleasure, and active service 
 was for our advantage. Then I sought to show how 
 this must be so. 
 
 One advantage that an army chaplain had over a 
 preacher in civil life was the fact that all his hearers 
 were in the same circumstances, and that they had 
 only one another to talk to ; they did not go from 
 his preaching to separate homes, where they had 
 another view of the truth put before them. If he 
 could succeed in swaying the current of their 
 thoughts by his appeals, they were all likely to be 
 swept on in the same direction. 
 
 It was evident that the Bible parallel set before 
 our men in this case reached their hearts. Officers 
 
86 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 and men vied with each other in assurances of their 
 agreement with me. One prominent officer, who 
 had been forward in his complainings over the 
 hardships of the contemplated move, now said that 
 he had felt this way all along, and he was glad the 
 chaplain was looking at it in the same light. My 
 colonel requested the sermon for publication, in 
 order that it might be carefully read by all in the 
 regiment. The next day the surgeon in charge of 
 the convalescent camp came to me asking : 
 
 " Chaplain, what did you preach about yesterday ? 
 I was kept up until near midnight making out dis 
 charges for officers who wanted to go back to their 
 commands. When I asked the reason, they said 
 they had been down to church, and heard a sermon 
 that gave them a different view of their duty." 
 
 Some of the enlisted men said grimly : " The 
 chaplain s spoiling for a fight;" but the current 
 was too strong for any one to make head against it. 
 The sermon as printed and distributed was entitled 
 " Desirableness of Active Service." Months after 
 ward, as we were campaigning in Virginia, while 
 we were moving by night to take our place in the 
 Petersburg trenches, we were overtaken by a vio 
 lent thunder-storm, so severe with its blinding 
 flashes of lightning and its torrents of rain that we 
 were compelled to halt and drop down in the mud, 
 and wait for daylight. In the early morning, as I 
 moved along the wavy line of reclining soldiers, I 
 was greeted good-naturedly by a soldier with the 
 
A Chaplain s Sermons 87 
 
 words, that could be heard far and near : " I sup 
 pose, Chaplain, this is what you would call the 
 desirableness of ac-tlve service. " Then he 
 chuckled over the general laugh that greeted his 
 sally. 
 
 When we had reached Virginia, from Florida, for 
 a part in the forward movement of the armies under 
 General Grant, we had found evidence of intended 
 operations on a scale beyond our anticipations or 
 former knowledge. The New York papers were 
 giving us, day by day, such details of the prepara 
 tions for receiving and caring for large numbers of 
 wounded as were unpleasantly suggestive to old 
 campaigners. One day we were told of the thou 
 sands of additional ambulances and hospital beds 
 being delivered at Washington and City Point, and 
 the next day of the numbers of extra surgeons and 
 nurses summoned to the front. We were hardly 
 landed on Virginia soil before we began marching 
 and fighting. Weeks passed before it was possible 
 to gather the regiment for a religious service on 
 Sunday. Our heads were fairly dazed with the rush 
 and whirl of active hostilities, and all realized that 
 we were fairly in a conflict that could not cease 
 until the end of the war had come in one way or 
 another. 
 
 By and by a quieter Sunday came. Those of the 
 regiment who could attend gathered, at the "church 
 call " of the colonel s bugler, in a lovely shaded 
 ravine near Deep Bottom, on the left bank of the 
 
88 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 James River. My standing-place was a rude plat 
 form of rails, on a boulder in the gurgling brook 
 that runs through the ravine. A steep, but not 
 high, bank with overhanging trees rose immediately 
 behind me. My audience was grouped pictu 
 resquely before, on either hand, and above me, on 
 the banks and on the rocks between. A beautiful 
 vista of rippling water, sparkling in the sunlight 
 which struggled through the trees above, yet in the 
 cool shade of the deep ravine, stretched away into 
 the background at my right. The sweet, soft 
 music of our well -trained band floated upward 
 through the waving trees, accompanying the full 
 chorus of manly soldier voices, in the familiar tunes 
 of " Coronation " and " Shining Shore : " 
 
 "All hail, the power of Jesus name! . . . 
 
 And crown him Lord of all ; " 
 and 
 
 " My days are gliding swiftly by, . . . 
 Those hours of toil and danger, " 
 
 seemed never to have more meaning, or to be spo 
 ken out of more earnest and tender hearts, than in 
 that first complete service of the opening of that 
 closing year of deadliest conflict. God seemed 
 very near to us as we joined in simple prayer to him 
 at that time, and considered together the teaching 
 of his words in Luke 21 : 28, 
 
 " When these things begin to come to pass, then 
 look up, and lift up your heads ; for your redemp 
 tion draweth nigh." 
 
A Chaplain s Sermons 89 
 
 "These things." What things? A fair sky? 
 Sunrise glory ? The brightness of an opening sum 
 mer s day? No, no. Clouds and gloom. Storm 
 and desolateness. The chilly darkness of a winter s 
 night. " Wars and commotions." The holy city 
 " compassed with armies." " Fearful sights and 
 great signs." " Days of vengeance." " Great dis 
 tress in the land." Many falling " by the edge of 
 the sword." Others " led away captive." " Men s 
 hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after 
 those things which are coming on the earth." "And 
 when these things," said Jesus, " begin to come to 
 pass, then look up, and lift up your heads ; for 
 your redemption draweth nigh." 
 
 Strange prophecy ! Marvelous words ! And 
 yet neither strange nor marvelous ; for this is ever 
 God s way. No time of rest without previous toil. 
 No peace but after strife. No order except out of 
 confusion. "The evening and the morning were 
 the first day ; " not the morning and the evening, 
 but the evening and the morning. So it was in 
 the beginning ; so it ever will be. Night first ; 
 then day. " The darkest hour of the night is just 
 before day." That hour is on us. Daylight comes. 
 Let us lift up our heads, for the day of our coun 
 try s redemption draweth nigh. 
 
 The Presidential election of 1 864, with Abraham 
 Lincoln and General McClellan as opposing candi 
 dates, caused disturbances among civilians at home, 
 
90 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 and strong feeling among soldiers at the front. A 
 fear of fresh riots in New York led to the ordering 
 of troops to that city, from Virginia, under General 
 Butler. The men of our command had already 
 built their huts for winter occupation on the north 
 bank of the James, and arranged to make them 
 selves as comfortable as they could in the months 
 of inaction which must naturally follow, when sud 
 denly they were ordered on board transports to the 
 waters of New York harbor. There they were com 
 pelled to wait within sight of shore, and but a few 
 hours distance from their homes, without the privi 
 lege of landing, and with all the discomforts of 
 army transport life. 
 
 Returning, after the re-election of President Lin 
 coln, they found their winter quarters occupied by 
 other troops ; and they were compelled to begin 
 anew, in the rain and mud of the opening winter, 
 to provide for themselves, as best they could, with a 
 poorer location, and with scantier supplies of wood 
 for their huts. Such an experience was trying, at 
 the best, and was aggravated by the fact that it was 
 occasioned by the action of Northern opponents 
 of the government, or by lukewarm sympathizers 
 with their cause, when more open and manly foes 
 at the South demanded the best energies of the 
 loyal and patriotic soldiers. I faced a regiment 
 of sad-hearted men when I stood up to preach my 
 first sermon to them after our return, in the driz 
 zling rain of a wintry Sunday morning, in the wet 
 
A Chaplain s Sermons 91 
 
 and chilly woods of Virginia. My text was from 
 2 Chronicles 13 : 14, 
 
 " Behold, the battle was before and behind." 
 These words were spoken of a time when there 
 was civil war among God s chosen people, and the 
 ruler of that people found himself with an army of 
 brave soldiers in his front, and an " ambushment " 
 in his rear, under the lead of a commander who 
 had been an honored soldier of the government, 
 but who now aspired to the chief rule. In this 
 conflict the supporters of the administration " cried 
 unto the Lord, and the priests " all of them being 
 on the side of the government " sounded with the 
 trumpets. Then the men of Judah [the loyalists] 
 gave a shout : and as the men of Judah shouted," 
 expressing in this way their minds in favor of 
 continued war against rebels in arms, "it came 
 to pass, that God smote Jeroboam [the leader 
 against the national administration] and all Israel 
 before Abijah [the legitimate ruler] and Judah. . . . 
 And God delivered them into their hand." " Neither 
 did Jeroboam recover strength again in the days 
 of Abijah. . . . But Abijah waxed mighty . . . and 
 Judah was prospered." And by and by " the Lord 
 gave them rest," and there was " no more war ; " 
 for God gave his people triumph, even while "the 
 battle was before and behind." 
 
 With the fall of Richmond and the surrender 
 of General Lee at Appomattox Court House, yet 
 
92 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 other conditions faced the soldiers and their chap 
 lains. My regiment was assigned to duty at the 
 captured Confederate capital. Strange sights and 
 sounds greeted us there. The sudden collapse of 
 the Confederate government had carried down, for 
 the time, the entire social system of its metropolis. 
 All ordinary occupations were gone. What money 
 was available had now no value. Those who had 
 had assured positions and wealth, or a competency, 
 found themselves penniless, with nothing to do, and 
 no possibility of employment Families until now 
 prominent in social life and in official circles were 
 dependent on the bounty of the Federal govern 
 ment for the food necessaiy to keep them from 
 actual starvation. On the other hand, the entire 
 slave population was jubilant and demonstrative 
 over its newly found freedom. 
 
 In view of such facts as these I preached on 
 my first Sunday in Richmond. Officers and men 
 stood together in a field of bivouac on the edge 
 of the city, and out of my wonderment, to the men 
 in their wonderment, I spoke from the words in 
 Ecclesiastes 10 : 7, 
 
 " I have seen servants upon horses, and princes 
 walking as servants upon the earth." 
 
 While rejoicings over victory were at their 
 height, in the army and throughout the country, 
 the foul assassination of President Lincoln cast 
 gloom over all, and brought bitterness to every 
 
A Chaplain s Sermons 93 
 
 loyal soul. Joy and sorrow struggled together for 
 expression. " It was the uttermost of joy : it was 
 the uttermost of sorrow noon and midnight with 
 out a space between." Hearts that were grateful 
 for restored peace stayed their throbs of gladness 
 as the funeral of the martyr President passed in 
 slow solemnity from Washington to Springfield. 
 Instead of national illuminations, the new President 
 proclaimed a day of national fasting. On that day 
 I preached from the words in Ezra 3 : 13, 
 
 " The people could not discern the noise of the 
 shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the 
 people." 
 
 After Lee s surrender it was hard for soldiers to 
 realize that the cessation of active hostilities did 
 not imply the immediate disbanding of the armies, 
 still needed to maintain order and to aid in the re 
 establishing of authority in the territory suddenly 
 left without even the form of local or national 
 government. The men were impatient to return to 
 their homes, now that the war was over, as they 
 understood it. It was a new call to patient endur 
 ance that came to them, and that the chaplain must 
 press and strive to make clear. My sermons for 
 the time were from such texts as 
 
 " But the end is not yet " (Matt 24 : 6). 
 
 " It is not for you to know the times or the sea 
 sons, which the Father hath put in his own power " 
 (Acts i : 7). 
 
94 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 " For yet the end shall be at the time appointed " 
 (Dan. 1 1 : 27), coupled with, " He that endureth to 
 the end shall be saved " (Matt. 10 : 22). 
 
 By and by the men became more restless. They 
 thought that the terms of their enlistment, for 
 "during the war," justified them in supposing that 
 they were entitled to an immediate discharge, and 
 they talked over among themselves the propriety 
 of going home " without leave," they would not 
 call it " deserting." This feeling of restiveness was 
 widespread in the army. While I was absent from 
 my regiment for a few days on business, a govern 
 ment paymaster came and paid the men of our 
 command up to date. Returning on a Thursday 
 evening, just as the paymaster s work was com 
 pleted, I found that quite a number of our men had 
 already left, and that the fever of desertion was 
 rapidly spreading. At once I set to work among 
 the men, striving to show them the folly and 
 wrong of such a course. That evening and the 
 next two days I persevered among them in per 
 sonal discussion and entreaties. I found that they 
 thought their only loss by desertion at this time 
 would be their " honorable discharge," and that a 
 regard for that was only a minor sentiment They 
 were willing to risk it. On Sunday the colonel 
 ordered a regimental attendance at chapel service, 
 instead of leaving it as a matter of choice as usual, 
 so that I might address the men collectively on the 
 
A Chaplain s Sermons 95 
 
 subject. Officers and enlisted men were all pres 
 ent My text was from Genesis 25 : 32, 
 
 " And Esau said, Behold I am at the point to 
 die: and what profit shall this birthright do to 
 me?" 
 
 I pointed out the folly of Esau s reasoning and 
 the cost of his bad bargain with Jacob. Esau had 
 some fine qualities and generous traits in compari 
 son with the close-fisted shrewdness of Jacob ; but 
 Esau thought more of present comfort than of a 
 good name that had its chief value in the future, 
 while Jacob thought more of the future than of the 
 present. Esau bartered an honorable record for 
 one square meal, and the shame of his foolish bar 
 gain stuck to him and to his children thencefor 
 ward. His square meal was of red pottage, and 
 they called him by a name (" Edom," " Red,") 
 that brought red pottage to mind. His children 
 were, as it were, called Little Red Pottagers, 
 " Edomites." 
 
 This lesson of Esau had its teachings for soldier 
 veterans. Their birthright was an honorable dis 
 charge. To barter that for a few more days or 
 weeks of home enjoyment would be to swap a good 
 name for a deserter s shame. It were easy now for 
 a veteran, going home without leave, to face his 
 comrades, who knew the whole story ; but it 
 would be very different a few years hence, when 
 his little child came home crying from her school in 
 the country, saying : " Papa, were you a deserter ? 
 
96 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 They called me a deserter s daughter." His bar 
 gain would seem a sorry one then. 
 
 The truth thus pressed home had its effect on the 
 soldier heart. The tide of desertion was stayed. 
 And soon we were all mustered out together. As 
 illustrating the effect of this sermon on those who 
 listened to it, one of the soldiers was heard to say 
 to a companion : " I don t know as I should have 
 deserted anyway, but, by thunder! when the chap 
 lain told about that little girl coming home from 
 school crying, I thought I d die before I d desert." 
 
 There was rejoicing in camp when, one after 
 noon, word came that the order for our muster out 
 had been received by General Terry, our depart 
 ment commander, and that in a few days more we 
 should be on our way home. It was then that, as 
 their chaplain, I spoke parting words to the men 
 from i Kings 22 : 36, 
 
 " And there went a proclamation throughout the 
 host about the going down of the sun, saying, 
 Every man to his city, and every man to his own 
 country." 
 
 It was a welcome proclamation that told the men 
 of Israel that, the war being over, they could " re 
 turn every man to his house in peace." The mes 
 sage was then, as now, to each soldier, to go to his 
 redeemed country, and to his dwelling-place, or 
 home, within it. And we were called to like re 
 joicing. Our country was a new country, and it 
 
A Chaplain s Sermons 97 
 
 was newly our country, after our part in its resto 
 ration and uplifting. A new responsibility was on 
 us to keep it worthy of its new honor before the 
 world. Our homes were dearer to us than ever 
 before, and we had a new duty to make them 
 happy homes, and to set a worthy example in them 
 by our patriotic and godly conduct and bearing. 
 
 In telling of these army sermons, I naturally give 
 prominence to such as will bring out the soldier 
 side of active service ; but it is not to be supposed 
 that there was a lack of ordinary appeals to the 
 soldiers as men in the sphere of their moral and 
 religious natures. Sermons of that sort are suited 
 to men s wants everywhere; they need not be 
 dwelt upon in this sketch of an army chaplain s 
 sermons to soldiers as soldiers, but they were even 
 more frequent than the other kind. Yet even these 
 sermons must be adapted to the peculiar needs and 
 tastes of soldiers. The same religious truth must 
 be differently presented to soldiers in the field, and 
 to civilians at home. 
 
 For example, when we were in winter quarters 
 before Richmond, in the last year of the war, and 
 the men were under special temptations to lower 
 their moral tone in a time of inaction, I preached 
 from the words in Jeremiah 36 : 24, 
 
 " Yet they were not afraid." 
 
 As I had preached so often on the duty of per 
 sonal courage, there was peculiar force in the sug- 
 
98 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 gestion that it was to a soldier s discredit not 
 to know enough to be afraid when he ought to be. 
 It was clearly a soldier s duty to be afraid of defy 
 ing God, and to be afraid of the consequences of 
 evil. Whatever other battling we were called to, 
 we ought always to be at peace with God. 
 
 At another time I preached on " Soldiers Grum 
 bling : What Causes and What Comes of It." My 
 text was from Exodus 16 : 2, 
 
 " And the whole congregation of the children of 
 Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the 
 wilderness." 
 
 I pointed out that men in such a mode of life 
 as the Israelites in the wilderness, and as our sol 
 diers in campaigning, were peculiarly prone to find 
 causes for grumbling, and to grumble accordingly. 
 I showed by illustrations from our own experience 
 that men were less likely to grumble when they 
 had the hardest life to lead ; and I reminded them 
 that matters were never bettered, but only made 
 worse, by grumbling. 
 
 Some may wonder how it happens that I still 
 have full notes of sermons preached in my army 
 life thirty years ago and more ; and it may sur 
 prise them to learn that I usually wrote out my 
 sermons before delivery, in camp, in field, or in 
 prison. Before entering the army I had always 
 been accustomed to extemporaneous address. I 
 had never used a manuscript until then, but I 
 
A Chaplain s Sermons 99 
 
 now cultivated the habit of writing, for very good 
 reasons. I was with the men constantly through 
 the week. They were accustomed to hear me speak 
 informally, day by day. If I did the same thing at 
 a formal Sunday service it would seem less of an 
 affair than if I came before them with something 
 specially prepared for the occasion. Moreover, I 
 needed the stimulus of careful preparation in writ 
 ing and phrasing, growing out of the lack of oppor 
 tunity of reading and study. 
 
 Indeed, I soon found out that officers and men 
 would come out in larger numbers when they knew 
 I had a written discourse instead of an extempore 
 address. One Sunday morning, as I was preach 
 ing without notes, a soldier came to the entrance 
 of the chapel-tent, and, looking in, said to a com 
 rade : " Pshaw ! he is only talking. I thought he 
 was preaching," and turned away in disgust. 
 
 It was not always easy to find the time or place 
 for fresh sermon -writing, but this only increased 
 its value when found. In the autumn of 1864, we 
 were to withdraw from the trenches before Peters 
 burg during the night of Saturday. The next day 
 I was to speak parting words to those men whose 
 term of three years service had just expired, and 
 who were now going to their homes. I sat, under 
 the siege firing, until midnight, in a splinter-proof, 
 writing on my sermon by the light of a candle 
 stuck in the fuse-hole of the upper half of a spheri 
 cal case shot. When we had withdrawn from the 
 
ioo War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 line of works and had reached our field of bivouac, 
 some distance at the rear, I preached to those men 
 from Joshua 22 : 3, 
 
 " Ye have not left your brethren these many days 
 unto this day, but have kept the charge of the com 
 mandment of the Lord your God." 
 
 This was a companion sermon to the appeal to 
 active service made to the same men a few months 
 before at St. Augustine ; and, like that, it was, at the 
 request of the hearers, printed for their use, from 
 the manuscript copy thus prepared in the trenches. 
 
 I came to love more and more my soldier hear 
 ers, and to honor them the more as I better knew 
 them. The suggestion that I frequently heard 
 from civilians, that army life was essentially de 
 moralizing, and that soldiers were peculiarly ad 
 dicted to profanity and intemperance and dishonesty, 
 and other vices, aroused me to honest indignation, 
 and I wrote and spoke on the subject freely as I had 
 opportunity to reach those who were influential in 
 shaping public sentiment at home. Finally I had 
 an opportunity to preach a special sermon for the 
 soldiers, as I had preached many a special sermon 
 to the soldiers. Being at my home in Hartford, 
 at the funeral of my brother, Lieutenant -Colonel 
 Trumbull, just before the close of the war, I was 
 urged by the Rev. Dr. Horace Bushnell to preach 
 on this subject, as he had become interested in my 
 peculiar views. He arranged for the meeting in the 
 
A Chaplain s Sermons 101 
 
 church where he had long been pastor, and called 
 special attention to it, in advance, in The Hartford 
 Courant. My text was from Jeremiah 35 : 10, 
 " We have dwelt in tents, and have obeyed." 
 It was when Jeremiah was discouraged about the 
 low state of morals and manhood in Israel, and was 
 inclined to feel that none could be depended on as 
 upright and true, that the Lord told him to bring 
 the sons of Rechab from their life in the open field, 
 and offer them wine and other luxuries of the city. 
 He did so, but they rejected the temptation, telling 
 of their fidelity to the injunction of their ancestor, 
 and saying, " We have dwelt in tents, and have 
 obeyed." Their loyalty and abstinence cheered the 
 heart of the prophet, and was an example and an 
 encouragement to others ; and from that time to 
 this the truest men in any time of general declen 
 sion of morals have been those who lived lives of 
 active service, in privation and under discipline. 
 
 I pointed out the elements of soldier service as 
 tending to the development of manhood, as de 
 manding unselfish devotion to an object in life, 
 obedience to orders, a high sense of responsibility, 
 and interdependence on others in co-operation in a 
 holy cause. War was terrible; but, war existing, 
 those who suffered most from its demoralizing in 
 fluence were not those who went to the front to 
 put it down, at the cost of their lives if need be, 
 but those who remained at the rear, intent on 
 money-getting and personal safety. 
 
IO2 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 History was cited in proof of this view of the 
 case, in the character, as shown in their later life, 
 of Cromwell s old soldiers, of the veterans of the 
 American Revolution, and of other surviving cam 
 paigners of a righteous war. Of the soldiers in 
 our Civil War, both North and South, those who 
 knew them best were surest that their moral stan 
 dard improved with their length of service. Pro 
 fanity was rarer in our camps than in the average 
 city street at the North. So rare was it, indeed, 
 that a common remark of old soldiers was, on 
 hearing blatant profanity, "You swear like a new 
 recruit." As to drunkenness, there were no open 
 saloons within the army lines, and, in consequence, 
 no temptation to drink, in the ordinary walk of a 
 soldier s life. And as to dishonesty, the feeling of 
 honor and of comradeship made it almost unknown 
 in the army. At one time a squad of ten recruits 
 came to our regiment in Florida. Soon after, a 
 theft in camp was reported. At once the tents of 
 only those recruits were searched, and the stolen 
 property was recovered. No one thought of that 
 theft as perpetrated by an old soldier. 
 
 At a gathering of chaplains of the Army of the 
 James, during the last year of the war, this sub 
 ject of the influence of army life was under free 
 discussion. One of the older chaplains gave his 
 experience. He had heard so much said of the 
 deterioration of character under the temptations of 
 army life before he entered service, that he had 
 
A Chaplains Sermons 103 
 
 actually dreaded its effect on himself as he came 
 to do his Master s work there. But he had felt the 
 uplifting power of army life in his own soul, and he 
 had seen it on others to an extent that he had never 
 dreamed of as possible. One of his sons was an 
 enlisted man, and at first he had feared for him; 
 but he had seen him gain and grow under the 
 prevalent influences in the army, and now he was 
 wishing and praying that his second son would 
 also enlist, so as to have the benefit of these ele 
 vating influences on his personal character. When 
 I had spoken incidentally on this subject at a 
 public meeting in New Haven, during the latter 
 part of the war, the Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon, who 
 was in the pulpit, said to me after the service : 
 " What you say about army life is quite new to me, 
 but I accept the truth of it at once. I remember 
 that in my boyhood days there were a few Revolu 
 tionary soldiers in our home community, and every 
 man of them was morally a head and shoulders 
 above his fellows. I think it will be so among the 
 veterans of this war." 
 
 I emphasized the fact that our soldiers were en 
 nobled by their ennobling army service, and that 
 they grew more manly day by day, while men of a 
 corresponding grade in social life at the rear, who 
 could have gone but would not go, were deteriorat 
 ing as the war dragged on. My appeal to those at 
 home was to welcome the veterans on their return 
 from the war as those who were better men than 
 
IO4 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 when they went out, and to see to it that their high 
 soldier standard was not lowered by the tempta 
 tions and demoralizing influence of the social life 
 at home. 
 
 All my army service, all my chaplain experience, 
 tended to confirm my conviction that what I said 
 in this sermon, for the veteran soldiers of our Civil 
 War, was the truth. This seemed so as I viewed 
 them then from my chaplain s standpoint, and it 
 seems so now as they have come to be viewed by 
 their fellow-citizens generally in the more than 
 thirty years that have intervened since then. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 A CHAPLAIN S PASTORAL WORK 
 
 A chaplain s parish is wherever he and his 
 parishioners are. It may be on land or at sea. It 
 includes the camp, the barracks, the bivouac, the 
 battle-field, the trenches, the picket-line, the hos 
 pital, the guard quarters, the provost -marshal s 
 stockade, the army transport, the enemy s military 
 prison. Whether marching, fighting, or resting; in 
 malarial swamps, on the sandy beach, along muddy 
 roads, on the vessel s deck, at parade or review, 
 wherever the soldiers are, and whatever they are 
 doing, they are the chaplain s parishioners, and his 
 incidental service with them and for them is the 
 chaplain s pastoral work. 
 
 An ordinary pastor has his parsonage, from which 
 he goes out into his parish to visit his parishioners 
 at their homes or at their work, and to which he 
 returns when his pastoral work is done for the time 
 being. His people see but little of him except 
 when he comes among them officially, or when 
 they call upon him for some special service. They 
 are not always with him. He is not one with them 
 in everything. Here is where a chaplain differs 
 
 105 
 
io6 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 from an ordinary minister. The chaplain lives 
 among his people all the time. They know him as 
 he is, and he knows them as they are. His per 
 sonal, every-day life is even a larger factor in his 
 influence over them than it can be with a home 
 pastor. His ordinary conversation is heard at all 
 times by some of his parishioners. His every 
 sentence is part of his regular preaching. The 
 incidents of his pastoral work include humdrum 
 experiences, and also thrilling moments of life-and- 
 death happenings. 
 
 If a chaplain is with his men on a march, he has 
 opportunities of pleasant chat with them as they 
 move along the road. If he shares the exposures 
 and endurances of siege life in the trenches, or on 
 ordinary picket duty, or is near them when they go 
 into battle, whatever moral force he exercises is at 
 its best. He can do much to keep up their courage, 
 and spirits, and standards of conduct. And there 
 may be occasions for him to be of personal service 
 in ministry to them in their death-hour, or in sending 
 them back to the rear when wounded. 
 
 When we went on picket at the front, I was 
 accustomed to be with the officer in command at 
 the picket reserve, and with the colonel s consent I 
 would say a few words to the men before they left 
 the reserve for their places along the line. 
 
 "I just want to say that the Colonel has detailed 
 me, as the chaplain, to do whatever swearing is 
 necessary on this round of picket duty. So if any 
 
A Chaplain s Pastoral Work 107 
 
 of you men think there is a call for something in 
 that line, just send for me, and I ll attend to it." 
 
 This announcement enabled me afterwards, as I 
 moved along the line, if I heard a profane word, to 
 call out to the speaker : 
 
 " Look out there ! You are interfering with the 
 chaplain s work. He ll attend to all the swearing 
 that needs to be done." 
 
 The men themselves would enter into the spirit 
 of this arrangement, and they would call a man to 
 order if he swore on the picket-line: 
 
 " Mind your own business there ! Don t be doing 
 the chaplain s work." 
 
 It was natural for soldiers to value the presence 
 of a chaplain, when they were going out into a life- 
 and-death struggle. They felt stronger if one whom 
 they looked to as God s representative was near 
 them at such a time. A rough captain said to a 
 gentleman who asked him about his chaplain, at 
 one time when he was at home on leave : 
 
 "We count our chaplain as good as a hundred 
 men in a fight, because the men fight so much better 
 when he s with em." 
 
 There were indeed times when they had occasion 
 to see the value of a chaplain s presence, and when 
 he had the opportunity of standing between a 
 parishioner and death. In an interval between 
 engagements on the front, in Virginia, in August, 
 1864, the men of our brigade were lying down, or 
 sitting up, in the open woods back of a hastily 
 
io8 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 constructed line of works. Bullets were whistling 
 through the air, and an occasional shell shrieked 
 past us over our heads. We had at that time in 
 the war become strangely familiar with the various 
 sounds of flying bullets. We could tell the differ 
 ence between the " whish " of a smooth-bore musket- 
 ball and the spiteful "tsse" of a minie-rifle bullet. 
 We knew when its force was nearly spent, and when 
 it was flying at deadly speed. We could measure 
 also quite accurately its relative distance from us. 
 If it struck near by, we knew the "thud" of a tree 
 cushion from the "hub" of a ground stroke. And, 
 more than all, we could detect the ominous silence 
 of a bullet interrupted in mid-flight, as it noiselessly 
 buried itself in a human body. 
 
 As I sat that morning with my face toward the 
 earthworks, hurriedly writing on a home letter, I 
 heard that peculiar sound, or that cessation of 
 sound, that told me a man was hit very near me. 
 Starting up and looking behind me, I saw a young 
 officer who had received the bullet, and the blood 
 was spurting up from the wound in his neck. He 
 was on his back, his eyes were closed, and the look 
 of death seemed already on his face. Thrusting 
 my thumb and finger into the gaping wound, as 
 the blood spurted up my wrist I seemed to catch 
 his failing life and to stop the blood-flow. Feeling 
 the outgoing of his life thus stayed, he looked up, 
 opened his eyes, and said gratefully : " Oh ! that 
 feels good, Chaplain." 
 
A Chaplain s Pastoral Work 109 
 
 Looking around at the gathering crowd, I said 
 earnestly : " Run, right, left, and rear, for a sur 
 geon. Hurry now ! hurry!" 
 
 I had, as it were, his life between my thumb and 
 finger. A slip or a failure on my part would be 
 fatal to him. How long I must wait I could not 
 tell. Stretching myself out into as easy a position 
 as possible to rest my extended arm, I lay along 
 side of him, and had a pastoral talk with a parish 
 ioner. He told me of his home dear ones, and 
 gave me loving messages for them. He spoke of 
 his personal rest of faith, and I prayed with and 
 for him tenderly. As we lay there in this life-and- 
 death embrace, I heard a movement above me, and, 
 looking up, I saw gladly the green sash of a sur 
 geon. 
 
 The bullet had struck the sub-clavian artery. 
 My thumb and finger in the wound had proved the 
 needful compress to prevent the outflow of his life- 
 blood. The surgeon skilfully took the matter in 
 hand. The artery was taken up, and the officer 
 was soon on his way to the hospital at the rear. 
 That was a specimen incident in a chaplain s pas 
 toral work on the battle-field. 
 
 A chaplain, in his intercourse with his men, had 
 the advantage of being a commissioned officer, 
 while he mingled with the men as a brother man. 
 The men were always glad to talk with the chap 
 lain as a means of securing information of what was 
 going on in official circles. At the same time they 
 
1 10 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 enjoyed the privilege of growling at the chaplain as 
 one of the officers when things were not going on 
 satisfactorily in the sphere of their commanders, or 
 of the government This was a delicate position 
 for the chaplain, while it gave him an advantage 
 if he used it wisely. He must necessarily allow 
 considerable freedom to the men in speaking of 
 their personal opinions and their supposed causes 
 of complaint, yet he must never countenance insub 
 ordination or contempt for authority. If he would 
 be good-natured and kindly in meeting and check 
 ing the growling spirit, the men as a whole would 
 recognize the wisdom of his course, and aid him 
 against the growler. 
 
 It was my habit in camp to go from street to 
 street through the regiment at the leisure hour of 
 the day, after supper and before tattoo, and talk 
 with them familiarly as they gathered to meet me 
 at the head of each company street. In this way I 
 would draw their fire of complaints, and try to get 
 them in good-humor for another twenty-four hours. 
 In the fall of 1862, President Lincoln had issued 
 his Emancipation Proclamation. There was a good 
 deal of feeling about it, in the army as well as out 
 side. Not all were ready for it. As I went to one 
 of the company streets at that time, a sergeant ac 
 costed me, before the others, with the question : 
 
 " Chaplain, do you think President Lincoln had 
 any right to issue that proclamation ? " 
 
 Seeing he was in no mood to discuss the ques- 
 
A Chaplain s Pastoral Work \ 1 1 
 
 tion, I replied: "I suppose he thought he had, 
 sergeant." 
 
 The other men laughed at this rejoinder, and the 
 sergeant said testily : 
 
 " Well, I suppose a soldier s got a right to hold 
 his own opinions, Chaplain, hasn t he ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " I said, " if he ll take care and hold 
 em, and not always be slinging them around care 
 lessly before others." 
 
 " Sergeant," said one of the listeners, " hadn t you 
 better go into your tent, and take a little something 
 warm, and lie down ? " 
 
 And I moved on to the next street, leaving those 
 men in better humor with themselves in a fresh 
 view of their duties and obligations as soldiers. 
 
 There were strange characters, as well as strange 
 experiences, encountered in my army parish work. 
 The army brought all sorts of persons together, 
 and the chaplain had to become acquainted with 
 and interested in them all. While at St. Augustine, 
 Florida, in the winter of 1863-64,3 part of our regi 
 ment did garrison duty at the fortress of San Marco, 
 the old Spanish coquina fort, with its bloody mem 
 ories and the weird legends of its former occupants. 
 I was accustomed to hold Sunday-school services 
 each Sunday afternoon, and also mid-week evening 
 services in the little chapel opposite the main en 
 trance of the fort. Just outside of that chapel there 
 was a pile of rusty cannon, on which men would 
 sometimes loll while we were having services in- 
 
H2 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 side. And as I moved about the fort I had many 
 a talk with men whom I rarely met so familiarly 
 elsewhere. 
 
 One day, as I was walking through the fort, my 
 attention was drawn to a strange face glaring 
 through an iron-barred opening of a dungeon door 
 in the southwestern corner of the casemated walls. 
 It was the most repulsive face I had ever seen. 
 Low-browed, coarse-featured, dark-complexioned, 
 with small black eyes under shaggy eyebrows, and 
 thick sensuous lips, it seemed like a cross between 
 a Digger Indian and a New-Zealander, with the 
 worst peculiarities of both. The expression was 
 one of low cunning, with a mixture of hate and 
 derision. It was an unhuman face, yet the man 
 who bore it was evidently one of my parishioners 
 or he would not be where he was. 
 
 "Who are you, my friend?" I said. "Where do 
 you belong?" 
 
 He answered in a low, gruff voice, as if he were 
 resenting an attack, " I belong to the Tenth Con 
 necticut." 
 
 "The Tenth Connecticut!" I said. "Why, then 
 I m your chaplain, and I ve got an interest in 
 you." 
 
 As I kindly questioned the man, I found he had 
 been most of the time since his enlistment in con 
 finement for insubordination, and therefore I had 
 not met him. After a brief talk I left him. Soon 
 he was released from confinement, and was again 
 
A Chaplain s Pastoral Work \ 1 3 
 
 with his comrades. I saw him occasionally and 
 spoke to him kindly, but I did not look upon him 
 as a hopeful case in comparison with others, and 
 had little to say to him. It seems, however, that I 
 gained more of a hold on him than I thought. 
 
 After a while we left Florida for Virginia. As 
 we moved up along the Atlantic coast on a crowded 
 transport, this man came to me on the deck in the 
 crowd, and said softly : " Misser Chaplin, I want to 
 talk to you." 
 
 "Well, I m always glad to talk to you," I said. 
 "But where can we go to talk ? Let us lean over 
 the steamer s rail. That is our only place to talk 
 by ourselves." 
 
 As we leaned there together, he told me his 
 strange, pathetic story. 
 
 " Misser Chaplin. You member when you talked 
 to me at the dungeon door. You spoke kind to 
 me. You said you s my chaplin. I never forgot 
 that, Misser Chaplin. I m a rough fellow; I never 
 knowed much. I suppose I m human, that s about 
 all. I never had no bringing up. Fust I knowed 
 o myself I was in the streets o New Orleans. 
 Never knowed a father or mother. I was kicked 
 about. I came North and listed in army. I ve had 
 a hard time of it. My cap n hates the very groun 
 I tread on." 
 
 Then with a chuckle and a leer, as he thought 
 of his Ishmaelitish life, he said : " I did worry my 
 cap n. And he hated me. Ten months with ball 
 
1 14 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 and chain ! A hard time of it. But what you said 
 at the dungeon door s all true. And what you said 
 in prayer-meetin is all true." 
 
 " Prayer-meeting ! " I said. " I never saw you in 
 prayer-meeting." 
 
 "No, I was jus* outside on those old cannon. 
 And now, Misser Chaplin, I want to do right. 
 Misser Chaplin, I suppose we s goin into a fight, 
 and I want to do my duty. They say I m a 
 coward. I ve never been in a fight, but I want to 
 do my duty." 
 
 Then in a voice strangely tender in contrast with 
 that first gruff utterance which I heard from him in 
 the dungeon, he said : " Misser Chaplin, you re the 
 only man who ever spoke kind to me. If I get 
 killed I want you to have my money. And if I get 
 killed, won t you have it writ in the paper that Lino 
 died for his country ? " 
 
 That was another noteworthy incident in a chap 
 lain s pastoral work. We reached Virginia. We 
 were in a fight. Lino bore himself so bravely that 
 his captain, whom he had worried so long, called 
 him out before the entire company, at the close 
 of the engagement, and commended him for his 
 bravery and good service. Hearing of this, I 
 looked him up after the fight was over, and con 
 gratulated him on his well-doing in battle. 
 
 " You ve done bravely, I hear, Lino, and I m 
 glad of it." 
 
 " Yes," he said, with a softer chuckle than be- 
 
A Chaplain s Pastoral Work 1 1 5 
 
 fore. " They called me coward, but I tried to do 
 my duty. Tain t always the frisky ox that s at the 
 far end of the yoke." 
 
 This man knew little of the claims of duty. As 
 a friend said to me when I told him this story, " the 
 poor fellow s religious knowledge seems to have 
 been chiefly gained in eavesdropping at a prayer- 
 meeting ; " but as far as he understood his duty he 
 now wanted to do it. A chaplain s pastoral work 
 thus had its encouragements as well as its variety. 
 He found that every heart was human, whatever 
 its outward show. 
 
 Soldiers appreciated the sympathy with them 
 shown by a chaplain, and they would talk to him 
 freely of their trials and their successes, as he came 
 to them in kindly confidence in their varied lines of 
 service. On a hot July day the men in our brigade 
 had been in a severe contest, on an extended skir 
 mish line north of the James, pressing back the 
 enemy man by man, from tree to tree, in an open 
 wood. At the close of the day, as our regiment 
 relieved the Eleventh Maine on this skirmish line, 
 some of the men who had been all day at the front 
 were talking with me familiarly of the work they 
 had had to do, as if they were sure of the chaplain s 
 interest in the kind of shooting they had had. 
 
 "They ve got some good fellows out here in front 
 of us, Chaplain," said one Maine man; "picked 
 men. They ve given us good shootin all day. 
 They gave us good shootin t other day when we 
 
1 1 6 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 were over here; and they ve given us good shootin 
 to-day. There was one of our fellows ; they fetched 
 a flank fire on him, and put a bullet into his cheek 
 under the right eye, and it came out over his t other 
 ear. Killed him dead ! And he was behind a good 
 tree too. That s what I call good shootin bully 
 good shootin ." 
 
 And he looked to the chaplain for his appreciative 
 interest in this artistic soldier performance. This 
 was all in the chaplain s pastoral work with his 
 men. What had an interest to them they were sure 
 had an interest to him, and he retained his hold on 
 them by cultivating this feeling on their part. 
 
 The Christian Commission at one time gave me 
 a basket of fresh peaches, while we were before 
 Petersburg. That was a small supply for several 
 hundred men. As we had no hospital at the front, 
 I distributed the peaches among the men on duty 
 in the advanced trenches, one peach to each man. 
 As I went back over the line a little later, a Con 
 necticut boy, smacking his lips, said regretfully: 
 
 "Chaplain, I ve been wishing that the stone 
 hadn t been so big in that peach you gave me." 
 
 And it was an aggravation ! 
 
 Officers were like men in appreciating a chap 
 lain s show of sympathy with them. One of my 
 chaplain friends was on an army transport, going 
 South with officers and men from various regiments. 
 The officers were playing cards in the cabin from 
 morning to night. When Sunday came, the chap- 
 
A Chaplains Pastoral Work 1 1 7 
 
 lain took a good supply of reading-matter from his 
 cabin, and was on hand with it as the breakfast- 
 table was cleared off, and the officers were getting 
 ready to play cards as usual. Stepping to the head 
 of the table, he said, good-naturedly : 
 
 " Gentlemen, tracts are trumps to-day, and it s my 
 deal." 
 
 "All right, Chaplain/ the officers responded, 
 "give us a hand." 
 
 The books and papers were given out. No cards 
 were played that day. The chaplain had his oppor 
 tunity unhindered, because he showed tact in his 
 way of presenting his case. 
 
 That army transport life gave many an oppor 
 tunity of pastoral work for the chaplain, as well as 
 preaching opportunities. Along the Atlantic coast 
 the Civil War demanded frequent and varied use of 
 transports. At one time in North Carolina our 
 division made a raid into the interior of the state, 
 cutting itself off from its base of supplies and 
 exposing itself to capture by a force of the enemy 
 in its rear. It seemed both to us and to the enemy 
 that we were hopelessly hemmed in; but at the 
 close of the day in which we had accomplished the 
 main object of our raid, we suddenly turned toward 
 a river, and on reaching its banks found a number 
 of small vessels waiting there to receive us, in 
 accordance with the plan of our department com 
 mander. These transports had been brought up to 
 this point, so that we might board them, and quietly 
 
1 1 8 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 slip down the stream during the night, thus flanking 
 the force that had come into our rear. 
 
 Boarding those vessels and getting under way 
 was an exciting movement. If the enemy discov 
 ered our position in season to attack us before we 
 were fairly started, there was no hope for us. The 
 skipper of the craft on which our regiment embarked 
 was a character. He felt the responsibilities of the 
 hour, and he gave evidence of this in his super 
 abundant profanity accompanying every order 
 which he issued. I had never heard such abound 
 ing and varied oaths as he poured out in that one 
 half-hour from the time we began to come on 
 board till we were fairly afloat and were moving 
 down the stream. Of course, then was no time to 
 begin preaching to him. I could merely watch and 
 study him. But that I did with hearty interest. 
 
 When at last all was quiet, and the evening had 
 come on, and the old skipper was evidently gratified 
 with the success of the movement so far, I accosted 
 him with complimentary words as to the skill and 
 energy he had shown in his department. This 
 opened up a conversation, in the course of which 
 he told of other exciting experiences he had had 
 in other parts of the world. I listened with hearty 
 interest, and he saw that I was appreciative and 
 sympathetic. Presently he spoke of a peculiarly 
 perilous time he once had on the coast of Africa. 
 
 " Ah, Captain ! I suppose you had charge of a 
 slaver at that time/ I said. 
 
A Chaplains Pastoral Work 119 
 
 Seeing that he had "given himself away," he re 
 plied, with a quiet chuckle: 
 
 "Yes, Chaplain, I ve been up to purty nigh ev ry- 
 thin , in my day, cept piety." 
 
 "Well, Captain," I responded, "wouldn t it be 
 worth your while to try your hand at that also 
 before you die, so as to go the whole round?" 
 
 "Well, I suppose that would be fair, Chaplain." 
 
 The way was now fairly open for a free and 
 kindly talk with him. As we stood together there 
 on the vessel s deck, going down the stream that 
 night, we talked together pleasantly and earnestly, 
 and I got at the early memories of his boyhood 
 life in New England. I knew I was near his heart. 
 By and by all made ready for the night. There was 
 but one berth in the cabin. That was the captain s. 
 Our officers were to sleep on the cabin floor. The 
 captain said to me : 
 
 " Chaplain, you turn in in my stateroom. There s 
 a good berth there." 
 
 "No, no, thank you, Captain," I said. " Let the 
 Colonel take that." 
 
 "It isn t the Colonel s room; it s mine; and I 
 want you to take it." 
 
 "That would never do," I said, "for the Colonel 
 to sleep on the floor, while I slept in a berth. But 
 I thank you just as much for your kindness, 
 Captain." 
 
 I laid down with the other officers on the cabin 
 floor. While I was asleep I felt myself being rolled 
 
I2O War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 around, and I found that the old captain had pulled 
 his mattress out of his berth, and laid it on the 
 floor, and he was now rolling me on to it. I appre 
 ciated the gruff kindness of the old slaver skipper, 
 and my heart was drawn the closer to this new 
 parishioner of mine. Nor did I lose my hold on 
 him when we were fairly at New Berne, at the close 
 of this trip. I was once more with him in the 
 waters of South Carolina, and he came again and 
 again to our regimental chapel-tent on St. Helena 
 Island to attend religious services there. I saw 
 that I had a hold on him. 
 
 One week-day he called at my tent, having a 
 brother skipper with him, whom he introduced to 
 me, and then fell back, leaving us together. He 
 joined my tent-mate, the adjutant, and stood watch 
 ing while I talked with the new-comer. He told 
 the adjutant, with a whole string of oaths, that his 
 friend didn t believe there was a God, so he d 
 "brought him over here for the chaplain to tackle." 
 
 When the war was over, I heard of that slaver 
 skipper in his New England seaport home. At 
 more than threescore years of age he had come as 
 a little child to be a disciple of Jesus; he had con 
 nected himself with the church, and was living a 
 consistent Christian life. He was honestly trying 
 his hand at " piety " before he died, and so was com 
 pleting the round of life s occupations. 
 
 Hospital life was another sphere of work and in 
 fluence for the chaplain. He could cheer those who 
 
A Chaplain s Pastoral Work 1 2 1 
 
 needed cheering, and show sympathy with those 
 who were taking the bright-side view of their case. 
 
 "Chaplain, don t you think a hospital s just the 
 sickenest place there is going?" said an active 
 soldier boy who chafed under the confinement of 
 his convalescent state. And it was easy to agree 
 with him. 
 
 As I entered a field hospital just after a sharp 
 fight, I saw a young soldier who had lost his right 
 hand and forearm. I spoke with him of his brave 
 bearing under his loss. He asked me for the latest 
 news of the regiment. As I told him how nobly it 
 had borne itself, and of the commendation it had 
 received from the general commanding, he said, 
 heartily : 
 
 "That s worth losing an arm for, isn t it, Chap 
 lain?" 
 
 A young officer, whose right arm had been taken 
 off at the shoulder-joint said, jocosely, as he saw 
 me approaching : 
 
 "There s the shortest stump, Chaplain, in this 
 hospital" 
 
 As I sat by a young soldier who was sick in 
 hospital one Sunday afternoon, I held his hand as I 
 talked, and I stroked it tenderly as I spoke of his 
 home people in Connecticut, whom I had known 
 in former days. I saw the tears dropping on his 
 shirt-sleeve, but I said nothing about it at the time. 
 The truth was, I had been written to by that sol 
 dier boy s parents, and asked to look him up and 
 
122 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 try to win him back. He was yielding to tempta 
 tion, and I got my first hold on him in this way. I 
 never lost that hold. He did nobly in his later 
 army life. He was promoted for bravery and effi 
 cient service. When the war was over, he wrote to 
 me from his New England home. He was an active 
 worker in the church. He spoke of that first talk 
 with him in the hospital. 
 
 "When you went out of the hospital that day, 
 Chaplain," he said, " I cursed you for taking advan 
 tage of me, and making me ciy. I said it was mean 
 of you to make me break down before the other 
 fellows." 
 
 Then he added that he loved me for it now, and 
 that he prayed daily for me and mine. Later he 
 told me that he was married, and that he had named 
 his first little boy after his chaplain, whom once he 
 had cursed. The chaplain s pastoral work was as 
 remunerative as any pastor s, even if it was of a 
 different sort. 
 
 As I passed the regimental guard quarters one 
 day, in the later months of the war, I saw a man 
 tied up by his thumbs at the " wooden horse," out 
 side those quarters. It was no time to talk with 
 a man in that position, but I quietly noted the face 
 with the intention of speaking to the man after 
 wards. Those were the days of substitutes and 
 "bounty-jumpers," in lieu of native-born volunteers, 
 and severe punishments were more in vogue than 
 before. This man was a substitute from over the 
 
A Chaplain s Pastoral Work 123 
 
 ocean. He had been enlisted under a false name 
 by a relative in this country, and, with his imme 
 diate associates as they were, he had little induce 
 ment to do well in army service. 
 
 Not long after, when I had given notice at the 
 chapel-tent that on Tuesday evening I should be 
 glad to see any soldier at my tent who wished to 
 talk on personal religion, this substitute soldier 
 came to my tent on the evening named. I wel 
 comed him heartily, and referred to that invitation. 
 He replied, with some embarrassment, that he had 
 not come at that call, but merely to talk with me 
 on another matter. I asked if his special business 
 could wait a little, while I spoke of the matter to 
 which I had devoted the evening. He said the 
 other thing could wait. Then I told him of my 
 personal interest in him, and urged the surrender 
 of his life to his Saviour. His response profoundly 
 impressed me, as disclosing the workings of his 
 inner life. 
 
 "I m a very strange man, Chaplain! Now that 
 I m talking with you, I realize the truth of all you 
 say, and I m not a hypocrite in agreeing with it all. 
 But I ll go out from your tent, and it will not be an 
 hour before I ve forgotten all about this talk, and 
 am just as wicked and as wild as ever. And I ll 
 not think of religion again until, perhaps, I m on 
 guard some night. Then when I m all by myself, 
 and the camp is quiet, as I m pacing back and forth 
 on my beat, it will all come over me again, and I ll 
 
124 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 see just what a sinner I am, and how like a fool 
 I ve acted; and I ll resolve that if only I live till 
 morning, I ll be a very different man. And I ll 
 think that way until the relief comes round, and 
 I go to the guard quarters again. And then, will 
 you believe it, Chaplain? it will not be five minutes 
 before I m swearing and scoffing as if I d never had 
 a serious thought in my life. O Chaplain, I m a 
 very strange man, sir; a very strange man ! " 
 
 As this soldier parishioner, whose strangeness 
 consisted mainly in his unusual understanding of 
 the workings of his own heart, talked thus with me 
 of his moral struggles and need, I was drawn to 
 him by an interest that never intermitted while he 
 lived. He came to be a brave soldier. When the 
 war was over he became an active worker in a 
 prominent New England church. He took an 
 exceptionally high stand in business circles, in 
 political life, in military organizations. He was 
 instrumental in leading many who had gone astray 
 back to ways of uprightness; and, now that his 
 earthly life course is ended, his memory is precious 
 in the minds of many who were inspired and aided 
 by his example and efforts, as a specimen subject 
 of an army chaplain s pastoral work. 
 
 While a prisoner of war in the city of Charleston 
 in the month of July, 1863, I was paroled for a 
 time from the common jail, so that I might min 
 ister to our wounded soldiers brought up to the 
 Yankee Hospital from before Fort Wagner, on 
 
A Chaplain s Pastoral Work 125 
 
 Morris Island. That hospital was the old slave-pen 
 on Queen Street. It was sadly crowded just then 
 with those suffering and dying. 
 
 The surgeons tables were in the court at the 
 rear of the high brick building in which the 
 wounded men were lying before and after their 
 operations. When brought in, they were laid 
 on loose straw on the lower floors. More than 
 one hundred capital operations were performed 
 there in thirty-six hours. After treatment the 
 men were laid on rude cots on the floors above. 
 As they could not all be attended to promptly, 
 some of them were on Tuesday morning still lying 
 with the blood unwashed from their wounds of the 
 Saturday night before. The heat of the weather, 
 added to the loss of blood, intensified the wound 
 thirst of the sufferers. 
 
 My mission was to carry water in canteens from 
 the hydrant in the court below to the different floors 
 of the building, and give it to the thirsty, wounded 
 soldiers. With this needed draught I could bear 
 unexpected words of sympathy from a Union chap 
 lain to homesick prisoners, so that I was sure of a 
 welcome wherever I went. That was a chaplain s 
 pastoral work condensed and intensified, and the 
 memories of it can never fade out of my heart. 
 
 As I was passing along on the upper floor of that 
 slave-pen hospital, a Confederate surgeon, pointing 
 to a hospital cot, said tenderly: 
 
 " Chaplain, there s a little fellow who is sinking 
 
126 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 rapidly. He ll not live many hours. I think you d 
 better talk with him." 
 
 On that prompting I turned to the "little fellow" 
 on the cot He was a fair-faced, bright-eyed New 
 Hampshire boy, barely eighteen years old. He had 
 lost a leg, and was sinking from the shock. When 
 I told him who I was, he greeted me cheerily, evi 
 dently having no idea of his condition. 
 " You are very badly wounded," I said. 
 "Oh, not so very badly!" he responded. "I ve 
 lost only one leg, and a good many men have lost 
 both legs and got well." 
 
 " I wish you were to get well," I said, shaking 
 my head sadly. 
 
 "Why, Chaplain," he said, evidently startled by 
 my look and tone, "you don t mean that I m going 
 to die, do you?" 
 
 " Yes, my dear boy, I do mean that" 
 "Oh, but, Chaplain, I can t die! I m only a boy 
 yet, and I can t die." 
 
 " My dear boy, I wish I could give you life, but 
 the doctor says you re going to die." 
 "But, Chaplain, I m not ready to die." 
 "Jesus Christ can make you ready to die, or to 
 live, if you ll just put yourself in his hands. He 
 will be glad to take care of you." 
 
 "Oh, but, Chaplain, I ve been a very bad boy! I 
 was a bad boy at home, although I had a real good 
 home. I ve got a real good father and mother up 
 in New Hampshire; but I ran away from them and 
 
A Chaplain s Pastoral Work 1 2 7 
 
 enlisted, and in the army I ve been as bad as bad 
 could be." 
 
 "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sin 
 ners," I said, "and he loves to have those who have 
 been bad come to him to be forgiven. You can 
 come to him now as a sinner, and ask him to for 
 give you and save you; and he will do it gladly. 
 There is nothing he so loves to do." 
 
 "Well, will you pray for me, Chaplain?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "Of course I will," I replied; and I knelt by his 
 bedside, and prayed with and for him in loving 
 earnestness. Then, after a few words more with 
 him, I turned to other sufferers, promising to come 
 soon and see him again. After a little I came back 
 to his bedside. 
 
 "I ve been looking back, Chaplain," he said, "and 
 it s all black all black." 
 
 " Don t look back; 1 I said, "but look up. It s all 
 bright there." 
 
 " But you don t know, Chaplain, how great a 
 sinner I ve been." 
 
 " I don t care to know. Jesus knows. And you 
 cannot have been so great a sinner as he is great 
 a Saviour. He is ready to save to the uttermost 
 them who come unto God by him. And he is 
 waiting now to save you." 
 
 " Do you mean, Chaplain, that right now Jesus 
 will forgive all my sins, if I ask him to?" 
 
 " I mean just that, my dear boy." 
 
128 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 "Well, Chaplain, won t you pray for me again?" 
 
 "Yes, my boy, I ll pray for you; but I want you 
 to pray for yourself. Jesus loves to have those 
 who need forgiveness come and ask for it them 
 selves." 
 
 Once more I knelt and prayed. As I closed 
 my prayer I laid my hand on him tenderly, and 
 said: 
 
 " Now, you pray." 
 
 The little fellow folded his hands across his chest, 
 and prayed, prayed in such childlike simplicity 
 and trust, told so frankly to Jesus the stoiy of his 
 sins, and asked in such loving confidence for for 
 giveness, that I was sure his prayer was answered 
 while it was offering, and that he was having for 
 giveness even while he sought it. 
 
 As I rose from my knees I saw that we were not 
 alone. That childlike prayer, in that dying child 
 voice, had drawn the attention of surgeons, attend 
 ants, and visitors, in the dreary prison hospital, and 
 they stood about us in tearful sympathy. 
 
 A third time, after a brief absence, I was by that 
 soldier lad. His eyes were closed. His face was 
 pallid. At first I thought he had already passed 
 away, and I stooped over him to hear if he were 
 still breathing. Seeming to feel my presence, he 
 opened his eyes, and for a moment looked about 
 vacantly. Then, as full consciousness returned, he 
 recognized me with 
 
 "Oh, it s you, Chaplain!" 
 
A Chaplain s Pastoral Work 129 
 
 And throwing up both his arms, he clasped them 
 about my neck, and, drawing my face down to his, 
 he gave me a dying kiss. 
 
 " You are the best friend I ve got in the world," 
 he said. " You ve saved my soul." 
 
 " No, no, my dear boy. Jesus saves your soul." 
 
 "Yes, yes; but you ve told me about Jesus; and 
 he s saved my soul. He has, Chaplain. I don t 
 have any doubt about it. He has forgiven all my 
 sins. And now I m going to be with him. How 
 happy my father and mother will be ! I want you 
 to write and tell them all about it." 
 
 It was while I stood listening to the joyous 
 words of that forgiven soul, that I was tapped on 
 the shoulder and led away, under arrest as a sus 
 pected spy, to be shut in solitary prison confine 
 ment, never to see that dear boy again until he 
 and I stand together in our common Saviour s 
 presence. But when I was released from prison, 
 and was again at my home, I wrote to that soldier 
 boy s father in New Hampshire, and received 
 assurance that both father and mother were indeed 
 glad that their prayers for their loved boy were 
 answered, and that he who was lost was found 
 again. 
 
 Such echoes of army pastoral work, reaching my 
 ears after the war was over, were among the most 
 remunerative results of that peculiar service. On 
 ont occasion I visited the country home of one of 
 my dear dead soldier boys, several years after the 
 
130 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 war, and I realized anew how the incidents of that 
 conflict were an ever-fresh reality with those who 
 had given their choicest treasures to make the con 
 flict a success. This soldier boy was one of the 
 color-guard who was shot in the first severe battle 
 
 o 
 
 in which I had a part. He had sent by me his 
 dying message to his parents, that he was glad to 
 give one life for liberty, and I had buried him on the 
 field where he fell. To his parents he was still 
 simply away at the war. They thought of him as 
 their loved boy in the service of their country. As 
 I sat before them in their quiet farmhouse home, 
 they talked about Albert as their temporarily ab 
 sent boy, and I found myself familiar to them as 
 one who was linked lovingly with their absent 
 hero son. 
 
 " Albert writes about you in almost every letter, 
 Chaplain. He thinks a great deal of his chaplain, 
 and so we all do. We are so glad to see you." 
 
 It was not " he did write," and " he did think," 
 but " he writes," and " he thinks," now as always. 
 In many a New England home this was the feel 
 ing. The absent soldier boy remained the same 
 as the years went on; and his chaplain, if he was a 
 faithful chaplain in his army pastoral work, had an 
 ever-living place in the memories of that home 
 circle. 
 
 This truth was brought home to me with thrilling 
 vividness on one occasion, in the city of Boston. 
 I was announced to speak on an anniversary occa- 
 
A Chaplain s Pastoral Work 131 
 
 sion in Tremont Temple. A speaker who could 
 tell of army incidents of Christian service was sure 
 of a hearing at that time from a New England 
 audience. The house was crowded. Every seat 
 on floor and stage and in galleries was occupied ; 
 and the aisles were packed to the doors. Having 
 the ears of all present as I spoke, I had concluded 
 my address with a pathetic incident of prison hos 
 pital experience, and all hearts were touched with 
 tender sympathy. As I sat down, there came that 
 impressive hush which naturally follows such an 
 address before a popular audience. Suddenly the 
 silence was broken by a strong voice in the body 
 of the house, as the stalwart form of gray-haired 
 Captain Bartlett of Plymouth, the sailor mission 
 ary, rose, and his words rang out : 
 
 " I want in this public manner to give thanks to 
 that dear brother who has just taken his seat, for 
 his loving ministry to my dear boy, who starved to 
 death in a Southern prison." 
 
 Then, his face suffused with emotion, and his 
 voice tremulous with feeling, yet distinctly heard 
 by every person in that sympathetic audience, he 
 stretched out his hands toward me, and exclaimed : 
 
 " Brother Trumbull, when you cross the thresh 
 old of heaven, Victor Bartlett will meet you on the 
 other side, and will give you thanks for pointing 
 him to that Saviour in whose presence he is for- 
 evermore. That little Confederate Testament which 
 you gave him in Columbia, and which he had with 
 
132 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 him when he died in Salisbury, is one of the pre 
 cious treasures of my home and heart, and I want 
 to give you a father s thanks, as Victor gave you 
 his own thanks." 
 
 Every eye in that great audience was in tears. 
 Every heart was throbbing responsively. And all 
 the listeners felt, with the sobbing chaplain, that it 
 was a priceless privilege to have ministered in the 
 Master s name to those who were hungry and sick 
 and in prison in war time. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE HOME MAIL 
 
 Sitting in my tent, on the old Fair Grounds 
 beyond New Berne, North Carolina, soon after 
 I joined my regiment in the autumn of 1862, 
 I was startled by a cry, outside, of "Boat! boat! 
 boat ! " followed by shouts of rejoicing on every 
 side, and by sounds of unusual commotion in the 
 entire camp. Starting up to learn the meaning 
 of this noise, I found officers and men astir, as if 
 the long roll had sounded an alarm. They were 
 hurrying to and fro excitedly, yet with evident 
 looks of delight. 
 
 "What is all this?" I asked of a passing 
 sergeant. 
 
 "Didn t you hear that whistle, Chaplain? A 
 boat s coming up the river. Three whistles means 
 a mail. It ll be here in an hour or two." 
 
 Then I saw that the regimental postmaster (Wil 
 liam Keough, an enlisted man detailed for that ser 
 vice) was already on his way out of camp, with his 
 mail-bag, hurrying into the city, to be on hand when 
 the mail was distributed. A steamer was coming 
 up the Neuse River with a mail from the North 
 
 133 
 
134 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 aboard. Home letters for soldiers were in that 
 mail. Everybody hoped for a letter, whether having 
 reason to expect one or not. Although the mail 
 could hardly reach our camp for three hours yet 
 it having to be received and sorted at the post-office 
 in the city first, officers and men were restlessly 
 watching for it, as if it might appear at any moment. 
 They moved about aimlessly, yet by no means with 
 unconcern. They compared notes as to the prob 
 able time of the mail s arrival in camp. They con 
 gratulated each other on its coming to-day. Glad 
 expectancy and hardly repressed impatience were 
 in every face. 
 
 By and by the regimental postmaster, with his 
 full mail-bag, hove in sight beyond the camp. A 
 shout of joy went up from every throat, like the 
 cry of students, at a university race, when their 
 boat is nearing the goal. Already hurrying rapidly 
 with his precious load, the postmaster made a final 
 spurt, under the impulse of those cheers, and 
 reached his tent, to hasten the sorting of the regi 
 mental mail, which had been delivered to him at 
 the post-office of the department. 
 
 It seemed as if the whole regiment was gathered 
 in sight of that postmaster s tent, as though long 
 ing eyes could quicken the work of busy fingers. 
 There was but one thing thought of now. All 
 hearts outreached toward one center. Willing 
 hands were ready to take the field-and-staff mail, 
 when that was given out ; but there was no need 
 
Influence of the Home Mail 135 
 
 to carry it to regimental headquarters, for, from 
 colonel to quartermaster, all were close by, waiting 
 to receive what there was for them. The line 
 officers took their mail before it could reach their 
 company street ; and the men of each company 
 followed their orderly sergeant, as he took their 
 portion for distribution. Soon the entire mail was 
 given out, and then there was quiet in all the camp. 
 A hush came over the regiment in place of the stir 
 and noise. Only eyes and hearts were occupied. 
 Home influences were for the time supreme, with 
 those who had fresh letters from their family loved 
 ones, and with those who vainly longed for such 
 letters. 
 
 This was my first experience of the power of the 
 home mail in the army. But from that time to the 
 close of the war I saw more and more of that 
 power, in camp, in battle, in hospital, and in prison ; 
 and I came to feel that there was no influence more 
 potent, none which took a deeper hold on the 
 hearts of officers and men alike, none which was 
 more pervasive and yet abiding, than that which 
 centered in the coming of the mail from home. 
 Therefore it is that I desire to tell of it as one of 
 the positive, yet more rarely noted, factors in the 
 great war for the Union. 
 
 My regiment was at one time on the steamer 
 Pilot Boy, with Major-General John G. Foster, 
 commanding the district of North Carolina, moving 
 out of the River Neuse just as a steamer from New 
 
136 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 York was coming in. The New York steamer was 
 stopped, in order that the General might receive the 
 latest New York papers. It was found that a mail 
 was aboard, and the mail-bags were brought into 
 the cabin of the Pilot Boy. 
 
 Then came a quandary. The bags were locked 
 with government locks, and were assigned to the 
 New Berne post-office. No one on the Pilot Boy 
 had a post-office key. The bags would have to be 
 cut open, or no home letters could be obtained. 
 Generel Foster evidently hesitated as to his action, 
 as he must proceed on his way down the river, and 
 the mail-bags must be sent up to New Berne. He 
 stood in the cabin thinking it over, and the officers 
 of his staff and of my regiment stood about him, 
 waiting anxiously for his decision. There was not 
 an officer there who would not have risked a term 
 in prison to have a chance at the home mail. 
 
 " We re within a few feet of news from home. 
 It s a pity we can t have it," said one officer. 
 
 " General, isn t it possible that there are govern 
 ment despatches for you in that mail?" ventured 
 an officer of his staff. 
 
 "We must have our mail," said the General 
 firmly. Instantly a dozen knives were out, and 
 those mail-bags were opened and emptied in a 
 twinkling. There were bushels of letters for the 
 whole district, but they were quickly assorted in 
 accordance with General Foster s order: "Take out 
 letters for the commanding general and his staff, 
 
Influence of the Home Mail 137 
 
 and for the Tenth Connecticut, and put the rest 
 back in the bags, to return to New Berne." 
 
 Every man on the Pilot Boy who had a home 
 letter in that mail lay down that night better pre 
 pared for whatever the morrow would bring to him. 
 And every man who had no letter was at least con 
 soled by the thought that now he knew he was 
 not missing a letter by a failure to empty those 
 mail-bags. 
 
 There was no time when soldiers were more 
 open to sympathy than when they had just been 
 reading loving words written to them by their 
 dear ones at home. Soldiers in the army were, 
 as a rule, disinclined to think or talk about home, 
 while kept away from it in active service. It would 
 not do for them to yield to the drawings in that 
 direction. As has been suggested, they must but 
 ton their soldier coats over their hearts, and attend 
 to present duty. But the coming of the home mail 
 necessitated the unbuttoning of the soldier coats in 
 order to take the home news in; and then their 
 hearts were open to the outer world, and if one 
 who was near them took advantage of the oppor 
 tunity, he could find access to their inner being. 
 
 The hours following the home mail were a reap 
 ing season for a sympathetic chaplain. Men who 
 had just had letters seemed ready to tell him every 
 thing. Their hearts were softened, and they wanted 
 to talk of matters they could not speak of in ordi 
 nary times. 
 
138 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 "Did you hear from home to-day?" I asked of 
 a young soldier, as I entered his tent, on a mail- 
 day. 
 
 His face was all aglow as he answered: "Yes, 
 Chaplain. I had a real good letter from my father ; 
 and it had in it three postage-stamps, and two of as 
 good steel pens as ever you saw in your life. They 
 weren t much in themselves, but they showed they 
 were thinking of me at home. I tell you, Chaplain, 
 I m not much of a fellow myself, but I ve got as 
 good a father and mother as any fellow ever had in 
 this world." And the way was open for a close 
 talk with that soldier boy. 
 
 " Chaplain, I had a letter from my wife to-day, 
 and I want to show you what was in it," said 
 another soldier, as he handed me a scrap of paper 
 with some unintelligible pencil scrawls on it. " My 
 wife says she said/ I ll write to Nezer to-day. You 
 see my real name is Ebenezer, but my wife calls me 
 Nezer. Then my little girl, she said, "I ll write 
 to Nezer, too, and that s what she wrote. It shows 
 my little girl was thinking of me." I had a new 
 hold on that man from that hour. 
 
 Many a soldier was kept up to his duty by the 
 loving and patriotic letters that came to him from 
 father and mother and sister or wife ; and without 
 the constant influence of the home mail there could 
 never have been that measure of courage, of 
 patience, and of faith, which distinguished our 
 Union army to the close of the war. Wives wrote 
 
Influence of the Home Mail 1 39 
 
 cheerily while their hearts were breaking, lonely 
 mothers told their sons not to think of coming 
 back until the war was over, and fond and patri 
 otic sisters stayed up the courage of their brave 
 brothers. 
 
 "Chaplain, I ve just got a letter from my old 
 mother that does me good," said a free-and-easy 
 soldier, who had re-enlisted for three years more, 
 after two years in service. "I wrote her that I d 
 signed again, and she tells me she glories in my 
 spunk." 
 
 Blunt, but hearty in their spirit, and unmistakable 
 in their meaning, those words of commendation ! 
 Another soldier, whose mother had written approv 
 ingly of his re-enlistment, told me he had already 
 lost, in the war, two brothers, two brothers-in-law, 
 and two uncles. And he "wouldn t quit now." He 
 was "going to see this thing through." They were 
 patriotic homes that these letters came from. And 
 they were specimen homes of our Union soldiers. 
 Such patriotism gave value to the letters in the 
 home mail. 
 
 Probably there was never an army in the field in 
 which so many private soldiers as in ours had 
 homes to write to, and the ability and desire to 
 correspond with their dear ones. Certain it is that 
 this army was the first in which its government 
 made provision for regular and frequent mail dis 
 tribution while in the field and on the march. In 
 order to secure something of the same sort, the 
 
140 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 German government made careful inquiry into our 
 system of army -mail distribution before its war 
 with France in 1870. It was a point of soldierly 
 honor with our military letter-carriers to lose no 
 time in delivering home letters to those -to whom 
 they were addressed, even though the carrier must 
 go to the advanced battle front, and deliver the 
 letters under fire to the waiting soldiers. 
 
 Nor was it the private soldier only, who responded 
 to home-mail influences. I was sitting on horse 
 back near my brigade commander, under fire during 
 a sharp engagement, when I heard a sudden ex 
 clamation from him: 
 
 " Just look at that, Chaplain ! Just look at 
 that!" 
 
 I turned, supposing that it was some military 
 movement to which he was calling attention, when 
 he handed me a little note from his youngest boy, 
 telling in childish language of his love for his 
 father. 
 
 " You see, my wife was writing to me, and my 
 little boy wanted to write too. And here s his 
 letter. Isn t that sweet ? " 
 
 And that brigade line was the firmer that day for 
 the loving words from home, received by its com 
 mander in that battle hour. 
 
 Letters from home were treasured by soldier 
 boys, to be read over and over again when no fresh 
 ones were at hand. As a soldier showed me one 
 letter from his mother, he said : " My mother 
 
Influence of the Home Mail 141 
 
 writes me some real good letters. But I lost the 
 best letter she ever wrote me when we broke camp 
 last time. I used to read it over so often. It was 
 so good." 
 
 Many a time have I taken a home letter from 
 the pocket of a soldier we were burying on the 
 field. Sometimes it was with a Testament, and 
 sometimes with a pack of cards, but always 
 treasured lovingly. I took a letter from a dead sol 
 dier on the shore of Morris Island. It was from 
 his mother in Ohio. She spoke hopefully of his 
 speedy home-coming, as his term of enlistment was 
 nearly out. She said the melons he liked were 
 doing well, and would be ripe when he came home. 
 I had leaned over him before he was quite dead, 
 and as his life-blood was gushing out of his death- 
 wound, his last words, faintly spoken, were : " What 
 would my mother say if she saw me now ! " Poor 
 boy! his time was out sooner than he anticipated, 
 and before the melons were ripe in his Ohio home 
 he was under the sand on the South Carolina 
 shore. 
 
 As we came into the rear of the outer line of 
 works at Drewry s Bluff, in Virginia, a young Con 
 federate soldier was dying of a terrible wound. I 
 gave him water, and prayed with him ; and when 
 he was dead, and we were to bury him, I took from 
 his pocket his well-worn Testament, and the last 
 letter he had received from his loving father in his 
 North Carolina home. Both letter and Testament 
 
142 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 were stained with his life s blood. After the war, I 
 sent those precious relics to his parents, in western 
 North Carolina, and they were treasured in his 
 home as proofs of the love in that soldier heart for 
 his father on earth and his Father in heaven, whose 
 words were alike held dear by him. 
 
 Every soldier longed for home letters, but not 
 every soldier had the letters he longed for. A sol 
 dier from another regiment than my own said to 
 me one day, as we talked : 
 
 " Chaplain, I ve been out now more than two 
 years, and I ve never had but two letters from 
 home. I tell you that s rough ! " 
 
 " Well, it is rough," I said. " But have you any 
 family to write to you ? " 
 
 " I ve got a father and a mother, and two sisters, 
 and three brothers, and they ve never written me 
 but twice. I tell you, Chaplain, that s rough. I 
 say, Chaplain, we soldiers have a hard time of it at 
 the best ; and when we don t hear from home, it s 
 rough. When the mail used to come in, I d go up 
 to my company (you see, I was detached), and I d 
 ask for my letters, and there wouldn t be any for 
 me. Well, I d say, I don t care. I can wait. 
 I ll have some next time. But the next time it 
 would be the same way ; and so on all the while. 
 I tell you, Chaplain, it was rough." 
 
 And it was rough. Nothing was harder for the 
 soldier to bear than home neglect. Nothing did 
 more to help the soldier to bear what was on him, 
 
Influence of the Home Mail 143 
 
 than loving letters from home. If those at home 
 had realized this, there would have been less of 
 such neglect ; but the trouble was lack of thought. 
 
 I told this story of the aching heart of that home- 
 neglected soldier in one of the Northern papers 
 while the war was in progress. A good woman 
 up in Vermont, who was confined to her room, and 
 whose fingers were drawn together with rheuma 
 tism so that she could write only with great diffi 
 culty, read it, and her heart ached in sympathy. 
 She had lost a soldier brother in the war, to whom 
 she had written faithfully while he lived. And now 
 she determined to write sisterly letters to soldiers 
 who were without letters from home. She sent me 
 a package of these letters, for me to address to 
 such soldiers as I thought would value their words 
 of loving sympathy and appreciation. And she 
 continued this good work until the war was over. 
 Those personal assurances of kindly interest in the 
 soldier, and of recognition of his unselfish service 
 for those who were at home, were better than 
 printed tracts or papers for lonely soldiers ; and 
 the roughnesses of army life were smoothed in 
 many a soldier s lot by those substitutes for longed- 
 for home letters. 
 
 But it was in the prison life of soldiers within 
 the enemy s lines that the home mail had its 
 supremest power during the years of our Civil 
 War. To the soldier prisoner, home was so far 
 away, and so very dear, that a letter from home was 
 
144 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 almost like a message from another world. How 
 the heart ached for home letters, and how the heart 
 bounded for joy at their coming, in prison ! 
 
 After an experience of months in the prisons of 
 South Carolina, I was in Libby Prison, with this 
 longing for home letters filling my heart, as it filled 
 the heart of every soldier prisoner. How vividly 
 there stands out in my memory the picture of the 
 first mail distribution I witnessed in the Libby ! 
 
 There were more than nine hundred Federal 
 officers there at that time. The mail for soldier 
 prisoners in all the South came from the North by 
 flag of truce to City Point, and thence to Richmond 
 for sorting and distribution to other points. The 
 cry of " Mail ! mail ! " was my first glad surprise in 
 the Libby. I knew its meaning well. All were at 
 once excited, and busy in preparation for its recep 
 tion. A circle of boxes and barrels enclosed a 
 space on the upper floor, where the huge mail 
 could be deposited and sorted when it came in. 
 Adjutant Knaggs, of the Seventh Michigan Cavalry, 
 took his place in the center of that circle, with 
 several assistants for the sorting of the mail. Out 
 side of the circle gathered all the Union prisoners 
 who could pack into the great room, and beyond 
 were others trying to get within sight or sound 
 through the doorways. Few could hope for a 
 letter in that mail, but all could watch for one. 
 
 More than twenty thousand letters were in that 
 mail, not more than one in twenty of which be- 
 
L 
 
Influence of the Home Mail 145 
 
 longed in the Libby. The assistants went rapidly 
 through the great pile, tossing back into the bags 
 letters which were to go elsewhere, and laying 
 before the adjutant all letters for Libby prisoners. 
 The adjutant took up those letters one by one, and 
 called out their addresses in a loud, clear voice. 
 No one failed of getting his letter through inatten 
 tion when his name was called. 
 
 Oh, how intent were those listening ears ! The 
 very hearts seemed to stop beating, as each ad 
 dress was called. And when a man heard his 
 name spoken by the adjutant, how he did jump 
 and shout ! His arm went up, even though he had 
 to struggle as for life to get it free in that close, 
 living mass, and with outreached hand, as though 
 he would clutch the letter instantly, he called 
 aloud, " Here ! here ! here ! " as though he might 
 miss his letter by not speaking quickly enough. 
 
 Hours passed in this distribution, but none grew 
 tired through waiting. Yet, as the pile of Libby 
 letters grew smaller, the look of glad expectancy 
 on many a face grew fainter, and when the last 
 letter was called by the adjutant, and the crowd of 
 waiting prisoners dispersed, there were hundreds 
 of sad faces which had hoped for home letters and 
 been disappointed. For twenty-four hours after 
 that we could tell by a prisoner s face whether he 
 had drawn a prize or a blank in that home-mail 
 lottery ; and I thought at the time that, if those at 
 home realized how much a home letter was to a 
 
146 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 soldier prisoner, that prison mail would have been 
 larger, and its letters even more loving and tender. 
 
 It was this power of the home mail in the army 
 that kept the citizen soldier from losing his home 
 self in his army self. It was this which made him, 
 at the close of the war, drop back into his home 
 life with even more of love for it than before. And 
 it is one of the results of this influence that we 
 have in our country to-day so much of good as 
 a result from the war for the Union, and so little 
 of evil. 
 
 Not all home letters gave cheer to soldiers when 
 they came to them. Many a letter brought cause 
 for sorrow and sadness ; but it was none the less a 
 means of drawing the stricken heart homeward, 
 and of making home more precious from that time 
 forward. The first letter that came to me from my 
 home by flag of truce, after forty days of weary 
 waiting in a South Carolina prison, brought the 
 news of the death of my youngest child at a dis 
 tance from my home, and told me that that child s 
 mother would wait longingly near the receiving- 
 vault where the little one was resting, until I should 
 join her, on my release, in her homeward journey 
 for the final burial. 
 
 Can any one doubt that hearts brought together 
 in such a furnace of affliction were fused into a 
 oneness that would otherwise have been impossi 
 ble ? Is it not plain that the home life of those 
 hearts, when renewed at the war s close, was more 
 
Influence of the Home Mail 147 
 
 precious for the abiding memories of that letter, 
 with its message of loving sadness, read in the 
 gloom of that Southern prison ? 
 
 After my release from imprisonment, as I left my 
 quarters one midnight, in old St. Augustine, to 
 post home letters for the outgoing mail of the 
 morning, I met a soldier of my regiment in whose 
 soul there was midnight through the gloom of the 
 news that had come to him by the home mail of 
 that day. A letter had told him of the death of his 
 young wife, whom he had married only a few weeks 
 before he left his home for his regiment ; and it 
 was harder than ever for him to live on coura 
 geously. But as I talked with him tenderly of the 
 only comfort possible in such an hour, I saw that 
 his heart was open to the best influences of our 
 Christian faith ; and I saw also that the letter from 
 his parents which had brought him this sad news 
 had drawn him all the closer to his early home. 
 Its words of sympathizing affection had touched 
 and softened him, and he evidently felt that, with 
 such a Saviour and with such parents, he was not 
 entirely alone in the world. 
 
 " Anyhow, I ve got a good father and a good 
 mother," he said ; " I tell you, Chaplain, they are a 
 great blessing to a man." 
 
 I thanked God, then, for the stars that shone for 
 him in his midnight sky ; and I was gladder than 
 ever for the refining influence of the home mail in 
 a time of sorrow. 
 
148 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 It was harder to enforce strict discipline among 
 old soldiers against the temptations of the newly 
 arrived home mail, than under almost any other 
 circumstances. Repeatedly I have seen men at the 
 extreme front, in the evening, insist on striking a 
 light in order to read a letter just received from 
 home, when the orders were strict that no lights 
 should be shown, since the lines might thereby be 
 disclosed to the enemy. And when the mail was 
 distributed just as a battle was opening, officers 
 and men would hasten to read their letters as they 
 hurried into position, as if they feared they might 
 be killed without getting the latest word from 
 home. 
 
 The very face of the orderly who brought the 
 home mail, day by day, to the local commands, 
 became associated in the minds of the soldiers with 
 thoughts of news from home and home dear ones. 
 As they saw him leave camp, they felt that he was 
 going to get the home mail. As they saw him 
 returning with the mail, their hearts bounded with 
 gladness, in the thought of what he might be 
 bringing to them personally. And when an officer 
 saw this orderly coming toward him, on the eve of 
 a battle, or while on special duty away from his 
 command, he was inclined to say, as Achish said 
 to David, " Thou art good in my sight as an angel 
 of God." 
 
 How the face of our brigade orderly, who 
 brought our home mail to us during all the last 
 
Influence of the Home Mail 1 49 
 
 year of the war, stands out in my memory to-day 
 with pleasantest associations ! Years after the war, 
 as I stood up in the desk to have part in a religious 
 service in an Eastern Massachusetts town, I un 
 expectedly saw that man enter the room. I had 
 not seen him before since the war. Instantly my 
 whole being was in a quiver. I wanted to call out 
 to him, to ask if he had any letters for me to-day. 
 I felt, in the sight of that face, as I think the 
 prophet Elijah would have felt, if he had suddenly 
 seen, in the stir and buzz of a Samaritan city, the 
 face of the angel who had brought to him, when 
 he was a tired and disheartened wanderer in the 
 desert of Horeb, the food and drink in the strength 
 of which he went forty days more in the path of 
 duty. And I thought then how good it was to 
 have performed such service for others as could 
 make one s very face an earnest of refreshing and 
 cheer. 
 
 The soldier s craving for news from home was 
 more positive and conscious than even his desire 
 for the end of the " cruel war " he was fighting to 
 bring about. If he could have picked his place for 
 winter quarters at the front, he would have valued, 
 as next to wood and water privileges, a station 
 where the home mail came regularly and with 
 promptness. 
 
 During the last year of the war, when interest 
 centered in the operations in Virginia, under 
 General Grant s eye, the great Northern mail came 
 
150 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 daily by steamer from Washington to Fortress 
 Monroe, and thence up the James River to City 
 Point, to be distributed by military railroad to the 
 Army of the Potomac, and by boat to Deep Bot 
 tom for the Army of the James, far out to the 
 right and to the left. A delay of the mail-boat 
 on a winter s day, by reason of ice in the James, 
 seemed a small matter, as it was telegraphed north 
 ward from City Point; but it meant a great deal 
 to the waiting soldiers at the front. 
 
 The different commands usually received their 
 portion of the mail in the early evening. But when 
 there was nothing for them, it was a bitter disap 
 pointment, as the word went out along the extend 
 ing lines. 
 
 " No mail to-night, sir," said a score of orderlies 
 to a score of division commanders, after they had 
 visited corps headquarters, and learned of the mail 
 failure. 
 
 " No mail to-night, sir," said fifty orderlies to 
 fifty brigade commanders, on their return from 
 division headquarters. 
 
 " No mail to-night, sir," said hundreds of order 
 lies to hundreds of regimental commanders, as they 
 came back from brigade headquarters. 
 
 "No mail to-night, boys," said thousands of first 
 sergeants to the men of their companies, when 
 they learned the truth from regimental head 
 quarters. 
 
 " No mail to-night " was the word passed along 
 
Influence of the Home Mail 151 
 
 the lines from City Point, up the road toward 
 Petersburg, and into the bomb-proofs and trenches 
 there, and away to the Weldon Road, and on to 
 ward the South Side, at Meade s extreme left ; and 
 again up to Bermuda Hundred, and to Deep Bot 
 tom, and to Chaffin s Bluff, and to the very gates 
 of Richmond, on Meade s extreme right 
 
 " No mail last night " was the message that 
 went out, the next morning, with the coffee, to 
 the picket lines from farthest right to farthest left. 
 
 And wherever that message was heard, there 
 was heaviness of heart. From corps commander 
 to solitary sentry, an added burden was on 
 every lonely longing soul. The night shut in 
 more gloomily, and the morning was less bright, 
 now that there were no home words of love and 
 cheer to give fresh courage and hope. The hours 
 dragged heavily. 
 
 " Mail come yet ? " was repeated a myriad of 
 times anxiously, until the missing mail was at last 
 at the front, and was distributed along the picket 
 lines, and the home letters were read with added 
 gladness and gratitude. 
 
 Thirty-four years have passed since then. Many 
 a home from which those longed-for letters came 
 regularly to the army is now broken up. Father 
 and mother and sister and brother and wife, who 
 then wrote lovingly, have ceased their labors. But 
 their works do follow them. The influence of the 
 home mail is precious and hallowed in the hearts 
 
152 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 of the veteran soldiers of the army of the Union, 
 wherever they are found on duty to-day. And 
 many an old soldier who stands by himself on the 
 picket front of life s war lines, longing for a fresh 
 word from the loved ones in their final home, hears 
 faintly the old refrain, " No mail to-night," as the 
 evening shadows close in about him. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 DEVOTION TO THE FLAG 
 
 From time immemorial the flag, or banner, or 
 ensign, or standard, has been not only a rallying- 
 point of soldiers in warfare but an inspiration in 
 battle as a symbol of the object of their devotion, 
 whether that devotion rested on their country, their 
 clan, their cause, or their personal commander. 
 Far back in the days of ancient Assyria, Egypt, 
 and India, the uplifted standard was shown in the 
 forefront of the battle to guide and cheer the sol 
 diers in their struggle. 
 
 When first the Hebrew nation, as a nation, was 
 tested in battle, at Rephidim, Moses told Joshua 
 that he would stand on the hill-top overlooking the 
 field, holding the uplifted rod, by which he had 
 wrought victory in every moral conflict with the 
 Egyptians, as the standard which should be a 
 promise of God s favoring presence. So long as 
 that standard was borne unfalteringly the Hebrews 
 had courage and confidence, and prevailed over 
 the Amalekites ; but when it wavered or went down 
 the Hebrews were overborne. And when, at last, 
 victory was won through the upbearing of that 
 
 153 
 
154 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 symbolic rod, Moses built an altar on that battle 
 field hill-top and called it "Jehovah-nissi," "the 
 Lord is my banner" (Exod. 17 : 8-16). 
 
 Similarly, in tribal conflicts in the Hauran and 
 the Jaulan, east of the Jordan, and in Mesopotamia, 
 to-day, it is the leader s standard, a staff with or 
 without a distinguishing streamer, displayed upon 
 a hill-top above the field of battle, that animates the 
 fighters. While that stands, they are firm. When 
 that goes down, they waver or fall. With them as 
 with others the standard is their inspiration, and 
 the object of their devotion. In like manner in 
 modern times, throughout the civilized world, the 
 ensign or flag centers attention in battle, and is the 
 material symbol of the sentiment which inspires 
 soldiers to do and to die for that which is more to 
 them than life itself. 
 
 Among the treasures in the Imperial Arsenal at 
 Berlin none appeal more strongly to the soldier 
 heart to-day than the gathered standards taken 
 by the armies of Prussian and German soldiers, 
 from the days of Frederick the Great to the Em 
 peror William the First. No sign of the humilia 
 tion of the great Napoleon could speak with such 
 impressiveness as those tattered French colors, 
 with their surmounting eagles, which were upborne 
 so bravely and followed so faithfully, as inspiring 
 assurances of the great commander s presence and 
 power, before even the most overwhelming force 
 could beat down their defenders and wrest the 
 
Devotion to the Flag 155 
 
 symbols of national life from the grasp of the 
 dying. 
 
 Devotion to the country s flag animates all peo 
 ples, from the blind subjects of an autocrat to the 
 intelligent citizens of a republic. The stolid Chi 
 nese look up to the dragon flag as the banner of 
 the Son of Heaven, and are content to live or to 
 die for it as he may order. At a coronation of a 
 Tsar of the Russias, one of the imposing ceremo 
 nies, in which ruler and ruled have a common 
 interest, is the committing to his care the standard 
 of the empire, with accompanying prayers for its 
 preservation, he swearing fidelity to it in the pres 
 ence of the representatives of his vast realm and 
 of the outside powers of earth. 
 
 The worn-out regimental flags of the British 
 army have a sacred resting-place in the cathedrals 
 of the nation, when they can no longer do duty at 
 the head of the columns of living heroes. In grand 
 old St. Paul s, where the tombs of Nelson and of 
 Wellington, the mighty captains of the ages, teach 
 their lessons of patriotism and of heroic action to 
 successive generations, the tattered flags, long up 
 borne by men inspired and led by them, also bear 
 witness to these virtues on the venerable walls of 
 the sacred fane. 
 
 Good Dean Church, writing to Lord Blackford, 
 in 1876, of a service in connection with the re 
 ception of worn-out regimental flags in St. Paul s, 
 said: "We have just been having an interesting 
 
156 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 military funzione receiving the old colors of the 
 77th Regiment to be hung up in the cathedral. 
 They were (i. e., the colors) in the Crimea, where 
 the 77th were the first considerable body of Eng 
 lish who came in contact with the Russians on the 
 morning of Inkermann, and knocked back one of 
 SimonofTs columns in a wonderful way, according 
 to Kinglake. They [the soldiers] came, some two 
 hundred, laid their old colors on the altar, and then 
 took them to the place where they are to be fixed ; 
 and then all defiled before them, the band playing 
 Auld Lang Syne, and the colonel giving a parting 
 kiss to the flags as he delivered them to me." 
 
 More than twenty years later it was said of a 
 similar service in St. Paul s, on the reception of 
 another set of regimental colors : "The escort of 
 the Royal Fusiliers, marching up the nave, were 
 received by the choir and the clergy. The sub 
 alterns carrying the colors to the chancel steps, 
 delivered them to the Dean, who laid them upon 
 the altar. After a short service the flags were pre 
 sented by the Dean to their former bearers, who, 
 accompanied by the clergy and choristers, placed 
 them in position. The Dean then gave the ad 
 dress, and the service concluded with the hymn, 
 The Son of God goes forth to war. " 
 
 Every United States citizen feels that in a very 
 real sense he is one of the rulers of the republic, 
 and that therefore his country s flag is his flag, and 
 he is set to be its defender. His realm as a citizen 
 
Devotion to the Flag 157 
 
 is as real as a Tsar s realm. When the supremacy 
 of our flag, even within the limits of our republic, 
 was brought in question, every sentiment of patriot 
 ism and loyalty combined to make a citizen soldier 
 in the field the flag s devoted and determined pro 
 tector. 
 
 After one of our battles in South Carolina, while 
 preparations were making for another fight, I saw 
 a newly appointed color-sergeant lying in line with 
 the men, and tenderly shielding the colors with his 
 body from a driving rainstorm. 
 
 "Sergeant," I said, "I hear that the colonel has 
 given you the colors to carry. I congratulate 
 you." 
 
 "Yes, Chaplain," he responded, looking down 
 on his charge with affectionate pride ; " and I don t 
 know of anything better than this that I m fighting 
 for. I think it will take more than one bullet to 
 bring me down now." 
 
 A fair-faced young soldier whom I knew carried 
 the colors of a Pennsylvania regiment in one of the 
 battles of the Peninsula campaign under General 
 McClellan. A bullet shattered his right arm and 
 the colors fell to the ground. Snatching them up 
 with his left hand, the brave boy pushed forward 
 undaunted until a bullet through his chest gave 
 him his death-wound. Only then did he yield the 
 charge of the colors to a color-corporal, who caught 
 them from his dying grasp. 
 
 It was not an uncommon thing for a regimental 
 
158 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 flag to have two, or four, or even more, noble fel 
 lows fall in its upbearing in a single fight. In the 
 military museum at Albany is a tattered flag of 
 the Thirtieth New York Regiment, on the staff of 
 which is this inscription : "At the last battle of Bull 
 Run, these colors fell during the engagement in 
 the hands of ten different soldiers, shot dead on the 
 field. Thirty-six balls passed through the stars and 
 stripes, and the staff was shot into splinters." Such 
 a record gives point to the story of the devoted 
 soldier who, catching up the falling colors as they 
 went down again in a fight, called out heroically, 
 " Here are two minutes more for the old flag ! " and 
 dashed ahead into the jaws of death. 
 
 In the first severe engagement of which I was a 
 witness, our color-sergeant and one of the color- 
 corporals were badly wounded, and were borne to 
 the rear and laid on the ground side by side at the 
 field hospital. As I knelt by the corporal his first 
 words were : 
 
 " I did what I could to guard the colors, Chap 
 lain. I d stand by em to the last." 
 
 "I know you would, Corporal," I replied, "you 
 were always faithful." 
 
 "Where s the regiment now?" he asked. 
 
 "It s gone on, and finished its work," I said. 
 
 " Glory ! " he cried. 
 
 As the surgeon told me that the corporal had 
 but a few minutes to live, I asked him if he had 
 any message to send to his parents. 
 
Devotion to the Flag 159 
 
 "Tell them," he answered cheerily, "that I gave 
 my life for liberty, and I only wish I could give 
 another." 
 
 Just then the major of the regiment made his 
 appearance, the battle being over. At once the 
 wounded sergeant called to me : 
 
 " Chaplain, there s the major ; won t you ask him 
 if the colors are safe ? " 
 
 The colors were first in the thoughts of their sol 
 dier guardians, at the front and at the rear. 
 
 Patriotism, loyalty, devotion, centered in the flag 
 as a symbol, as it could not, in the nature of things, 
 center in anything else. Soldiers came to love and 
 honor the flag above all other visible objects. They 
 looked at it in battle as that for which they must be 
 willing to die. They looked at it in quieter times 
 as that which had their heart s affection, for which 
 they had already done so much, and for which they 
 were willing to do yet more. The very sight of it 
 was a call to heroism, and an inspiration to noble 
 thoughts and deeds. The formal bringing of the 
 colors to their place in the line, at parade or review, 
 was a ceremony that never lost its power through 
 familiarity. It- grew in impressiveness with the 
 growing experience of soldiers in army service. It 
 intensified the sacredness of their guide and their 
 charge. 
 
 When the re-enlisted veterans of the Tenth Con 
 necticut and the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts were 
 going North at the same time from St. Augustine 
 
i6o IV ar Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 on their "veteran furlough," there was a lively 
 scene at the pier where lay the two transports that 
 were to take them to Hilton Head for a new start 
 homeward. Those who were to go were exchanging 
 hearty farewells with those who were to stay ; for 
 even a brief absence in war time involved peculiar 
 possibilities, and was exceptionally impressive. Resi 
 dents of the old Spanish city were also present to 
 bid good-by to their friends, or to watch the vete 
 rans depart All seemed absorbed in each other s 
 words and ways as they chatted merrily together, 
 crowding the head of the pier, when the sound of 
 drums and fifes coming up the street called the 
 attention of all. 
 
 Permission had been granted the veterans of the 
 Twenty-fourth Massachusetts to take with them one 
 stand of their regimental colors on their veteran 
 furlough, and these were now being borne to the 
 transport under a guard of honor. Instantly every 
 voice in that crowd was hushed. Without orders 
 the soldiers drew themselves into line on either side 
 of the pier, and stood at attention, with bared heads 
 and reverent mien, as the colors and the guard 
 moved down the length of the extended pier to 
 the waiting vessel. Every soldier heart was thrilled, 
 and eyes glistened with tearful pride and tender 
 affection, as the dear old flag was before them 
 once more. Such a scene was not to be witnessed 
 except among soldiers, but there it called for no 
 explanation or defense. 
 
_ 
 
Devotion to the Flag 161 
 
 As in the battle between Israel and Amalek, so 
 with soldiers in any conflict : if the hand that holds 
 their regimental colors is firm and steady, the men 
 who look toward that standard have courage and 
 confidence ; but if the colors are lowered, or driven 
 back, the same men lose hope, and are liable to be 
 panic-stricken. On the same field I saw this illus 
 trated in two movements on successive days. 
 
 It was near Deep Bottom, on the north bank of 
 the James River, Virginia. A regiment that had 
 just come into the department was directed to 
 occupy a position, and establish a picket line, where 
 the enemy was in small force. As the regiment 
 neared the enemy s pickets, and was fired on, the 
 color-bearer and color-guard took fright and re 
 treated. Instantly a panic seized the entire regi 
 ment, and officers and men fled disgracefully to the 
 rear. 
 
 The next day a brigade from another command 
 was ordered to occupy the same position and drive 
 back the enemy, now heavily reinforced. A sharp 
 musketry fire, with artillery, caused the veteran sol 
 diers to waver and fall back, although in tolerable 
 order. Then the brigade commander, Colonel 
 Lynch of Philadelphia, a brave and gallant officer, 
 took a color-sergeant with his colors from one of 
 the regiments, and advanced with him to the rise 
 of ground from which they had retired, and, there 
 making a stand, called on the men to rally on their 
 colors. This appeal was irresistible. The sight 
 
1 62 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 of the imperiled colors was an inspiration. The 
 soldiers heeded the call of their commander, and 
 the enemy s position was quickly carried. 
 
 One of the saddest sights to a prisoner of war 
 was the flag of his countiy dishonored or triumphed 
 over by his captors. It gave an added pang of 
 sorrow to a soldier prisoner, as he entered Libby 
 Prison, to see in the commandant s office the Ameri 
 can flag displayed on the wall " Union down." 
 And there was no sight that gave such gladness to 
 a released prisoner s eyes as the dear old Stars and 
 Stripes on the flag-of-truce boat at City Point, as he 
 came from the Confederate boat floating the Stars 
 and Bars. A soldier on duty on the Federal ex 
 change boat, the New York, said that he had seen 
 many a released prisoner drop on his knees, as he 
 came once more under the Stars and Stripes, and 
 thank God that again he could see that flag flying 
 triumphantly. 
 
 In a demonstration against Richmond, in con 
 junction with a reconnoissance in force from an 
 other direction, during the later months of the war, 
 a portion of the home guard of the Confederate 
 capital was ordered out to repel the minor attack. 
 A member of this home guard was wounded, and 
 fell into our hands. As I stooped over him to in 
 quire into his condition, he told me that he was a 
 Union man, and that he had never been in a fight 
 until this occasion, when he was forced out of the 
 city to meet our advance. Yet even then he had 
 
Devotion to the Flag 163 
 
 not fired a shot against our lines. He asked me to 
 take his wallet from his pocket, and open it, as his 
 wounded right arm prevented his doing so. In one 
 of the inner folds of that wallet I found a tiny United 
 States flag printed in colors, together with a certifi 
 cate from a well-known Union man of Richmond, 
 vouching for the trustworthiness of the bearer. 
 The poor fellow seemed to think it hard that he 
 was a wounded prisoner in our lines, when he bore 
 on his person a copy of the old flag as his treasure 
 and his talisman. But it had its influence in secur 
 ing for him special favor, as a Union man and a 
 lover of the Stars and Stripes. 
 
 There were many such instances of love for the 
 old flag on the Southern side of the dividing line in 
 war time. Even among those who fought under the 
 Stars and Bars there was not wholly lacking a rec 
 ognition of the superiority of the Stars and Stripes, 
 with their patriotic and inspiring history and asso 
 ciations as a national flag. As I talked with a 
 group of Confederate soldiers, while waiting at a 
 railway station in South Carolina on my way from 
 Columbia to Richmond as a prisoner of war, I was 
 asked by one why we made such a fuss over our 
 flag, as if that were the only thing worth having or 
 fighting for. Before I could reply, another Con 
 federate spoke up warmly, as if out of the memo 
 ries of the Mexican War or other national service : 
 
 " Oh, well ! as to that, the Stars and Stripes are 
 just the sauciest rag to fight under that ever was 
 
1 64 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 swung on a battle-field ; and I don t wonder they 
 like that flag." 
 
 Any old soldier on our side of the lines could 
 say Amen to that sentiment. 
 
 In the final attack on Petersburg, which resulted 
 in its capture and in the breaking of the Confed 
 erate defenses, never to be re-established, our brig 
 ade was assigned to assault Fort Gregg, one of the 
 star forts on the strong inner line of works. That 
 successful assault was one of the severest and most 
 gallant actions of the closing scenes of the war. 
 And in this assault the devotion of soldiers to their 
 flag bore a conspicuous part 
 
 It was impossible to keep up an unbroken line 
 in crossing the fire-swept plain of death, but the 
 orders were for every man to make, at any cost, for 
 that fort, and for all to rally on the face of its em 
 bankment. The colors were, of course, to be the 
 rallying - point, and to get those colors there was 
 the duty and the pride of their devoted bearers and 
 guard. At the word, our men started on the run. 
 Both the national and the state flags were in the 
 race ; but they were a special target for the enemy, 
 as well as an object of devoted interest to our men. 
 Officers and men dropped by the way, but others 
 pushed on, and the colors were quickly taken up by 
 new bearers as often as they went down. 
 
 A color - sergeant bearing our state flag had 
 dropped just before this charge w r as ordered. Cor 
 poral Northrop took the colors in his place. He 
 
Devotion to the Flag 165 
 
 fell wounded before the ditch was reached. Cor 
 poral Phillips and Corporal Parmalee of the color- 
 guard caught at the falling flag, in the storm of 
 grape and bullets, saying cheerily : 
 
 " Let s take hold of it together, and run for the 
 fort. Maybe one of us will get there." 
 
 Both of them got there. Through the ditch, up 
 the slope toward the parapet, they carried the blue 
 flag of Connecticut. It was the first flag on the 
 fort. There they held it up as a rallying-point for 
 the irregular besieging line struggling across the 
 death-swept plain. Corporal Button, who was one 
 of the first men to get a foothold on the slope, 
 caught at the hand of one of the color-guard, even 
 in the excitement of battle, and called out joy 
 ously : 
 
 "Oh! I m so proud to see that flag the first 
 here." 
 
 Springing then to his work he fell severely 
 wounded, and could have no farther part in the 
 fight, except to call inspiringly to his comrades 
 to keep at it and put the thing through. Yet 
 that part he did faithfully to the end. Corporal 
 Phillips was barely nineteen at that time, yet he 
 had been already three years in service. As he 
 held up that flag above the parapet, his life was 
 nothing to him in its comparison ; yet it was a life 
 well worth living. Reporting his service after 
 wards to his commander, he said drily : 
 
 " I worried em with the flag. I d shake it in 
 
1 66 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 their faces, and, when they d grab it, Parmalee 
 would shoot em." 
 
 Victory was finally won only by bayonet and 
 musket butt That state flag had never been in a 
 fight before. It was newly presented to the regi 
 ment, the old one being worn out in prolonged ser 
 vice. Yet that new flag had twenty-six bullet-holes 
 in it, and three more in its staff, at the close of the 
 fight. Only soldiers who have watched and de 
 fended a flag in the hours of battle can realize how 
 much that flag was to those who gave their lives for 
 it, or who were ready to die. 
 
 This feeling of love for the flag as the visible 
 symbol of our country s unity and government, 
 which increased in intensity and dominance as the 
 war went on, was prominent with United States 
 soldiers when the war broke out. When, in 
 April, 1861, the few officers and men of the regular 
 army then stationed at San Antonio, Texas, were 
 taken prisoners by Colonel Van Dorn, of the South 
 ern army, the feeling of patriotism demanded of 
 the soldiers that the secessionists should not have 
 possession of the national colors. At the timely 
 suggestion of Lieutenant Hartz, Sergeant-major 
 Joseph K. Wilson and Corporal John C. Hesse 
 of the Eighth Infantry determined to conceal them, 
 and bring them north to Washington. The valued 
 colors, which had been carried through the Mexi 
 can War, were, therefore, taken from their staffs, 
 and wound around the bodies of these soldiers, 
 
Devotion to the Flag 167 
 
 under their clothing, and thus borne in safety to 
 army headquarters. These two men were, subse 
 quently, awarded medals of honor for this service, 
 by resolution of Congress. 
 
 Again and again, during the war, regimental 
 colors were similarly torn from their staffs and con 
 cealed on the person of the color-bearer, or of 
 some officer who took them in charge, when a 
 regiment was surrounded and captured, and were 
 thus retained, during a term of imprisonment, for 
 final restoration to the regiment. More than one 
 set of colors was thus concealed under the clothing 
 of officers confined in Libby Prison. At times a 
 flag was torn in pieces, and its fragments, divided 
 among officers and men for preservation during 
 their imprisonment, were subsequently joined to 
 gether again in a common whole for use in a new 
 campaign. 
 
 A flag of this kind made up from fragments thus 
 preserved is still to be seen in the Statehouse of 
 Connecticut as a relic of the Civil War. The old 
 colors were carried by the Sixteenth Connecticut 
 Regiment at the time of the capture of Plymouth, 
 North Carolina, in 1 864. According to an inscrip 
 tion on the new flag, these colors " were torn into 
 shreds by the officers and men, and concealed 
 upon their persons in order to save them from the 
 enemy. . . . Many of the men bearing these relics 
 were taken to Southern prisons, where, under un 
 told privations, they still sacredly watched over 
 
1 68 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 and kept their sacred trusts, subsequently returning 
 them to their native state." The fragments, when 
 brought together, were sewed on a new flag, being 
 deemed all the more precious because of the vicis 
 situdes of their varied war experiences. 
 
 Fifteen years after the war there was, in Con 
 necticut, a notable illustration of the abiding love 
 for the flag in the hearts of old soldiers. The regi 
 mental colors of the Connecticut troops were, on 
 their return from the war, deposited for the time 
 being in the state arsenal at Hartford, with the in 
 tention of having them finally removed to the new 
 statehouse then in contemplation. September 17, 
 1879, was, by a formal act of the legislature and a 
 proclamation of the governor, designated as " Battle 
 Flag Day," when the regimental colors should 
 be removed from their temporary to their perma 
 nent resting-place ; and all surviving soldiers of 
 Connecticut were invited to assist in the ceremonies 
 of their removal. 
 
 More than eight thousand veteran soldiers re 
 sponded to this call. The city was decked in 
 holiday attire. Including the military escort, there 
 were more than ten thousand soldiers in line ; and 
 fully seventy thousand spectators were watching the 
 impressive movement. Major-General Joseph R. 
 Hawley commanded the military ; and there rode 
 with him at the head of the column distinguished 
 officers of the army and navy, besides his personal 
 staff, made up of Connecticut officers in the Civil 
 
Devotion to the Flag 169 
 
 War. Every officer and man knew what it was to 
 follow and to value the flag. 
 
 It was far more than an ordinary military parade 
 or any civic celebration. The circumstances of 
 the occasion appealed to the soldier s sense of 
 duty, and moved the profoundest depths of his 
 patriotic sentiment and of his heroic devotion to 
 his country s flag. The regimental colors, which 
 those soldiers had defended on the field to the last, 
 and which many of their fellows had died for, were 
 not yet safe in their final resting-place, and the 
 state had made a new call on her soldier sons to 
 bring them home for safe keeping. At this call 
 the more stalwart had sprung forward with alacrity, 
 while the sick and wounded had summoned their 
 failing strength for one more march in support of 
 the dear old flag. 
 
 " Grandest of mortal sights 
 
 The sun-browned ranks to view 
 
 The Colors ragg d in a hundred fights, 
 
 And the dusty Frocks of Blue ! 
 
 A color-sergeant, partially paralyzed by a shot 
 through the body, had such a desire to be with his 
 colors until they were in the place of their final 
 keeping that he persuaded two of his comrades to 
 support him on either side, while his trembling 
 hands clung to the color-staff, and he was helped 
 along step by step until he yielded his charge into 
 the hands of the governor s representative for 
 
170 War Memories of a CJiaplain 
 
 deposit under the statehouse dome, and his last 
 soldier work was done. 
 
 After a march through the principal streets of 
 the city, the soldier procession formed in front of the 
 new statehouse, on the beautiful park to the north 
 of it. The line of color-bearers was in front of 
 the veterans. There were about eighty flags in 
 all. As these were brought forward, one by one, 
 their bearers, amid the cheers of their old regiments, 
 gave them into the hands of General Hawley, 
 who in turn passed them over to Governor Andrews, 
 and he accepted them, in the name of the state, 
 for permanent preservation. 
 
 It was a brilliant assemblage in front of the state 
 house, and the act of surrendering and receiving 
 the battle-flags was impressive beyond description. 
 When, for instance, the bullet-pierced and weather- 
 stained colors of the Seventh Connecticut Regi 
 ment, General Hawley s own battalion, were brought 
 forward, the sight of them was overpowering to the 
 General. Tears filled his eyes, his face was suf 
 fused with emotion, and when he attempted to 
 speak the words of acknowledgment to their brave 
 bearer he could not utter a word ; but his silence, 
 as he simply waved his hand in the direction of 
 the Governor, was more eloquent than any speech 
 could have been. 
 
 Governor Andrews, in receiving these battle-flags 
 in the name of the state, said : 
 
 "They come back thus riddled by shot, tattered 
 
Devotion to the Flag 1 7 1 
 
 and torn, blackened and grimed with the smoke 
 and powder of battle, but they bring us no word 
 of flight or dishonor. That sacred and mysterious 
 sympathy which goes out from almost every fire 
 side within our borders to all the battle-fields of 
 the rebellion finds in these ragged ensigns its dear 
 est and its intensest expression. Lovingly and 
 tenderly let us lay them away in the motherly arms 
 of the state whose trophies they now become, that 
 they may teach their lessons of patriotism and duty 
 to all future generations." 
 
 A cynical German socialist who had sneered at 
 American institutions, and who had been watching, 
 as a curious observer, the demonstrations of this 
 "Battle Flag Day," said at the close of the pro 
 ceedings, in view of the evidence it furnished of 
 the abounding patriotism and loyalty, and love of 
 the country s flag : 
 
 " I have no fear now of this country or of its 
 government With such men for its supporters, 
 and with such sentiments controlling them, this 
 country is safe." 
 
 Among the lessons impressed on the young 
 cadets in their training in the Military Academy at 
 West Point, none is deemed of more profound and 
 practical importance than the duty of holding in 
 high honor the national flag as the symbol of all 
 that is worth living and dying for by a soldier of 
 his country. When the colors are brought to their 
 place in the daily parade, and on every special 
 
172 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 occasion, and again as they are taken back under 
 guard, they are received and accompanied with 
 manifest signs of pre-eminent honor, and in the 
 reverent salute which is given them, as they come 
 and go, every officer and soldier has an apprecia 
 tive share. On the last visit to West Point of 
 General Sherman, as he was passing with interest 
 from one point to another of the place where he 
 had received his lessons as a young cadet, the 
 cadets were impressed by the fact that, as he came 
 to the national flag, the grim old hero of a hundred 
 battles bared his head, and reverently bowed it in 
 silent homage before that symbol of all for which 
 he had served and battled and commanded in his 
 years of warfare. The old flag had his heart s affec 
 tion, and that affection was ready to show itself at 
 all times. 
 
 When the flag goes up on a naval vessel at sun 
 rise each morning, every sailor on deck faces toward 
 it, and gives a formal salute. So deep and real is 
 this feeling of veneration for the flag as a sacred 
 symbol in the heart of every officer and sailor in the 
 navy that it shows itself on every occasion. A gal 
 lant admiral was shown, at a prominent New York 
 jeweler s, a handsome sword, made for presentation 
 to a volunteer officer. It was laid on a table 
 spread with an American flag. The Admiral pro 
 tested at this use of the flag for a table-cover. It 
 was said in explanation, "This sword is for a de 
 fender of the flag." 
 
Devotion to the Flag 173 
 
 " The place for a defender is under the flag, not 
 above it," said the Admiral. "And it stirs my 
 indignation to see a flag used as a table-cloth on 
 any pretext" 
 
 On April 14, 1861, the national flag was first 
 dishonored by its lowering above Fort Sumter, in 
 Charleston harbor, under an attack upon it by 
 those who should have been its defenders. " The 
 whole land rose up, when the flag came down, as 
 if inspired unconsciously by the breath of the 
 Almighty and the power of Omnipotence." Four 
 years later, on April 14, 1865, General Robert 
 Anderson, who, as Major Anderson, had sadly 
 lowered that flag " in that cope of fire," gladly 
 raised it again with his own hand, over a re 
 deemed land and a restored Union, while Hemy 
 Ward Beecher spoke eloquent words of rejoicing 
 and thanksgiving. 
 
 "At a cannon-shot upon this fort," he said, 
 "the nation, as if it had been a trained army 
 lying on its arms awaiting a signal, rose up, and 
 began a war of defense which for awfulness rises 
 into the first rank of eminence. The front of 
 battle, going with the sun, was twelve hundred 
 miles long; and the depth, measured along a me 
 ridian, was a thousand miles. In this vast area 
 more than two million men, first and last, for four 
 years, have, in skirmish, fight, and battle, met in 
 more than a thousand conflicts ; while a coast and 
 river line, not less than four thousand miles in 
 
174 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 length, has swarmed with fleets freighted with artil 
 lery." "That long night is ended! And for this 
 returning day we have come from afar to rejoice 
 and give thanks." "Reverently, piously, in hope 
 ful patriotism, we unfurl this banner, as of old the 
 bow was spread on the cloud, and with solemn 
 fervor beseech God to look upon it, and make it 
 the memorial of an everlasting covenant and decree 
 that never again on this fair land shall a deluge of 
 blood prevail." 
 
 Thirty years after that new upraising of the old 
 flag on Fort Sumter, on April 14, 1895, there was 
 a gathering in Brooklyn, New York, of soldiers 
 and sailors who had served in war time in the 
 vicinity of Fort Sumter, in the finally successful 
 effort to restore that flag to its place. Every officer 
 and man present had battled and endured in the 
 trenches of the sea islands, or had done service in 
 the vessels of the navy before Charleston harbor or 
 off Fort Sumter. General Stewart L. Woodford, 
 afterwards our Minister to Spain, presided. That 
 identical flag, which had been lowered by General 
 Anderson in 1861, and raised by him again in 
 1865, and which had not afterwards been seen in 
 public since it was wrapped above his coffin in 1871, 
 was once more exhibited, by the favor of Mrs. 
 Anderson, who had it in keeping. It was stretched 
 across the platform behind the patriotic speakers. 
 Its rents from shot and shell were more eloquent 
 than Caesar s gaping wounds, telling their story by 
 
Devotion to the Flag 175 
 
 their "poor, dumb mouths." It was accompanied 
 to that gathering, at the special request of Mrs. 
 Anderson, by members of the old Anderson s 
 Zouaves as a bodyguard of honor. As one and 
 another of the officers who spoke pointed to that 
 old flag, and reminded us all of what it had stood 
 for, and of what it had cost, in those four years 
 of war, to restore it to its rightful supremacy, the 
 scene was dramatic and impressive. All realized 
 the worth of that flag, and the value of the efforts 
 to restore its supremacy. 
 
 Just before the speakers sat an old United States 
 soldier who had battled through the war and real 
 ized the full force of all that was said. Being in a 
 soldier s uniform, he seemed to feel that it would 
 be unsoldierly to weep ; but being a soldier, with a 
 soldier s heart and memories, the tears would well 
 up from his heart and stream from his eyes down his 
 furrowed cheeks. Once they were too much for 
 him, as a touching reference was made by a speaker 
 to a soldier s feelings as he watched his flag in the 
 hour of battle. Quickly and furtively he wiped the 
 flowing tears from his cheeks with a small hand 
 kerchief, which he hid again from sight as if half 
 ashamed of his weakness, and straightened himself 
 as before for duty. 
 
 That was a typical scene. No sight can equal 
 that of the old flag to an old soldier. It is so to 
 day as it was in the long-gone days of war. The 
 sight of sights to a veteran on any memorial occa- 
 
176 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 sion are the dear old tattered battle-flags. He 
 knows what it cost to bring them to their pres 
 ent state. To him they stand for an imperiled and 
 redeemed country, and for the price of its saving. 
 He realizes that 
 
 "For every stripe of stainless hue 
 And every star in the field of blue 
 Ten thousand of the brave and true 
 Have laid them down and died." 
 
 The reverent cry to God of his loyal heart is, 
 
 "Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, 
 That it may be displayed because of the truth." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 DESERTERS AND DESERTIONS 
 
 Although war involves killing by wholesale, both 
 soldiers and civilians shrink from the thought of 
 the deliberate killing of a man for the crime of 
 deserting from the army in war time. Yet it is 
 obvious that unless soldiers find that they endanger 
 their lives by running away from the front in time 
 of active service, many of them will prefer to go in 
 that direction, instead of moving forward where 
 death confronts them. 
 
 General Washington said truly, that while there 
 were soldiers who were controlled by a desire for 
 glory or by a high sense of patriotism, so that they 
 could be depended on for going into action as a 
 matter of duty or of honor regardless of selfish 
 considerations, the great majority of men were held 
 to their place as soldiers by their knowledge that 
 the danger of running from the front was greater 
 than that of moving forward in battle line. This 
 was as true of soldiers of the Union army in our 
 Civil War as of the Continental troops in the War 
 of the Revolution. 
 
 Yet there was, for a long time, the same re- 
 
 177 
 
178 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 luctance in the later war as in the earlier to shoot 
 down in cold blood a deserter from the ranks. It 
 was not always easy toretake a deserter, therefore 
 many deserted with impunity. Even when one 
 was taken, and tried and sentenced, his punishment 
 was commuted, or he was pardoned, by the Presi 
 dent, on the petition of civilian friends. So it 
 came to pass that the war had been fully a year 
 and a half in progress before the death penalty was 
 executed on a deserter, according to the records of 
 the War Department. 
 
 Meanwhile thousands had deserted from the 
 army with small danger of harm to themselves ; and 
 the danger to those who remained at the front was 
 steadily increasing through the diminishing of the 
 force for duty by these desertions. If there had 
 been the prompt execution of one deserter to a 
 division, in the first few months of the war, this 
 evil would have been measurably checked with 
 comparatively small loss of life. But, as it was, the 
 magnitude of this evil was not realized until it was 
 evident that the choice must now be between shoot 
 ing cowards who ran to the rear or having true men 
 shot down at the front by hundreds or thousands 
 because of the criminal failure of those who, as well 
 as themselves, were bound in duty to defend their 
 government against all enemies. 
 
 Desertion to the enemy was naturally looked 
 upon, both in and out of the army, as a more 
 heinous offense than desertion to the rear; hence 
 
Deserters and Desertions 1 79 
 
 there would be less reluctance to the execution of 
 a soldier found guilty of that crime than to the 
 shooting of a man who merely ran away for his 
 own safety. My first experience as an army chap 
 lain with a deserter was with one of the former sort, 
 and his case was possessed of remarkable features. 
 
 A soldier of a Massachusetts regiment, which 
 was brigaded with my regiment for the entire four 
 years of our army service, escaped from confine 
 ment, incurred by insubordination, and deserted 
 through the lines to the enemy, in North Carolina, 
 in the summer of 1862. After serving in the Con 
 federate ranks for nearly two years, he deserted his 
 new command in the Army of Northern Virginia, 
 and came through the Federal lines at Deep Bot 
 tom, on the banks of the James, expecting to be 
 sent North and to be free from military service 
 thenceforward. 
 
 Strange to say, he came through the picket line 
 of his own old regiment, there in another state 
 two years after his desertion ; and, although he was 
 in Confederate uniform, he was recognized by a 
 member of his former company, who happened to 
 be at that picket post at the moment he came in. 
 Overpowered by surprise at his discovery, he was 
 held, given over for trial, convicted, and sentenced 
 to be shot in the presence of his old command. 
 
 My first meeting with this man was the day be 
 fore he was shot, as he sat on the banks of the 
 James, handcuffed and fettered and closely guarded. 
 
180 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 Conscious of being watched by curious eyes of his 
 old comrades and others, he was evidently in an 
 attitude of defiance, striving to appear unconcerned. 
 Although not repelling with rudeness my proffers 
 of interest and sympathy, he plainly said that he 
 was not going to break down now ; he had " lived 
 game" and he would "die game." Even if there 
 were a God and a hereafter, it was "too late to 
 think of that now." He had " put it off too long." 
 Then he spoke bitterly of those who had been 
 over him in his earlier campaigning, and insisted 
 that he had been sinned against rather than been a 
 wrong-doer, in his army life. I saw that, just then, 
 he was in no state of mind for such service as I could 
 render him ; and I left him with assurances of my 
 prayerful interest in him, and with a promise to 
 come back in the evening. 
 
 When I came to him later, while we were no 
 longer under the eye of observers, I found him less 
 defiant As I questioned him about the past I 
 found that he had a mother living. I found also 
 that he had been on guard at Libby Prison a year 
 before, while I was confined there. As he softened 
 down in his tone and manner I asked if I might 
 pray with him. He assented. As I prayed with and 
 for him I prayed also for his poor mother. At the 
 mention of her name, he uttered a piercing cry and 
 fell forward on his face, his whole frame convulsed 
 with agony and with sobs that seemed as if his very 
 heart were breaking. Stretching myself alongside 
 
Deserters and Desertions 1 8 1 
 
 him on the grass, under the quiet stars, I put my 
 arm over him, and waited in silent show of sym 
 pathy. 
 
 His hardihood was all gone. He was as a child 
 again. He was glad to have me talk with him, 
 and to talk to me of himself. He no longer blamed 
 those who had aided in bringing him to this state. 
 He blamed only himself. Finding that he was a 
 Roman Catholic, and would naturally desire the 
 ministrations of a priest of that church, I made 
 request of our division commander to telegraph 
 to General Meade s headquarters, before Peters 
 burg, for a priest, and soon I received word that 
 one would be with us in the early morning. 
 
 The next afternoon I had my first sight of a 
 military execution. I wish it could have been my 
 last. The entire brigade was ordered out to wit 
 ness it. As the command stood waiting, in three 
 sides of a hollow square, with an open grave in the 
 center of the fourth side, a deep, solemn, oppressive 
 stillness weighed down upon all hearts. 
 
 This stillness was broken by a low, soft, plaintive 
 strain of music, which came floating on the sultry 
 air across the plain, from beyond the rise of ground 
 in the direction of the camp we had left. It was 
 the sound of a funeral dirge from muffled drums, 
 with the subdued notes of an accompanying band. 
 A funeral dirge, for a living man ! Hearts quick 
 ened, and hearts stood still, at the sound. 
 
 A cart drawn by a pair of white horses bore the 
 
1 82 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 condemned soldier, seated on his coffin, accompa 
 nied by the kindly priest, while a military escort 
 marched on each side with arms reversed, as though 
 the man were already dead. The firing party, the 
 guard, and the music, completed the gloomy pro 
 cession. It was nearly half a mile away, and it 
 seemed a long, long while in coming. 
 
 Low and soft as the breathings of an aeolian harp, 
 mournful and oppressive as a midnight funeral 
 knell, the approaching music rose and fell in swell 
 ing and dying cadences, while listening ears ached 
 in sympathy and waiting hearts throbbed in re 
 sponsive tenderness. It was hard to bear. Faces 
 paled and hands shook which were not accustomed 
 to show signs of fear ; and officers and men alike 
 would have welcomed a call to battle in exchange 
 for that terrible inaction in the sight of coming 
 death. 
 
 Then came the last sad scene. The fettered 
 deserter was helped from the cart, just back of the 
 open grave. The priest knelt with him in prayer ; 
 then bade him good-by and retired a little dis 
 tance to kneel and continue praying in his behalf. 
 The guard formed on the right and the left of the 
 prisoner, and the firing party took position in front 
 of him a dozen paces distant, as he knelt on his 
 coffin with bandaged eyes and pinioned arms. 
 
 Twelve men were of the firing party. Eleven 
 of the rifles were loaded with bullets, and one with 
 a blank cartridge. No one knew which rifle lacked 
 
Deserters and Desertions 183 
 
 its bullet, so that every soldier might think it pos 
 sible that it was his. A second firing party was 
 back of the first. Two surgeons were close at 
 hand to see that the dread work was fully done. 
 
 The dirge had died away. A stillness even 
 more painful than its wailing notes had succeeded. 
 This was broken by the low, clear-spoken words of 
 command : " Ready ! Aim ! Fire ! " There was 
 a sharp explosion. The condemned man fell for 
 ward from his coffin. The surgeons were quickly 
 at his side. Five bullets had pierced his chest. 
 Yet the pulse still beat, and there was a low moan 
 ing respiration. Soldier hands were not steady in 
 aiming at a comrade s heart The second firing 
 party came forward. The orders were repeated. 
 Eight more bullets entered his chest and head. 
 The deserter was dead ! 
 
 The entire brigade was marched in column by 
 the open grave and the dead deserter. The band 
 struck up a lively air, as always in going from a 
 soldier s grave, and the command returned to camp 
 again. None who witnessed that sight could ever 
 forget it. But it came too late in the war for its 
 best impressions on all. Desertions had already 
 begun, and the spirit that led to them could not 
 at once be checked. 
 
 Already desertion to the rear had been found so 
 easy, and so free from danger, that the number of 
 deserters was swelled to tens of thousands. And 
 now there began to show itself an outcome of this 
 
184 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 state of things, more fearful than the original pre 
 cursor of disaster. 
 
 The splendid patriotism which had been mani 
 fested in the early enlistments of the war, and 
 which was still supreme among soldiers at the front 
 and in the homes from which they came, was over 
 shadowed in that sphere of money-making and of 
 business-pushing which was a result of the national 
 prosecution of the war, with its inflated currency 
 and its steadily increasing demands for army and 
 navy equipment and supplies. When calls for 
 added volunteers were made by the government, 
 young men who otherwise would have been ready 
 to respond with personal service were now so busy 
 with their money-making and their efforts to pro 
 vide for the material wants of the government that 
 they felt they could not go themselves, but they 
 would gladly pay to secure some one to go for 
 them. Large bounties were offered to substitute 
 recruits, to count on the quota required by the 
 new call ; and the gift of money, rather than of 
 service, came to be looked at for the hour as the 
 true measure of patriotism. 
 
 This condition of affairs resulted in the bringing 
 into being of a class of men known as " substitute 
 brokers," who made it their business to secure men, 
 "by hook or by crook," to enlist as substitutes, for 
 assignment to the credit of such states as offered 
 the largest bounties to men counting on their 
 quota. The broker, naturally, made the best terms 
 
Deserters and Desertions 185 
 
 he could with the substitutes whom he engaged, 
 taking as large a share of the bounty as he could 
 secure by fair means, and sometimes by foul. 
 
 It being known by these brokers that desertion 
 from the army was comparatively easy and safe, 
 they saw that a man could enlist as a substitute, 
 desert and enlist again, and so on indefinitely, 
 counting each time on the quota of the state pay 
 ing the bounty, and shielding another able-bodied 
 citizen of that state from the dreaded draft. This 
 possibility quickened their business. Men who 
 were engaged by them in this branch of activity 
 were called "bounty-jumpers;" and they came to 
 be recognized as among the enterprising and effi 
 cient " patriots " of the business communities of 
 the North. The story is told, on good authority, 
 of an Irish-American mother who, under the influ 
 ence of native American methods, told a friend, 
 with peculiar satisfaction, of the well-doing of her 
 son Michael, who had not been in all respects a 
 hopeful son before. 
 
 " It s a place under the government he s been 
 afther gittin ," she said. " And it gives him vary 
 good pay." 
 
 "What sort of a place is it? " asked her friend. 
 
 "Well, I m not quite shure as to that But I 
 belave they call it lapeing the bounty. " 
 
 The dimensions of this evil system grew at a 
 fearful rate. It tended to the demoralization of 
 the business community, and to the discouragement 
 
1 86 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 of the army. I speak of what came under my 
 own observation, when I say that substitutes en 
 listed and deserted three, five, and seven times 
 over ; that in single regiments one-fourth, and 
 again one-half, and yet again a larger proportion, 
 of all the men assigned under a new call of the 
 President for five hundred thousand more volun 
 teers, deserted within a few weeks of their being 
 started to the front. In some other instances, not 
 one-half of the men who were thus started even 
 reached the regiments, a majority having deserted 
 on the way. 
 
 The Confederate authorities, perceiving the mag 
 nitude of this movement, issued a proclamation to 
 the effect that men deserting from the Federal 
 lines into the Confederate should be permitted to 
 go North without detention. One of the Rich 
 mond papers, in the early months of 1865, reported 
 one hundred and eighty deserters from the Federal 
 lines as reaching that city within a single week. 
 Another Richmond paper satirically showed its ap 
 preciation of the condition of things at the North 
 by commending the reported enterprise of a 
 "patriot" in a Northern city, who, on learning 
 that his ward was short seventeen on its quota 
 under a call of the President, promptly enlisted 
 and deserted seventeen times, and so "saved his 
 ward." 
 
 From the private in the ranks to the President of 
 the United States, the feeling came to be general 
 
Deserters and Desertions 187 
 
 that the question of desertions, and how to stop 
 them, was of foremost practical importance to army 
 and to government alike. Then there was an 
 endeavor to do at this late hour what might have 
 been done hopefully at the first. As a check to 
 the proffer of the Confederate authorities, one 
 corps commander issued an order, promising a 
 furlough of thirty days to any soldier who would 
 shoot a comrade attempting to desert from the 
 picket line. At least one substitute soldier availed 
 himself of this offer, shooting a companion who 
 had started to desert to the enemy, and then him 
 self deserting while on honorary furlough. 
 
 It had become a question of checking desertion, 
 or of having no army available for the prosecution 
 of the war. The work of executing deserters had 
 at last been entered upon in desperate earnest. 
 Men were shot by twos and threes, in order to 
 make quick work of it. At one time I saw five 
 from the same regiment shot side by side with a 
 single volley. No coffins were ready for them. 
 They were wrapped in their blankets, and buried 
 where they fell. When men attempted to shoot 
 those who would prevent their deserting, they were 
 hanged instead of being shot. It came to be a 
 frightfully common experience with me to go out 
 with a man to the field where he was to be shot 
 or hanged ; and the scenes of grief and despair 
 which I was called to witness, when such men 
 were first told that they must die within a few 
 
1 88 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 hours, are among the most vivid and soul-harrowing 
 of my army life. 
 
 As I sat writing in my cabin, before Richmond, 
 on Christmas night, 1864, during a severe storm, I 
 was started up about midnight by a mounted 
 orderly with a note from General Terry. The 
 General said he was sorry to call me out on such a 
 night, but he had just received orders to shoot a 
 deserter the next morning, and he could not bear 
 to have the poor fellow hurried out of the world 
 without a word of counsel or prayer ; and therefore 
 he had sent for me to come and see him, knowing 
 I would be glad to do what I could in such a case. 
 
 Out in the darkness and storm I went from my 
 cabin, to plow through the mud, and to stumble 
 over fallen trees, and to grope my way among the 
 gaunt pines to division headquarters. The signs 
 of Christmas, still evident, were in sad contrast to 
 the thoughts which oppressed me, as I turned from 
 the brightly lighted quarters of the General, while 
 a band was serenading him, and found my way to 
 a gloomy log -hut, not yet roofed in, where the 
 condemned deserter was awaiting the hour of his 
 death. 
 
 The poor fellow seemed now dazed, now crazed. 
 By turns he was sure it was a mistake, and that he 
 could not be under sentence of death, and that, if 
 he was, he would be pardoned or reprieved, and 
 that if he must die he would " die like a man." 
 Then he would cry out in bitterness of soul against 
 
Deserters and Desertions 1 89 
 
 his lot, declaring that his spirit would haunt and 
 persecute, as long as they lived, all who had had a 
 part in his condemnation. Gradually I brought 
 him to a calmer view of his situation, and induced 
 him to tell me how he came into this state. 
 
 He had originally volunteered in a New England 
 regiment, and he had shown himself a brave, true 
 soldier until he was discharged for ill-health. Re 
 gaining his strength after a time, he had volun 
 teered in another regiment ; but, being debauched 
 by the prevalent sentiment in favor of " bounty- 
 jumping " and deserting, he deserted his new com 
 mand in order to join the army as a substitute 
 under an assumed name. Being unexpectedly 
 assigned to a regiment near the one from which he 
 had deserted, he was recognized while on duty at 
 the front, and arrested as a deserter, and was now 
 to die for his crime under his assumed " substitute" 
 name. 
 
 His chief concern was for the members of his 
 family, who would suffer hopelessly in his loss. He 
 had come from a patriotic home. He was of a 
 worthy ancestry. He* was engaged to be married 
 to a young lady of position and character. He 
 was indeed, personally, loyal and patriotic at heart. 
 He had been exceptionally courageous and faithful 
 while in service, and he had at no time intended 
 to be permanently away from the front, from an 
 unreadiness to bear a soldier s dangers in active 
 service. He was simply a victim of a state of 
 
190 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 things that was, at this time, threatening the nation s 
 life. He was one of many who had come to think 
 that deserting, in order to win an extra bounty, 
 was not to be looked at by a soldier as any worse 
 than civilians deemed it. 
 
 By and by the condemned man knelt at my side, 
 in that dismal cabin, while the cold rain drizzled 
 down upon us through the open roof, and he prayed 
 sweetly, simply, earnestly ; convincing me that a 
 soldier s true and trusting heart was below the 
 rougher surface which had shown itself before. 
 There was no longer any bitterness in his heart 
 toward any. There was sincere confession and 
 repentance, and loving trust. He prayed tenderly 
 for himself and for his dear ones, for me, a stranger 
 until now, and for my dear ones, for the officers he 
 had threatened to haunt, and for his fellow-soldiers 
 one and all. 
 
 It was a gloomy ride by his side in a cart, out 
 of the sally-port toward the place of execution. It 
 was a dreary tramp, on through the mud beyond 
 the roadway to the newly dug grave, in the sight 
 of the entire division drawn up on three sides of a 
 square. His voice was firm and tender as he spoke 
 earnest words of prayer, kneeling by my side before 
 that grave, and as he bade me an affectionate 
 good-by. And then his young life went out there. 
 Oh, if that could have been the last of the evils of 
 this system of bounty-jumping and deserting ! But 
 the end was not yet 
 
Deserters and Desertions 191 
 
 The provost-marshal s prison of our division, 
 before Richmond, in the last winter of the war, was 
 within a close stockade of pine logs twenty feet 
 high, guarded on all sides. Men were brought 
 there after their trial by court-martial, in ignorance 
 of the verdict rendered in their case or of their 
 probable fate. At one time more than sixty de 
 serters were there. Just outside of the entrance to 
 that stockade was a small log-cabin, used as the 
 condemned cell. If a man had been sentenced to 
 death he knew nothing of it until the order came 
 for his execution, and he was removed to this 
 cabin to pass a few hours there. 
 
 There were anxious times in that stockade. So 
 long as men remained there they might have hope. 
 At one time, seven men who had deserted together, 
 and against whom the evidence was clear, were 
 suddenly ordered back to their regiment, when 
 they had been looking forward to their execution. 
 The commanding general had noted a vital error in 
 the proceedings of the court-martial, and had dis 
 approved its findings. Then a man who had been 
 retaken outside of our lines had his death sentence 
 commuted to a year s imprisonment. These in 
 stances gave hope to many who had before been in 
 despair. 
 
 But again the current of feeling was changed. 
 A soldier arrested one day was tried the next, and 
 shot the third. Two men who had been tried four 
 weeks before, and had taken courage from the delay, 
 
1 92 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 were brought into the outer cabin, and thence to 
 the gallows, being denied a soldier s death by 
 shooting because they had added to the crime 
 of desertion by attempting to shoot their cap 
 tors. A soldier who had been tried some time 
 before, and was now cutting wood under guard 
 outside the stockade, in a feeling of comparative 
 safety, was suddenly called back to enter the con 
 demned cabin. Then those inside the stockade, or 
 the " bull-pen," as it was generally called, trem 
 bled. 
 
 The small outer cabin could be seen through the 
 entrance way of the stockade. I, being the senior 
 chaplain in the division, was likely to be summoned 
 to minister to a man who was taken thither, and 
 my face became familiar to the prisoners in the 
 larger enclosure. One day I entered the stockade 
 for the purpose of speaking to a prisoner. In 
 stantly I was recognized as one who, in a sense, 
 represented those having authority, while I had 
 personally a kindly interest in those who were 
 under condemnation, and there was a rush to secure 
 my sympathy and favor. Men crowded around 
 me by the score. They caught my hands. They 
 clasped my feet. They clung to my garments. 
 They pleaded for pity, for mercy, for help. 
 
 " O Chaplain, hear my story ! " 
 
 "O Chaplain, help me!" 
 
 " I don t care for myself, Chaplain ; but it will 
 kill my mother if I m shot." 
 
Deserters and Desertions 193 
 
 " Won t you go to the General for me, Chaplain ? 
 He ll pardon me if you ask it. I know he will." 
 
 "Help!" 
 
 "Help!" 
 
 " Help ! " the cries came up on every side, pite- 
 eous, heart-piercing, despairing. 
 
 Yet I was utterly helpless for the rescue of any 
 one of the poor prisoners there. I felt for the mo 
 ment, however, as never besides in my varied life 
 time, what it was to be looked to in vain as a 
 possible mediator and intercessor by those who 
 were appointed to die. 
 
 It was inevitable that, in the rush of effort to 
 stay the scourge of desertion, in that midnight hour 
 of the nation s life struggle, there should be cases 
 where innocent men suffered with and for the 
 guilty. Men were executed as deserters who had 
 never enlisted, and others who were technically 
 guilty were denied the clemency that the circum 
 stances of their case would have secured to them 
 in ordinary times, because it was felt that the cer 
 tainty of punishment for desertion must no longer 
 be in question. 
 
 As an example, in the range of my observation, 
 there was a green Irish lad of nineteen, who came 
 to America in search of his sister, and was met on 
 the dock in New York by the runner of a substi 
 tute-broker, who promised him work with good 
 wages if he would follow him. He was taken to 
 Connecticut, was stupified with liquor, and, without 
 
194 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 understanding what he was doing, was enlisted as a 
 substitute. A portion of the bounty money col 
 lected in his case was given to him by the broker, 
 but was quickly taken from him by members of the 
 squad of bounty-jumpers with whom he was placed. 
 Penniless, homesick, bewildered, he was hurried to 
 Virginia with a party of substitute recruits. Bent 
 on finding his sister, he started for the rear before 
 he had learned anything of army service. He was 
 arrested, and, the second day after, he was shot as 
 a deserter. 
 
 But the case of the last deserter to whom I 
 ministered was most pitiful of all. A boy less than 
 sixteen years old, born and reared in the upper 
 portion of New York City, was enticed away to be 
 sold as a substitute. He was somewhat under- 
 witted, but simple-hearted and childlike in a pe 
 culiar degree. He said, and probably with truth, 
 that he had never passed a night away from home 
 until the substitute-broker led him off When he 
 found himself with a squad of recruits in a camp 
 in Virginia, he wanted to go home ; and poor, tired 
 boy that he was, he started in broad daylight to go 
 down the road toward the landing from which he 
 had come. He was stopped, and brought back to 
 camp. Again he started to run, making no con 
 cealment of his purpose. He was re-arrested, tried 
 as a deserter, and sentenced to be shot. 
 
 When I learned his story I was sure that he 
 ought not to be executed. I went to my brigade 
 
Deserters and Desertions 195 
 
 commander and stated the facts. He told me that 
 he had no power in the premises. An order from 
 the department commander for the immediate exe 
 cution of that man had been received by him, and 
 there was no possibility of even reaching the de 
 partment commander with a request for clemency 
 in time to have it available. The sentence must be 
 executed. With a heavy heart I went back to im 
 prove my few remaining hours with the condemned 
 boy. 
 
 At first he gave way to an outburst of childish 
 grief on being told that he was to be shot. " I 
 don t want to be killed," he said. "Won t the 
 General parole me?" Having cried his first cry 
 out, he quieted down and listened to my words of 
 sympathy. His thoughts were unselfishly of his 
 home. If he must die, he did not want his family 
 to know it. "They d feel so bad about it," he 
 said. " I suppose it would kill em all. They d 
 be thinking of it nights. Don t tell em of it. I 
 suppose it would kill my father." For some rea 
 son his father seemed nearer to his heart than his 
 mother, and he spoke very tenderly of him. 
 
 The lad was as childlike in his trust as in his 
 grief. Kneeling by me on the swampy ground, 
 under the cold drippings of the cabin roof, in a 
 rain-storm, he clasped his fettered hands and said 
 his little prayer, which he had been taught at 
 home, and committed himself lovingly to his lov 
 ing Father in heaven. His parents were accus- 
 
196 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 tomed to pray with him ; and apparently he had 
 led a quiet home life, without knowing anything 
 of outside temptations. When I asked him how 
 he used to spend his evenings he said : " I always 
 worked in the factory day-times. When it came 
 night, I was tired, and went to bed early." 
 
 After that first burst of grief over his lot, he 
 seemed not to be troubled in the thought of death. 
 He simply accepted it as the next thing before 
 him. Just before he started for the field, he turned 
 to me, and said inquiringly, " I die to-day, shall I 
 go right to heaven to-day?" When he came to 
 the place of execution he was in no degree dis 
 turbed by the terrible preparations. He walked 
 up to the open grave, and looked into it with 
 childish curiosity. He knelt again to pray as 
 calmly as though he were by his own bedside. 
 
 He looked at the firing party with interest, as 
 though he saw only kind-hearted comrades. Just 
 as his arms were being pinioned, a little bird flew 
 over him. He turned his head and followed the 
 bird with his eyes, as though he would like to 
 chase it. Then he looked again at the muskets of 
 the firing party, with soft, steady eyes as before. 
 
 "Let me kneel on the ground and rest on the 
 coffin," he said, as they fixed him in position. 
 
 " No, kneel on the coffin," was the order. 
 
 So, kneeling there, he settled himself down into 
 a crouching position, as though he must wait a 
 weary while. 
 
Deserters and Desertions 197 
 
 Hardly had he taken this position, when he fell 
 forward dead, with every bullet of the firing party 
 directly through his body three through his heart. 
 He uttered no sound, nor did his frame quiver. 
 
 I wrote of this incident, at the time, to a news 
 paper in New England. Letters poured in upon 
 me from sad-hearted mothers and fathers in lonely 
 homes on every side, where a boy was missing who 
 might have been this one. And this gave me a 
 fresh glimpse of the peculiar sorrow brought to 
 stricken homes by these executions. I learned 
 that there was no such grief over the dead of the 
 war in any other sphere as in this. It was not 
 the soldier who had been killed on the battle line, 
 or who had worn out his young life in prison-pen 
 or in hospital, but it was the soldier who had died 
 as a deserter, who was mourned hopelessly, cease 
 lessly, and with greatest bitterness of heart, in the 
 loyal homes of the North. 
 
 But this rapid increase of executions for deser 
 tion did not seem to lessen the number of de 
 serters. On the contrary, it was found that every 
 execution was immediately followed by desertions 
 in the regiment to which the condemned men had 
 belonged. This seemed strange. The reason for it 
 was by no means obvious. One day, while talking 
 the matter over with my regimental commander, 
 General then Lieutenant-Colonel E. D. S. Good 
 year, it suggested itself to me that the new de 
 serters in such a case were men who were already 
 
198 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 guilty of the crime for which the others were exe 
 cuted, and that the sight of its punishment tempted 
 them to take flight before they were discovered and 
 brought to a similar end. Then the question arose, 
 what would be best in case this surmise were 
 correct. It seemed evident that the only cure for 
 such a difficulty would be the proffer of immunity 
 to those who would confess their guilt, and make 
 the best possible amends in the case. 
 
 Thereupon my commander said he would ride 
 over to department headquarters, and have a talk 
 with General Ord on the subject The result was 
 the issuing of a proclamation, by President Lin 
 coln, under date of March n, 1865, to the effect 
 that any deserter now in service, who would con 
 fess his crime and promise to serve out faithfully 
 the time for which he originally enlisted, in addi 
 tion to that for which he was newly bound, should 
 be exempt from the consequences of his deser 
 tion, and have, at the close of his term, an hon 
 orable discharge. This proclamation was duly pro 
 mulgated, and on the strength of it the men of my 
 regiment, including a large number of substitutes, 
 were invited to avail themselves of its provisions, 
 by reporting to regimental headquarters, if they 
 came within its scope. 
 
 Hardly was the order made public, before men 
 began to show themselves in response to it. First 
 one came, then two, then five. While these were 
 telling their stories and entering their names a score 
 
Deserters and Desertions 199 
 
 of others were waiting outside for their turn. Then 
 another score, and another, came. Eighty-four 
 men in our regiment, or one-seventh of those 
 present for duty, confessed to being deserters. 
 This was a startling disclosure. If so many de 
 serters were found in the ranks of a single regiment, 
 reinforced so largely of late by substitutes, what 
 must the number be in the entire army ! 
 
 Many of these confessed deserters were like the 
 New England lad whom I had ministered to, on 
 General Terry s urgent call that Christmas night. 
 They had yielded to the temptation to desert from 
 one regiment and enlist in another, in order to 
 "jump a bounty." One of them said to me, 
 
 4< My old regiment is just down the road, yonder, 
 and I ve been so afraid some one from it would see 
 me here. When I ve been out to one of those 
 shootings [of a deserter], I ve been so afraid my 
 time would come next that I could hardly keep 
 from taking to my heels right away." 
 
 Others had been seduced and swindled by 
 bounty-brokers, they hardly knew how. One of 
 these men was a volunteer officer in the navy. He 
 had shown special skill and courage earlier in the 
 war. Having been North on leave, he was return 
 ing to Washington. He remembered being in the 
 Jersey City railroad station, waiting for the mid 
 night train southward. The next thing he knew 
 he was in a bunk in the recruiting-camp in New 
 Haven, and he found that he was enrolled as a 
 
2oo War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 substitute recruit in the army, without even any 
 bounty to show for it. He supposed he had taken 
 something to drink on the invitation of another, 
 and so been drugged and enticed away. 
 
 He was evidently a man of character, and his 
 appearance gave credence to his story. He was 
 bitterly ashamed of his sad plight. I wrote to the 
 Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Welles, concerning him, 
 and I found all his statements verified as to his 
 position and character. But it would obviously 
 not do to reinstate him in his old command, even 
 by his own showing of the case. The best he could 
 do was to continue as a soldier, and this he was 
 ready to do. There was an endless variety of such 
 stories. 
 
 This was the condition of affairs when the for 
 ward movement was ordered by General Grant, 
 late in March, 1865, which resulted in the capture 
 of Petersburg and Richmond, and the surrender of 
 General Lee at Appomattox Court House. The 
 bearing of the regiment, which I have just described 
 as comprising so large a number of probationed 
 deserters, on the forced marches and in the des 
 perate assaults of that closing campaign of the war, 
 showed that these very men had high possibilities 
 of soldierhood, under the inspiration and incite 
 ments of brave comrades and skilled commanders. 
 
 Fort Gregg was one of a series of detached 
 works, on the intermediate line of the Confederate 
 fortifications about Petersburg. Because of its 
 
Deserters and Desertions 201 
 
 being vital to General Lee s position, it was occu 
 pied by several hundred men who had volunteered 
 to defend it to the last without surrender. Its 
 assault has been described in a previous chapter. 
 A deep ditch, filled breast-high with water, sur 
 rounded it. An extended plain, protected by an 
 enfilading fire, was before it. The brigade of 
 which that Tenth Connecticut Regiment was a por 
 tion, was ordered to carry that fort by assault 
 Veterans of a score and a half of battles were side 
 by side with those substitutes who had so recently 
 confessed themselves as deserters. Side by side 
 they charged across that plain under a deadly fire, 
 and into the ditch, making a living bridge of one 
 another by which they could reach from it the 
 parapet beyond. 
 
 The flag of the Connecticut regiment was first 
 on that parapet. Then came a hand-to-hand con 
 flict of fearful intensity. It was forty minutes 
 before the fort surrendered. There was rare 
 courage and desperate fighting on both sides before 
 the end came. Bayonets and clubbed muskets did 
 their part in the final struggle. Substitutes and 
 veterans lay side by side or piled on one another, 
 dead or wounded, when victory was at last won by 
 the assaulting column. 
 
 General Gibbon, the corps commander, who wit 
 nessed this assault, was enthusiastic in its praise. 
 He said he had read and heard of such prolonged 
 hand-to-hand contests, but he had never credited 
 
2O2 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 them until now. The assault was also under the 
 eye of General Ord, the department commander, 
 and of General Grant. It received special men 
 tion in the despatches of General Grant, as also 
 in the despatch of President Lincoln, who was 
 near that field at the time. It was the only 
 special assault thus distinguished in the despatches 
 in that campaign. Later the several regiments of 
 that brigade received bronze eagles for their regi 
 mental colors from their corps commander for 
 gallantry on that occasion ; and the color-bearers 
 were honored with medals, fastened to their breasts 
 with kindly words by Mrs. Ord, in the presence of 
 the entire command. This was a good offset to 
 the stigma that had been temporarily attached to 
 those battalions because of the deserting substi 
 tutes sent to them from the North to refill their 
 wasted ranks. 
 
 The end of the war put an end to desertions in 
 that war. But the whole story of those desertions 
 goes to show that the time to check a tendency in 
 this direction is at the opening of a war, rather than 
 at its close. And it shows, also, that the difference 
 between a soldier who remains at the front and a 
 soldier who deserts to the rear is not so much in 
 the men themselves as in the influences about 
 them, and in the system under which they are kept 
 true or are demoralized. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 SOLDIER GRAVES AND SOLDIER BURIALS 
 
 In time of peace, or at the rear or in a per 
 manent camp in time of war, a military funeral is 
 an imposing and impressive ceremony. Soldiers 
 marching with slow and measured tread, with arms 
 reversed and standards furled, to the sound of 
 muffled drums and the plaintive notes of a solemn 
 dirge, accompanying a catafalque or a pall-covered 
 coffin to the grave of a hero commander or com 
 rade, and there laying him to rest in an honored 
 grave, while firing a parting volley over his resting- 
 place, seem engaged in a fitting service, and those 
 who observe it recognize its propriety. The popu 
 lar idea of a soldier burial is based on such a scene 
 in sight or story. These are the scenes which have 
 made their impress on the public mind, on the 
 occasion of the burial of great commanders. 
 
 We read, it is true, of an occasional hurried sol 
 dier burial, when there is no time for ceremony or 
 display, and no opportunity for marking the place 
 of the hero grave. Yet it is hard to realize that of 
 the great majority of soldiers who fell in battle in 
 our Civil War, as in all great wars from the begin- 
 
 203 
 
204 W ar Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 ning until now, it might be said at the best, as of 
 Sir John Moore at Corunna : 
 
 " Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note, 
 As his corse to the rampart we hurried ; 
 Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot 
 O er the grave where our hero we buried. 
 
 "Slowly and sadly we laid him down, 
 
 From the field of his fame fresh and gory ; 
 We carved not a line, we raised not a stone 
 But we left him alone in his glory. 
 
 The mind is reluctant to admit this as the truth, 
 and whenever it is possible to show honor to the 
 remains of a soldier his comrades will in some way 
 gladly do it ; and those for whom he died have a 
 sad pleasure in joining in such a tribute of respect. 
 Soldiers are always desirous of at least securing a 
 Christian burial to a comrade, if that be possible, 
 and friends at home want to think that this possi 
 bility exists in every case. 
 
 One of the earliest deaths in our Civil War to 
 attract national attention was that of young Colonel 
 Ellsworth, of the New York Fire Zouaves, who was 
 shot down under peculiarly distressing circum 
 stances at Alexandria, Virginia, in May, 1861. It 
 was in itself a great shock to the loyal people of our 
 land. Many felt at that time as though the opening 
 war could never bring any good sufficient to com 
 pensate for that loss. Even President Lincoln 
 cried out, " My boy ! my boy ! was it necessary this 
 
i 
 
 Soldier Graves and Soldier Burials 205 
 
 sacrifice should be made ? " The young hero s 
 body lay in state for a while at the White House, 
 as he had been a personal friend of the President. 
 It was thence borne to its last resting-place through 
 the ranks of mourning thousands. To the commu 
 nity this seemed no more than fitting respect for 
 such a soldier s services and worth, and the sugges 
 tion made at the time, by a portion of the metro 
 politan press, that this could hardly be deemed a 
 precedent for soldier funerals generally, in the great 
 conflict then opened, was deemed unfeeling, in view 
 of existing public opinion. 
 
 The sentiment shown in that soldier funeral 
 manifested itself in other instances, and in other 
 localities, so long as its exhibit was possible in the 
 community at home or in the army in the field. 
 Only when dire necessity compelled a very different 
 course did such sentiment seem not to prevail. 
 Indeed, the impressive display in connection with 
 military funerals, in our cities and villages, when 
 dead soldiers were brought home from the field of 
 battle, was an important factor in newly arousing 
 and deepening the patriotic enthusiasm which kept 
 our armies supplied with recruits. 
 
 I felt the influence of such a display, when, on 
 Washington s Birthday, 1862, before I joined the 
 army, I was a witness in New Haven of the funeral 
 ceremonies of Colonel Charles L. Russell, of the 
 Tenth Connecticut Regiment, who was killed at 
 the battle of Roanoke Island. The whole city was 
 
206 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 moved by the passage through the principal streets 
 of the funeral procession, carrying his body to its 
 burial. Admiral Foote, then at his home, disabled 
 by a wound received at Fort Donelson, stood on 
 crutches at the door of his house on Chapel Street 
 to join in the common tribute of honor to the dead 
 hero, participated in by all the citizens, from the 
 President of Yale College to the humblest day 
 laborer in the streets. I felt then that I could 
 not any longer stay at home, and it was not many 
 months before I was in the very regiment which 
 Colonel Russell had commanded. 
 
 The first soldier I was called to bury, after join 
 ing my regiment in New Berne, North Carolina, 
 was an enlisted man who had died of congestive 
 chills. I then saw that the occasion did not com 
 mand the attention of all the regiment, although 
 certain forms were strictly observed within the 
 limits of his own company. A number of men 
 were detailed as a guard. A few special comrades 
 followed as mourners. The coffin containing the 
 body was brought out from the camp hospital, and 
 lifted into an ambulance. The guard presented 
 arms as the body of their dead comrade was borne 
 past them. Slowly the little procession passed on 
 its way to a spot selected as the regimental burying- 
 place, just outside of the camp lines. The guard 
 marched, with arms reversed, to the music of muf 
 fled drums. As the coffin was lowered into the 
 grave I read selections from Scripture, prayed, and 
 
Soldier Graves and Soldier Biirials 207 
 
 spoke earnest words over the first man of my 
 charge I had been called to part with in army life. 
 
 No parting volley was fired over that grave, as a 
 department order had forbidden the use of mus 
 ketry except within certain hours, lest an unneces 
 sary alarm be raised. The procession moved back 
 to camp with a quick step to the sound of a lively 
 tune. This seemed a little incongruous, but it was 
 in accord with military custom. . When the dead 
 are buried there is other work for the living to do, 
 and they must be at it speedily. 
 
 " Every man to his duty ! 
 We have buried our dead." 
 
 Each regiment was likely to have a burial-place 
 for its own men near its camp. If the body of a 
 comrade was sent for from his home, it could be 
 disinterred and forwarded while the regiment re 
 mained near the spot. But it was rarely that a 
 grave was marked with a permanent memorial, and, 
 when a regiment removed, the place of its dead 
 was likely to pass out of mind. Exigencies of war 
 might call for an earthwork or a ditch, where a 
 regimental burial-place had received the bodies of 
 those who were dearest of earth to their home 
 loved ones. Or, again, the spot chosen for soldier 
 burials while regiments occupied a certain position 
 might soon be in the hands of its original owners, 
 who would not care to give prominence to this 
 evidence of hostile occupancy. 
 
2o8 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 Of course, it was not easy for friends at home to 
 realize that this was the state of things in the army, 
 where their hero sons and brothers were serving 
 their country. We had occasion to find this out 
 in various ways. While at New Berne I received 
 a letter from a good mother in Connecticut telling 
 me that her son, in another Connecticut regiment, 
 had died, and been buried, some six or eight 
 months before. She was now thinking of having 
 his body brought home, and she wanted to find out 
 about it. 
 
 The regiment to which her son had belonged 
 had been ordered away from North Carolina before 
 I reached the army. No trace of its burial-place 
 was to be found. I was helpless to aid her search. 
 Without going into unnecessary details about army 
 burials, which would have grieved her heart, I 
 replied that her son s regiment left New Berne 
 before I came there, and I did not know the place 
 of his grave. At this she wrote that she was sur 
 prised that I was unwilling to do this small service 
 for a soldier s mother. 
 
 "Why, Chaplain," she said, " if you don t know 
 just where my John is buried, you might ask the 
 sexton. He ll tell you." 
 
 Her ideas of soldier burial-places were based on 
 her knowledge of the New England village ceme 
 tery, where the old sexton knew the precise loca 
 tion of eveiy grave dug in his day or his father s, 
 in that graveyard. Others, besides that mother, 
 
Soldier Graves and Soldier Burials 209 
 
 may be as much in the dark as she was about sol 
 dier graves and soldier burials. Soldiers them 
 selves had to learn the truth little by little, and it 
 is well that it was so. 
 
 When we made a move into the interior of 
 North Carolina, for the purpose of burning the 
 great bridge of the Petersburg and Weldon Rail 
 road at Goldsboro , we learned new lessons as to 
 caring for the soldier dead, or as to the necessity of 
 failing to care for them in the exigencies of more 
 active warfare. At Kinston we had three officers 
 and twenty men killed, and more than eighty 
 wounded, in a single charge. Then in a few hours 
 our regiment must push on to like service in other 
 fields. The best that we could do in the brief 
 interval of our stay was to bury our dead hurriedly 
 in a common grave, or in a long trench by the 
 wayside, the officers by themselves, and the enlisted 
 men near them. Subsequently the bodies of the 
 officers were recovered by a flag of truce, but those 
 of the men remained in their wayside grave with 
 never a stone or a stake to mark them, and we had 
 reason to believe that the field of their burial would 
 be plowed and planted by the returning owners as 
 though it had never been moistened by the blood 
 of patriots. 
 
 Other regiments had their dead buried hurriedly 
 on that field, and on other fields beyond, where 
 they were even more hastily covered with earth on 
 the spot where they fell. There was no time to do 
 
2io War Memories of a Clia plain 
 
 more. As we came back from that expedition we 
 found some of these hurried graves already par 
 tially uncovered by the wind and rain and by 
 trampling hoofs, and we realized that many of the 
 soldier dead must fail of a permanent resting-place 
 in the bosom of mother-earth. As I read that day, 
 in my daily course of Bible reading, the 14 1st 
 Psalm, the words " Our bones are scattered at the 
 grave s mouth," had a new significance and im- 
 pressiveness to me. 
 
 On Morris Island, after the attack on Fort 
 Wagner, the disposition of the dead was even 
 more suggestive of the darkest side of army life 
 and of army deaths. Hundreds of Union soldiers 
 were dead on the parapet of the fort, in the 
 ditch before it, and all the way down the island 
 between the Union and Confederate lines, among 
 the sand-hills or on the intervening sand plains. It 
 would have been practically impossible for the force 
 available to gather and remove all the dead and 
 bury them in permanent graves. The best that 
 could be done at the time, during the brief truce 
 arranged for the purpose, was to lift up and remove 
 the w r ounded, and hurriedly to cover the bodies of 
 the dead in sand graves near where they fell. And 
 a grave in those shifting sands, where the ocean 
 tides and the whirling gales were continually over 
 turning what had before been turned, was not a 
 permanent resting-place; there was no rest there 
 even in the grave. 
 
Soldier Graves and Soldier Burials 211 
 
 A correspondent of the Charleston Courier, who 
 was witness of the ghastly scene before Fort Wag 
 ner, after the Saturday night attack on it, described 
 it in terrible vividness. "Probably no battle-field 
 in the country," he said, "has ever presented such 
 an array of mangled bodies in so small a compass as 
 was to be seen on Sunday morning. The ground 
 in front of the battery was thickly strewn ; but in 
 the ditch around the works the dead and wounded, 
 white and black, were literally piled together. 
 Blood, mud, water, brains, and human hair, matted 
 together ; men lying in every conceivable attitude, 
 with every conceivable expression upon their coun 
 tenance ; their limbs bent into unnatural shape by 
 the fall of twenty or more feet; the fingers rigid 
 and outstretched as if they had clutched at the 
 earth to save themselves ; pale, beseeching faces, 
 looking out from among the ghastly corpses with 
 moans and cries for help and water, and dying 
 gasps and death struggles, these are some of the 
 details of the horrible picture which the night of 
 Saturday had left to be revealed by the dawn of a 
 peaceful Sabbath." 
 
 Yet this was but at a single point after the battle. 
 On both sides of the line drawn, by mutual con 
 sent, across the island, during the hours of truce, 
 many dead were buried where they fell. Some of 
 our wounded men just beyond our lines were seen 
 by us to lift themselves up, and strive vainly to 
 save themselves, in the sand hollows, as the incom- 
 
2 1 2 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 ing tide submerged them inch by inch, before they 
 sank back to die. The greater number of the 
 Union dead were buried by their enemy in a com 
 mon pit ; and their resting-places, with the soli 
 tary bodies hurriedly covered in the sand before 
 the fighting was renewed, are unknown and un 
 marked to the present day. 
 
 The body of Colonel Putnam, of the Seventh 
 New Hampshire, who fell while leading his com 
 mand in the assault, was returned to the Union 
 lines the next day, on request for it by a flag of 
 truce. He was a graduate of West Point, and was 
 well known by the Confederate officers. Special 
 respect was shown to his memory by his enemies. 
 But, on the contrary, the body of Colonel Shaw, of 
 a choice Boston family, who was killed at the head 
 of his regiment, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts col 
 ored troops, was treated with special indignity, be 
 ing thrown into the common pit with the soldiers 
 of his command, "under a layer or two of his own 
 dead negroes," as the Charleston Courier reported 
 it. A request for the return of his body was re 
 fused at the time Colonel Putnam s body was sent 
 back. Yet Colonel Shaw s name and fame, and 
 the place of his burial, are more prominent in 
 history in consequence. A soldier s burial is in 
 the thought of a soldier as he faces death ; but 
 his fame is surer than his burial. 
 
 Many a veteran soldier, after such experiences 
 as those of Kinston and Morris Island, mused of 
 
Soldier Graves and Soldier Burials 2 1 3 
 
 the future, as he toiled and suffered in the dragging 
 siege, or at the perilous front : 
 
 "And I wonder, when this has all passed o er, 
 
 And the tattered old stars in triumph wave on 
 Through street and square, with welcoming roar, 
 If ever they 11 think of us who are gone. 
 
 " How we marched together, sound or sick, 
 
 Sank in the trench o er the heavy spade 
 How we charged on the guns at double quick, 
 Kept rank for Death to choose and to pick 
 And lay on the bed no fair hands made." 
 
 It seems to be an instinct of our human nature 
 to desire to be buried. From time immemorial, 
 among primitive peoples as among the most highly 
 civilized, it has been looked upon as a terrible 
 indignity or misfortune to be left unburied. The 
 lack of burial would have been deemed a Divine 
 judgment among the ancient peoples of the East, 
 and the possibility of such a fate for any one of 
 our dear ones is something from which we cannot 
 but shrink. Moreover, there is a certain comfort, 
 sad though it be, in knowing just where our dead 
 are laid, and having the privilege of visiting the 
 hallowed grave. 
 
 In my boyhood home there was, in the village 
 cemetery, a monument over the grave of a British 
 midshipman, who was killed in a boat during the 
 attack on Stonington, in the War of 1812. His 
 body was brought on shore and buried at the time. 
 
214 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 After the war his fellow-officers erected this monu 
 ment to his memory. My mother told me, in my 
 early days, that some years after the war, when a 
 voyage across the ocean was more of an under 
 taking than a journey round the world is now, an 
 English gentleman, presumably the young mid 
 shipman s father, came to the village, and, inquiring 
 about that grave, went out to it to weep there, and 
 to have the slight consolation of being near the 
 spot where his son was laid in the soil of a stranger 
 land. That incident was often in my mind when a 
 request came to me, in my army life, to tell about 
 a soldier s grave, or to assist in sending home a 
 soldier s body. 
 
 I knew a Northern mother who lost a loved son 
 in a naval attack on a Southern fort. His body 
 was borne to his home, and his mother found a 
 certain relief in visiting his grave. Another son of 
 that mother was last seen on the field mortally 
 wounded in a great battle. She never knew where 
 was his grave, or whether he was buried. For 
 months she traveled and wrote in vain search of 
 information about him. Ten years after the war 
 she was still as uneasy about him as the week of 
 his death. Yet she had no such anxiety or mental 
 suffering as to the brave son whose grave was in 
 the family burial-place. I saw in her case how 
 much the knowledge of the fact of a soldier s burial 
 might be to the home loved ones. 
 
 While we were near the Atlantic coast, in our 
 
Soldier Graves and Soldier Burials 2 1 5 
 
 army service, it was practicable to send to the 
 North a soldier s body, if it could be obtained from 
 the battle-field and the military authorities would 
 allow it. Often the transportation of bodies on 
 government transports was forbidden during the 
 hotter months, or at any season unless embalmed. 
 In many an instance, as at Morris Island, the body 
 could not be recovered. When a body could be 
 buried in a well-marked grave, and the relatives 
 knew of that fact, it was next best to having it 
 near home, and indeed it left the hope of subse 
 quent recovery of the body. An understanding of 
 this state of things impelled soldiers to make every 
 reasonable effort to secure a fitting burial to their 
 comrades. 
 
 While in Virginia, in May, 1864, one day our 
 regiment lost two men on the skirmish line over 
 against the enemy at a point near the Richmond 
 and Petersburg Railroad, about eight or nine miles 
 below Richmond. At the close of the day, during 
 a lull in the firing, a grave was dug for those two 
 men just back of the place where they fell. As 
 they were wrapped in their blankets and laid in the 
 grave, a number of their comrades stood about the 
 grave, while I read a few verses from the Bible and 
 spoke words of sympathizing prayer. Just then the 
 enemy opened fire vigorously, and charged down 
 upon our skirmish line. It seemed doubtful for the 
 moment how many would rest in that open grave, 
 but we finished our work and closed the grave. 
 
216 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 Two large trees near by were blazed to mark the 
 place. One of those soldiers had a loved and lov 
 ing home circle in Connecticut ; the other was an 
 Englishman, of whose home we knew nothing. 
 The friends of the former were informed of these 
 details. 
 
 Two years after the war, at a regimental reunion, 
 the mother of that young Connecticut soldier came 
 to me, and asked about the place of her son s 
 burial. Tenderly I told the story. She listened 
 with a mother s keen interest, and asked me closely 
 about the locality. I did not then suspect her 
 motive in these questions, but a little later I learned 
 that a party from that stricken home had gone to 
 Richmond, and thence down along the Petersburg 
 Railroad to the point I had described ; had found 
 the marked trees and the solitary soldier grave, and 
 had brought home the body of the patriot here to 
 rest with his fathers in their Connecticut cemetery. 
 It was good to have had a part in giving that 
 measure of comfort to a desolated home. It was 
 sad to be unable in so many cases to say a word of 
 comfort to those who longed to know where their 
 soldier dead rested. 
 
 While at St. Augustine for several months, guard 
 ing that fort, with the convalescent hospital there, 
 our regiment had a season of comparative rest after 
 its arduous service in siege life on Morris Island. 
 We then had time to bury the dead leisurely, and 
 there were many dead to bury there, of our men 
 
Soldier Graves and Soldier Burials 2 1 7 
 
 and of other regiments. More than one new 
 burying-ground was started in some convenient 
 locality near the hospitals and the camps at that 
 time, the signs of which may or may not continue 
 until now. A spot of peculiar interest to soldiers 
 in that quaint old town was the United States 
 burial-ground, where rested the remains of officers 
 and men who fell in the prolonged Seminole war 
 of thirty years before, or where monuments were 
 erected to tell of the dead in that conflict whose 
 bodies could not be recovered. Under three small 
 pyramids of coquina rock, stuccoed and whitened, 
 were buried what could be recovered of the remains 
 of Major Bade and more than a hundred men of 
 his command who were massacred by Osceola and 
 his band during that war. Wherever our service 
 lay, in more active movements or in comparative 
 quiet, we found or we formed soldier graves, and 
 were reminded anew of the strange vicissitudes ac 
 companying soldier burials. 
 
 From the prisons and prison hospitals of the 
 South, where so many Union soldiers were con 
 fined, and where so many died, multitudes were 
 taken out for burial, and even where the place of 
 their graves was known it was only in exceptional 
 cases that the name of such a dead soldier was 
 marked in enduring form above his grave. Some 
 of these prison cemeteries are still shown and 
 guarded. But the wounded prisoners who died on 
 their way from the battle-field to the prison hos- 
 
218 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 pital were buried hurriedly, if at all, with no record 
 or note of their graves. 
 
 Yet more of the unburied soldier dead were left 
 on the battle-fields where they fell. Only the 
 wounded could be brought away by the retiring 
 Union forces or taken up to be cared for by the 
 Confederates when they were masters of the field. 
 At the close of the war there were soldier dead on 
 almost every great battle-field in the South, from 
 Bull Run to Appomattox Court House. 
 
 It was frequently the case that our army, in fight 
 ing or moving over the site of a former battle, came 
 upon evidences of neglect of the dead in the earlier 
 contest. And one of the fearful accompaniments 
 of such a war as this was the offensive poisoning of 
 the air in many instances, during the summer 
 months, by the unburied dead on the field between 
 the opposing lines. Often an arrangement was 
 made by a flag of truce for the hurried burial of 
 these dead where they lay ; but, again, the hourly 
 expectation of a hostile movement stood in the 
 way of such an arrangement. 
 
 Even during the last year of the war, in Virginia, 
 where the dead were numbered by thousands in a 
 single great battle, and the soldier graves were 
 great trenches in which the dead were hurriedly 
 laid and quickly covered, the memories which stand 
 out in a chaplain s recollections are of a single 
 soldier grave here and there, where a fallen hero 
 was laid to rest by his loving comrades, and a ten- 
 
Soldier Graves and Soldier Burials 2 1 9 
 
 der prayer was spoken above him. To say that 
 two thousand or twenty thousand men are killed in 
 a great battle, or that a thousand of the dead are 
 buried in one great trench, produces only a vague 
 impression on the mind at the fullest. There is 
 too much in this to be truly personal to you. But 
 to know one man who is shot down by your side, 
 and to aid in burying him, while his comrades stand 
 with you above his open grave, is a more real 
 matter to you than the larger piece of astounding 
 information. 
 
 During a fierce attack on our lines at Bermuda 
 Hundreds, in the spring of 1864, a spherical case 
 shot crashed through the head of a soldier of our 
 regiment not six feet from me, as we stood back of 
 our line of low rifle-pits. His pleasant face actually 
 disappeared as I was looking at it. When a few 
 minutes later, as we, having repelled the attack, had 
 a brief lull there at the front, knowing as we did 
 that we might be ordered elsewhere within an 
 hour, we dug a grave near where that soldier fell, 
 wrapped him in an army blanket, and laid him 
 there at rest. The words of prayer which I then 
 spoke were hearty words, and the soldier hearts 
 which throbbed in sympathetic response were warm 
 and loving hearts. That entire incident occupied 
 scarcely more than thirty minutes. It made no 
 show in the official report, but it filled more hearts 
 than one at the time, and it has a permanent place 
 in my memory. 
 
220 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 Not far from that time, while the enemy was still 
 pressing our Bermuda Hundreds front, and firing 
 was going on all along the line, as I was passing 
 from one point to another, through the open woods, 
 I came upon a group of soldiers burying a young 
 patriot who had just fallen at his post I stopped 
 to offer my services. The dead soldier was hardly 
 more than a boy in years, but he was already a re- 
 enlisted veteran. His arms were still in the position 
 of holding his rifle to cock it for firing. The thumb 
 and forefinger of his right hand were still holding 
 the percussion cap, which he was putting on the 
 nipple of his rifle when a bullet passed through his 
 lips and out through the base of his brain, killing 
 him instantly. An old soldier standing by the 
 grave, who had just lost his own son in battle, 
 pointing to the percussion cap in the death-grip of 
 the young soldier, said in loving, patriotic pride, 
 
 " You see, Chaplain, John died doing his duty." 
 As I spoke tender words of appreciation and 
 sympathy to those dear soldiers, I reminded them 
 that as John died doing his duty, it was for us to 
 live or to die doing our duty. All bared their 
 heads reverently as I prayed for the mourning 
 loved ones of the dead, for us and for ours, and for 
 our struggling country. I heard sobs of sympa 
 thetic sorrow from the brave men as they stood for 
 a moment in this duty, before turning again to the 
 sterner realities of our soldier life, of which re 
 minders were coming to us in the passing bullets 
 
Soldier Graves and Soldier Burials 221 
 
 and the distant ringing rifles, and I felt how good 
 it was to have the privilege of doing anything for 
 such men in such a cause. 
 
 There were little soldier graveyards, or burial- 
 places, all along the front, or just back from the front, 
 on the siege line before Petersburg and Richmond, 
 during that last year of the war. And there were 
 solitary soldier graves here and there, marked by a 
 rudely painted head-board, made from the cover 
 of a cracker-box, or of an ammunition-box, giving 
 the name and battalion and date of death of the 
 dead soldier. In the nature of things, there could 
 be no permanency to these graves as resting-places 
 for the dead, but they bore witness to the natural 
 desire of men to bury their dead, and to mark the 
 hallowed spot, if by any means they might do so. 
 
 Before Petersburg there seemed to be army 
 graves, as there were death-dealing batteries, every 
 where. Away at the front, before our regimental 
 quarters, there was a single grave on a barren sand 
 hill. Two or three graves under a solitary tree 
 were not far from there. Half a dozen graves in a 
 row were on the plain below. Other graves apart 
 or collected were on this side and that Yet there 
 was no rest there, even in death. The roar of 
 artillery and the rattle of musketry shook con 
 tinually the narrow beds of those worn-out soldiers. 
 Often the thin covering of the grave was torn off 
 by a cannon-shot. I saw a shell strike and explode 
 in the very center of a Pennsylvania soldier s grave, 
 
222 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 but a few yards from me, as if to arouse him again 
 to action, and remind him that he might not sleep 
 while the war went on. 
 
 There before Petersburg it seemed at times hard 
 either to keep out of the grave, or to keep in one s 
 grave, or to get one to his grave. It was toilsome 
 living or dying in that terrible siege. At points 
 the advanced vidette-pits of the two sides were 
 within a stone s throw of each other, and within 
 short rifle range of the main works. When hos 
 tilities were most active, it was not an easy matter 
 to get to, or to get from, a vidette-pit, and one 
 must keep under close cover while there. Men on 
 duty there could be relieved only by night, and 
 then as quietly as possible. If a soldier raised 
 head or hand above the low earth bank by day, 
 "chew" came a bullet past him, or "chug" came 
 a bullet into him. In some cases the soft crown 
 of the low bank of those pits was actually cut down 
 from six to twelve inches chipped away by re 
 peated bullet-hits in one busy day, and must be 
 repaired by the new comers, during the night, for 
 the day following. Twenty-four hours of unrelieved 
 round of duty in such a place was a long time for 
 any man. 
 
 One day in September an enlisted man of our 
 regiment, in one of those pits, showed his head 
 above the mound for a moment. A bullet crashed 
 through his forehead, and he fell back unconscious. 
 His sole comrade in the pit, who was as brave and 
 
Soldier Graves and Soldier Burials 223 
 
 daring a soldier as could be found in the regiment, 
 knew that an attempt to get his wounded com 
 panion to the rear would be certain death. No 
 stretcher corps could come to his relief before dark. 
 There was nothing left for the lonely watcher but 
 to wait. And wait he did, nine weary, dreary 
 hours, until the night came with its welcome cover. 
 Cramped in that close clay pit, by the side of his 
 bleeding, moaning, dying fellow; unable to lift 
 himself for a full change of posture ; helpless to 
 give, or to seek, relief for the speechless sufferer ; 
 in the heat of a burning sun, and again in the 
 drenching of a pouring rain ; now brushing the flies 
 from the upturned, disfigured face ; now giving 
 scanty drops of water to moisten the parching lips 
 of the wounded and dying veteran ; now shielding 
 that face from the force of the beating shower, 
 he passed the long hours of the dragging day, 
 longing for darkness, and feeling that it would 
 never come. "I tell you, Chaplain," he said, 
 "they were long hours." And they were. 
 
 The dying soldier was a jovial, kindly, popu 
 lar, and daring man, a favorite with all the regi 
 ment. He was known to all by the familiar name 
 of " Muggins." There was a sense of more than 
 common loss, that night, in camp, when the bleed 
 ing form was laid in a low splinter-proof before 
 headquarters, where we watched his heavy breath 
 ing, and looked into his familiar, now unresponsive, 
 face, while kind yet unheeded words were spoken 
 
224 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 to him, until just past the midnight hour, when so 
 many souls take flight, and he gave his last labored, 
 low sob, and all was still. 
 
 We could have no gatherings at that time in our 
 camp, in sight of the enemy. A public funeral 
 was out of the question. Yet we must risk some 
 thing in loving regard of that soldier s memory. A 
 grave was dug for him just back of our camp. In 
 the morning a few of us gathered about it, as his 
 body was laid to rest. As I stood at the head of 
 that grave, facing the men, with my back to the 
 enemy s works, reading a few comforting words of 
 Scripture, I heard the shriek of a coming shell, and 
 knew that the enemy had observed our gathering 
 and opened fire on the group. It was evident by 
 the looks and the movements of those near us that 
 the aim and range were good, but that comrade 
 should have a Christian burial at any cost. Again 
 and again a shell exploded above us, and its hurt 
 ling fragments buried themselves in the earth about 
 us. Yet the burial of that soldier was undisturbed, 
 and the yellow earth was rounded above that grave. 
 Whatever happened to it afterwards, it will stand 
 in the memory of every one of us, and of many to 
 whom we told of it, as a representative soldier 
 grave, where was a representative soldier burial in 
 those trenches before Petersburg. 
 
 Just back from the front, along the Richmond 
 and Petersburg lines, among the business firms 
 striving to obtain custom from the army in the line 
 
Soldier Graves and Soldier Burials 225 
 
 of soldier needs or soldier wants, were at one time 
 two rival embalmers, ready to prepare soldier 
 bodies for sending North to their relatives in ac 
 cordance with government requirements. These 
 concerns would send their teams along the front 
 advertising their business, and asking for patronage. 
 Their handbills were headed seductively, "The 
 Honored Dead," and their appeals were an incon 
 gruous mixture of the" claims of sentiment and the 
 cash cost of caring for a dead comrade. One of 
 these embalmers, while receiving an unusual num 
 ber of fresh subjects for his care, after another 
 fierce battle, gave expression to his quickened 
 sense of the fearful cost of the prolonged conflict 
 in spite of the commercial aspects of his personal 
 self-interest, in the words : 
 
 " Chaplain, I should be glad to have this terrible 
 war end, even though peace would greatly interfere 
 with my business." 
 
 The saddest soldier grave in army fields was the 
 grave of a deserter, and I saw many such graves in 
 the last year of the war. The grave was dug on 
 the field while the soldier was still living. He 
 knelt at its open mouth with his arms bound be 
 hind him and his eyes blindfolded, and there he 
 was shot down in cold blood by fellow-soldiers. 
 Buried quickly in that grave, he had no stone or 
 board to mark his resting-place. His body could 
 not be recovered by friends. If shot under a 
 feigned name, as was often the case, he was not 
 
226 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 even known in his home circle as a deserter, but 
 he was counted as one of the honored dead of the 
 war, or as one of the many, many "missing." 
 
 In December, 1864, as I rode with a companion 
 out on the Darbytown road below Richmond, as 
 we neared the extreme front, and were listening to 
 the clearly heard voices of the enemy over the line, 
 with the sound of an occasional woodchopper s ax 
 in that direction, we were surprised at the sudden 
 appearance of a party coming up from our rear, 
 comprising four or five enlisted men bearing a 
 plain coffin. They had ventured out thus far to 
 secure the body of a sergeant from a New York 
 regiment, buried on the field where he fell some 
 months before. His grave was just at our feet, not 
 three rods from our advanced vidette line. One of 
 the party was a younger brother of the dead sol 
 dier. He had taken his brother s place as sergeant. 
 Poor fellow! he deemed it dearly bought promo 
 tion. When the grave was opened he turned aside 
 to weep, and with tearful eyes he told me how that 
 noble brother had stood, and had fallen, true to 
 Christ and true to his country. 
 
 As the body, wrapped in a soldier blanket, was 
 laid in the coffin, the soft strains of distant music 
 from an enemy s band came floating up on the 
 early evening air, as though to sound a requiem 
 over the soldier dead. The last rays of the setting 
 sun fell upon the refilled grave, as we turned to 
 ward our camp again, and as one more soldier s 
 
Soldier Graves and Soldier Burials 227 
 
 body was moving from its battle-field grave to its 
 grave among the home loved ones, who were now 
 to have the sacred privilege, which was denied to 
 so many friends of a dead soldier, of knowing and 
 visiting his grave. 
 
 It was not until after the war was closed, and I 
 passed over some of the great battle-fields of 
 months or of years before, that I came to realize 
 how large a proportion of the soldier dead were 
 never buried, even in a hurried way, at the time, 
 and where, they fell ; and how small indeed must 
 have been the number relatively of those dead 
 whose bodies finally reached their home burial- 
 places, to have their graves flower-bestrewed by 
 their own dear ones on each recurring Memorial 
 Day. Our regiment was stationed just above Rich 
 mond from April to September, 1865. In brief 
 rides about the country at that time, I visited not 
 only the fields of General Grant s great battles of 
 1864, but those of General McClellan in 1862. At 
 Fair Oaks, or Seven Pines, for example, there were 
 still to be seen many traces of the fierce fight there 
 three years before. Uncovered bones were still to 
 be found, and many more had been covered for the 
 first time within the last few weeks. Here and there, 
 where was the memory of a particularly desperate 
 charge, green spots dotted the surface, where the 
 richer than wonted luxuriance of Southern vegeta 
 tion showed that the fertile soil of Virginia was 
 further enriched with Northern patriot blood. 
 
228 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 My immediate companion, an army surgeon, 
 seemed to consider some of these relics rather as 
 a man of science than as the loyal patriot that he 
 was. Pointing to the low forehead of one bleached 
 skull, he said : 
 
 " Not much intellect there ! " 
 
 That poor soldier may have been brave and true, 
 even though not a scholar. 
 
 Taking up the thigh-bone of another soldier, not 
 far from that skull, he said, in an approving tone : 
 
 " There was good blood there ; there s the right 
 curve to that femur." 
 
 Sorrow had shaded a home of refinement when 
 that soldier fell. 
 
 In a swamp near by was many a heap where 
 earth had been thrown hurriedly over a body, only 
 to be washed off by the coming rains, leaving the 
 wasting remains partially or wholly exposed. By 
 the trunk of a fallen tree one soldier had died. 
 He may have been shot while on duty there, or 
 he may have crawled, when wounded, to a pro 
 tecting cover, and there died. No grave had been 
 dug for him, but a few shovelfuls of earth had been 
 thrown over his body against the tree-trunk, only 
 to be washed off by the coming rains, leaving him 
 there in his unmarked and solitary resting-place. 
 And there were similar signs of the long-unburied 
 soldier dead at Games s Mill and at Mechanicsville. 
 
 At Cold Harbor, also visited at that time, there 
 had been burial-parties sent out by the Christian 
 
Soldier Graves and Soldier Burials 229 
 
 Commission to bury the bodies which had lain un- 
 cared for for a twelvemonth. Officers and men 
 were buried together, fifty in one grave, seventy-five 
 in another, a hundred in another, hundreds and 
 hundreds in all. And these were but typical battle 
 fields of the war, as to our soldier dead. 
 
 Three years after the war, I attended Memorial 
 Day services in Richmond, on May 29, for the 
 Confederate dead, and on May 30 for the Union 
 soldiers. Both were sincere and pathetic services, 
 
 " Love and tears for the blue, 
 Tears and love for the gray." 
 
 In Hollywood Cemetery, the wealth and fashion of 
 Richmond, and very many of the humble poor of 
 the city, brought their floral tributes to the graves 
 of their soldier dead. Eveiy grave had its floral 
 offering, although, of course, some had more 
 mourners than others. Fine private carriages stood 
 near the entrance. Public stages, old ambulances, 
 and army wagons, brought their loads. Children 
 from the orphan asylum walked in procession with 
 their fragrant burdens. Negroes carried baskets 
 and trays full of flowers to testify their regard for 
 those whom they had served in life, and now 
 honored in death. 
 
 The national cemetery was just out of the city, on 
 the Williamsburg road. There, in a large en 
 closure, the tasteful grounds of which were laid out 
 with military precision, were the green mounds 
 
230 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 covering more than six thousand soldiers of the 
 government who had died in its defense. Some of 
 them fell on the great battle-fields, at the gates of 
 this long -beleaguered city; some gave up their 
 lives at a solitary outpost or on the advanced 
 skirmish lines; others pined away and died on 
 Belle Island, in the tobacco warehouses, or in the 
 gloomy Libby Prison. Little did any of them 
 think, in the hour of dark defeat or of weary 
 imprisonment, that their remains would be watched 
 and tended, and even flower-bedecked, here in the 
 veiy stronghold they vainly sought to subdue. But 
 now each grave was mounded and marked. On its 
 neat head-board was given the name and battalion 
 of the dead hero, if known, or the simple legend, 
 " Unknown U. S. Soldier," which made his grave 
 as sacred as a corps commander s. On a lofty 
 staff above a prominent mound in the center of the 
 enclosure, the American flag was kept flying from 
 sunrise to sunset every day in the year. 
 
 Most touching of all the observances of that 
 Memorial Day, thus early after the war, was the 
 planting of a tiny United States flag above each 
 grave at the close of the opening prayer. None 
 of the freely lavished floral offerings could so touch 
 a soldier s heart as that flag above his comrade s 
 grave. For love of that flag the soldier had 
 battled, endured, and died. It represented all that 
 he loved and lived for, and for which he gave up 
 his life. Six thousand national flags in a single 
 
Soldier Graves and Soldier Burials 231 
 
 Richmond cemetery was a sight to thank God for. 
 Upward of ten thousand visitors in that one day 
 honored those soldier dead. Most of the visitors 
 were white citizens ; yet the negroes also came 
 there to that shrine of liberty, from the gray-haired, 
 bowed old patriarch down to the toddling child, 
 bringing fresh flowers as the offering of grateful 
 hearts to the memory of those whose dying won 
 their freedom. 
 
 At the close of the war, at least a half-million 
 Union soldiers lay dead on the fields where they 
 fell, or in burial-places near by. 
 
 "Count who can the fields they ve pressed, 
 Each face to the solemn sky. 
 
 Three hundred and twenty-five thousand of these 
 soldier dead now rest in eighty-three national ceme 
 teries, owned and tended by the United States Gov 
 ernment, at various points from New York to San 
 Francisco, and from Florida to Iowa. They were 
 gathered into these sacred enclosures from more 
 than a hundred battle-fields and scores of army hos 
 pitals and prison stockades, South and North. 
 Thousands upon thousands more lie in city and 
 village cemeteries, and in smaller family burial- 
 places all our country over. Yet unnumbered 
 others, buried hastily where they fell, or left un- 
 buried, singly or in groups, at out-of-the-way places 
 in the extensive country fought over by our armies, 
 were never recovered, and the traces of their last 
 
232 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 lonely bivouac are finally lost to sight. Even of 
 the third of a million graves in our national ceme 
 teries, nearly one hundred and fifty thousand bear 
 the mark " Unknown," and no loved one can claim 
 a personal interest in them. 
 
 Whether in a known or an unknown grave, the 
 soldier who died that his country might live, who 
 fell that we and ours might continue to rise, is de 
 serving of loving honor to the end of time. Of 
 these dead soldiers, of their work, and of their 
 worth, Lord, keep our memory green ! 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 UNDER A FLAG OF TRUCE 
 
 For two parties to be engaged in a life-and-death 
 struggle, each striving to the utmost to destroy the 
 other, and yet each willing to respect and heed a 
 white flag displayed by his opponent, not as a sign 
 of surrender and submission, but as a sign of a de 
 sire for a temporary cessation of hostilities and a 
 courteous conference over matters of greater or less 
 importance, seems strangely inconsistent. But in 
 consistent as this custom may seem, it has a sub 
 stantial basis, and it is an exhibit of one of the best 
 sides of human nature. 
 
 It seems to show that " civilized warfare " is not 
 a mere manifestation of barbarism and brute force, 
 but is an outgrowth, or a survival, of the primitive 
 idea that an appeal to arms in a matter of impor 
 tant difference is an appeal to God, or to the 
 gods, for a decision on the submitted issue. Thus, 
 for instance, in the case of David and Goliath, of 
 Achilles and Hector, of the Horatii and the 
 Curatii, and in many a like combat in earlier and 
 later days. A flag of truce in warfare is therefore 
 expressive of that reverence which should be felt 
 
 233 
 
234 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 by those who are in God s service even in their 
 fighting, and who would be fair and honorable in 
 their dealings with those with whom they contend 
 before God in a matter of life and death. 
 
 In this sense it was that the old feudal nobles of 
 Europe, in their continual conflicts, were accus 
 tomed, for centuries, to observe religiously the 
 " Truce of God," or the " Peace of God," during 
 which they were to refrain from all aggressive 
 movements on ecclesiastical fasts and feasts, and at 
 other seasons designated by the Church. And 
 therefore it is that the wilful violation of a flag of 
 truce at the present day by a commander in an im 
 portant contest shocks the civilized world as an 
 inhuman and godless action. 
 
 My earliest memories of the term " a flag of 
 truce," with its strange import and involvings, go 
 back to the time when, as a child, in my native 
 place, at Stonington, Connecticut, at the eastern 
 extremity of Long Island Sound, I listened to the 
 recital by my mother of her experiences as a young 
 girl during the war with England in 1812-14. In 
 August, 1814, a British fleet, under Commodore 
 Hardy, which had for some time been blockading 
 the entrance to the harbor, made an attack on 
 Stonington, and attempted its destruction by bom 
 bardment and the landing of an armed force. It 
 was in the story of that attack and the incidents 
 that preceded and followed it that my mother told 
 of flags of truce, and impressed my young mind 
 
Under a Flag of Truce 235 
 
 with the strange anomaly of amicable conferences 
 between those who were preparing for deadly con 
 flict. 
 
 She told of that ninth day of August when her 
 father came hurriedly into the house to tell his wife 
 and child that they must leave immediately for the 
 home of a relative, a mile or so above the village, 
 for the village itself would soon be bombarded and 
 burned by the British fleet He said that a boat 
 from Commodore Hardy had just come in, under a 
 flag of truce, bringing a message that one hour 
 would be given for the removal of the women and 
 children from the village before the village itself 
 should be destroyed. 
 
 Then she told of the hurrying of many, with such 
 of their personal possessions as they could carry, 
 out of the village into the country, with mingled 
 feelings of wonder and dread until they had 
 reached places of comparative safety, while the 
 able-bodied men of the village prepare d for resist 
 ance. She described vividly the strange sight when, 
 after dark, they could see signs of the progressing 
 battle in the streaming Congreve rockets, and the 
 fire-tracked bombs, and the burning incendiary car 
 casses, with the glare of an occasional blazing build 
 ing ; and when, in the morning, they could hear the 
 sound of cannon and musketry, while they were in 
 anxious suspense as to their fathers and brothers, or 
 husbands and sons, or friends and neighbors, bat 
 tling in the cloud of smoke in the distance. I suf- 
 
236 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 fered in imagination with those beleaguered villagers 
 until my mother reached the point in her story 
 where, on that next day, the loth of August, the 
 firing ceased, and the glad news came that the 
 enemy was repulsed with a severe loss, while only 
 one villager was wounded. How my young heart 
 bounded with joy and pride over that ! And thus 
 it was that I took my first lesson in patriotism and 
 in the realities of war. 
 
 "But what," I asked curiously, "is a flag of 
 truce ? " 
 
 My mother explained to me its meaning ; and to 
 make it more real she took from a bureau drawer a 
 large white towel which had been actually used as a 
 flag of truce in a visit to the British fleet, when my 
 father, then a young unmarried man, had gone with 
 an older citizen, bearing a message of explanation 
 to Commodore Hardy. At this, I went to my 
 father to learn more about that special flag of truce. 
 He told of the circumstances of its sending, and of 
 its polite reception. He and his colleague were re 
 ceived on board the flagship Ramilies, and con 
 ducted to the cabin to see Commodore Hardy. 
 
 Commodore Hardy was captain of the Victory, 
 the flagship of Admiral Nelson, at the time of that 
 hero s death, at the battle of Trafalgar, and it was 
 to him that Lord Nelson said, " Kiss me, Hardy, 
 before I die." My father said that after the mes 
 sage of the Stonington embassy had been accepted 
 graciously, Commodore Hardy, in saying a few 
 
Under a Flag of Truce 237 
 
 pleasant words to the visitors, pointed to a lounge, 
 or settee, in the cabin, which he had brought from 
 his old ship Victory, and said : 
 
 " It may interest you, gentlemen, to know that on 
 that couch Lord Nelson lay in his death, after I had 
 given him my parting embrace." 
 
 As I looked at that simple towel, with its historic 
 associations, preserved in our home as a memorable 
 relic, a "flag of truce," as described by my parents, 
 had a very real significance to me. And when, 
 long years after, I came to be personally familiar 
 with flags of truce, and on more than one occasion 
 to approach, or to pass beyond, the enemy s lines 
 under such a flag, I had always more or less of 
 those impressions concerning it which were burned 
 into my mind in my boyhood years. 
 
 In our Civil War the use of flags of truce was 
 frequent and various. Besides those occasions 
 when the opposing authorities desired to arrange for 
 the care of the wounded and the burial of the dead, 
 the exchange of prisoners, the passage of a civilian 
 through the lines, and such matters as are often the 
 subject of formal negotiation and conference be 
 tween belligerents, there were times when the pecu 
 liar circumstances of the opposing parties led to the 
 unauthorized but kindly use of what passed for a 
 flag of truce, and which evidenced the real brother 
 hood of those who were arrayed against each other 
 as enemies. 
 
 During such protracted sieges as that of Vicks- 
 
238 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 burg, of Charleston, and of Petersburg and Rich 
 mond, where men stood over against each other, 
 within sight and call, for weeks or months together, 
 those who were ready to give battle earnestly when 
 the occasion called for zealous struggle were not 
 willing to shoot each other down in cold blood in 
 every-day siege life, where there was nothing to be 
 gained by such murderous acts, and where men 
 lacked the excitement of battle, or the pressure of 
 patriotic duty, to impel them to action. In this 
 state of things there grew up a peculiar custom. A 
 man, on the one side or the other, would hold up 
 prominently a white handkerchief, or a sheet of 
 white paper, as a sign of desire for a tacit or informal 
 truce. If it were responded to by a similar sign on 
 the opposite side, and not at once forbidden by the 
 officer in command, it was accepted by all as bind 
 ing both sides to refrain from any offensive move 
 ment for the time being. 
 
 Often at such times the men would jump over 
 their rifle-pits, or embankments, and meet each 
 other peacefully between the lines, swapping coffee, 
 of which the Union soldiers had an abundance, for 
 tobacco, with which the Confederates were well 
 supplied ; exchanging newspapers, bartering " hard 
 tack " for corn-cake, conversing pleasantly, or ban 
 tering each other with good-natured references to 
 their local peculiarities. Sometimes two opponents 
 would sit down on the ground for a friendly game 
 of cards. If firing were heard, at the right or left, 
 
Under a Flag of Truce 239 
 
 which seemed to indicate a renewal of hostilities, or 
 if a call came from an officer on either side, at once 
 the men jumped back into their own lines, and 
 made ready for fresh combat with their quondam 
 friends. 
 
 In some cases old acquaintances recognized 
 each other, or relatives met face to face. On 
 one occasion, before Petersburg, a Union regiment 
 from Maryland, serving with our brigade, was over 
 against a Confederate regiment from the same state. 
 During one of these tacit truces, as the men of the 
 two brigades were together between the lines of 
 works, a father in the Maryland Union regiment 
 met his son, a soldier in the Maryland Confederate 
 regiment The meeting was a surprise to both, but 
 it was an amicable one. Each soldier had been 
 true to his own convictions. The old man was 
 loyal to the flag he had loved and honored from his 
 youth. The young man had been carried away by 
 the excitement which swept so many of his com 
 panions into the opposing ranks. They greeted 
 each other affectionately, and talked together until 
 the signal came for the ending of the truce, when 
 they sprang apart, each to his own lines, and again 
 they were over against each other in deadly con 
 flict. This seemed strange, but it was typical of 
 the whole great war. 
 
 A fine sense of honor prevailed in the general 
 recognition of the sacredness of these informal and 
 tacit truces. Men would not fire at each other, at 
 
240 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 the close of one of these seasons, until both parties 
 had had time to settle down to business again. If, 
 on any occasion, an officer seemed to lack consid 
 eration for those who were on such friendly terms, 
 his men were quite likely to feel that their " friends 
 the enemy " ought to be notified of the fact. 
 
 "Yanks, keep your heads under to-day. We ve 
 got an officer of the day on who wants us to be 
 firing all the time ; so look out." 
 
 This was the call that came to us one day across 
 the lines at Petersburg ; and it was naturally heeded, 
 behind the low earthworks which guarded our front 
 at that point. Such fairness was sure to meet with 
 a like return. Officers generally, however, on both 
 sides, recognized the true state of things, and were 
 not willing to take any unfair advantage of it. 
 
 One evening, at the Petersburg front, several 
 Confederate soldiers dragged a man of our brigade 
 into their lines, at the close of one of these seasons 
 of truce ; and they took him as a prisoner into the 
 presence of their commander, General Roger A. 
 Pryor, of Virginia (now Judge Pryor of New York). 
 The Union soldier protested, and told his story. 
 General Pryor turned to his men, and asked if this 
 was the truth. When they admitted that it was, he 
 said quietly to our man : 
 
 " Go back, then, to your own lines ; " and he added 
 to the captors : 
 
 " Let him go back. I don t want anything of 
 this sort in my command." 
 
Under a Flag of Truce 241 
 
 There is not an old soldier who knew of this who 
 is not ready to this day to cheer for General Pryor 
 for his chivalry and fairness as shown in this trans 
 action. 
 
 An exceptional experience to which I was called 
 in North Carolina, in connection with a flag of 
 truce, illustrates a peculiar phase of this kind 
 of army service. In December, 1862, at the time of 
 General Burnside s attack on Fredericksburg, Vir 
 ginia, General Foster made a move into the interior 
 of North Carolina, with the purpose of destroying 
 the bridge at Goldsboro , on the Weldon Railroad, 
 so as to cut off the retreat of General Lee in that 
 direction, in case General Burnside s attack was 
 successful. 
 
 In a severe battle at Kinston, on December 14, 
 my regiment suffered heavily, and I buried on the 
 field three of our line officers and a large number 
 of enlisted men. After our work at Goldsboro was 
 accomplished, and we had returned to New Berne, 
 a request was made of the Confederate officer in 
 command for permission to recover the bodies of 
 those officers. Consent being granted, I was 
 directed to accompany the flag of truce, in com 
 mand of Major Stevenson, of the Twenty-fourth 
 Massachusetts, for that purpose. 
 
 On the morning of Tuesday, December 30, our 
 party, consisting of four officers and twenty men, 
 with two ambulances containing coffins, left General 
 Foster s headquarters on our peaceful mission. 
 
242 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 Out on the road we had passed and repassed in 
 such force two weeks before, we soon reached our 
 outer picket line, and went beyond it. Then it was 
 that we were fairly under the flag of truce. We no 
 longer trusted to the Stars and Stripes. Not the 
 flag of the United States government, but the white 
 flag of universal peace, was over us, and we had 
 confidence in it. A sergeant bearing the flag rode 
 a few paces in advance of our party, as we pro 
 ceeded toward Kinston. About two o clock we saw 
 the enemy s picket line some twenty miles from 
 New Berne. Moving forward more slowly, we were 
 met by Lieutenant Hanna, of a North Carolina 
 regiment, who conducted us to Captain Shaw of the 
 same command. Having communicated to him 
 our message, we were told that we must wait for an 
 answer from General Evans, in command at Kins- 
 ton, some twenty miles distant. This would require 
 several hours, and we could stop for the night at a 
 farmhouse near the picket line. Accordingly we 
 rested there. 
 
 A glimpse was thus afforded us of a plain home 
 within the Confederate lines in war time. The men 
 of the house were off at war. The wife and mother 
 was in charge. She was no more inquisitive than 
 a Northern woman would have been, but, like many 
 another person whom I had met in her region, she 
 had only vague ideas of the North and the Union 
 army. At Little Washington, a few weeks before, 
 a man whom I met inquired : 
 
Under a Flag of Truce 243 
 
 " How big s the Norf ? Big as New Berne ? " 
 
 New Berne was the largest city he had ever seen, 
 and it was consequently his measure of magnitude. 
 After all, our ideals arc in the main based on our 
 experiences and observations. What we have seen 
 limits and shapes what we imagine. 
 
 This woman had evidently known a few persons 
 who hailed from the North, and she thought they 
 might be in the "Northern army." 
 
 "Be thar ony Harrisons in yer army?" she 
 asked. 
 
 This was a large question for one man to answer. 
 Surmising what prompted her question, I responded 
 inquiringly : 
 
 " Did you ever know a man named Harrison ? " 
 
 "Yas." 
 
 " Where was he from ? " 
 
 "The North." 
 
 " What was his business ? " 
 
 "Sellin clocks." 
 
 Then I thought I could locate the part of Con 
 necticut he came from. 
 
 She brought to us part of a quarto volume of a 
 government report of a survey of lines for the 
 Pacific Railroad. One cover was gone, and about 
 one-third of the leaves. 
 
 " Her s a book yur army dropped when it went 
 along," she said. " Some o t s gone ; but ther s a 
 good deal o t left." 
 
 She said this as if a book were sold by the pound, 
 
244 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 regardless of its completeness or continuity. It 
 evidently had no other value to her. We saw that 
 it must have been taken by our soldiers from some 
 house below, a portion of it torn off, and the re 
 mainder thrown away. Thanking her for her kind 
 ness, we declined to reclaim it. We made our 
 selves as comfortable as we could for the night, 
 the officers sleeping indoors on the floor, and the 
 men outside. 
 
 It was nearly noon the next day before the mes 
 senger came back from General Evans. The 
 General said that one officer, unattended, could 
 come on to Kinston. A driver would be furnished 
 on that side of the lines for a single ambulance with 
 the coffins, and all needful assistance would be fur 
 nished by the Confederate authorities. As I was 
 the only officer who knew just where our officers 
 were buried, I was necessarily designated for this 
 service. Parting with the others, I put myself 
 under the Confederate cavalry escort, and started 
 on toward Kinston. 
 
 This was a new experience. No longer under 
 the Stars and Stripes, nor yet under a white flag, I 
 came under the Stars and Bars, and committed my 
 self, nothing doubting, to those whom our men had 
 striven so earnestly to destroy when I passed up 
 that road before. Not a Union soldier was near 
 me. In spite of my confidence, there was a feeling 
 of strangeness as we turned away from our men and 
 went forward with the enemy into the enemy s 
 
Under a Flag of Twice 245 
 
 countiy. Every attention that could promote my 
 comfort was shown by Lieutenant Hines, of the 
 Sixty-third North Carolina regiment, in command 
 of the cavalry escort, and I conversed pleasantly 
 with him as I rode by his side. 
 
 It is the privilege of an enemy, receiving an 
 officer on such a mission, to bind him by his word 
 of honor not to divulge, to the opponent s injury, 
 any fact obtained by him while thus a guest. Or, he 
 may be blindfolded while passing any fortification or 
 other important point, a knowledge of which might 
 give his side an important advantage subsequently. 
 I have been blindfolded, and have been paroled, 
 under such circumstances, but no such precaution 
 was taken in this case. It was therefore my patriotic \ 
 duty to observe every fact calculated to advantage 
 my government, and to obtain all the information 
 any one would give me while on this side the lines. 
 
 Signs of war were visible on every side. The 
 fences had been destroyed by our men as they 
 marched and bivouacked. The fields were tracked 
 and torn by artillery or army wagons. New earth 
 works had been thrown up across the road, and at 
 points on either side, since our forces had retired. 
 Negroes were still at work on these extra defenses. 
 Soldiers were on duty at various points, and officers 
 were busy in carrying out the orders of their com 
 manders. It would not be so easy as before for 
 General Foster to reach Kinston, if he should now 
 attempt it, expensive as was his first advance. 
 
246 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 As we came in sight of Kinston, across the Neuse 
 River, I recognized the several points of chief in 
 terest on this side, where was the gallant charge 
 and the heavy loss of the regiment I loved. Yonder 
 was where so many of our men went down. There 
 was the little Baptist chapel, within and behind 
 which sharpshooters had picked off officers and 
 men. On this side and the other of the road were 
 the houses we had made use of for temporary hos 
 pitals. It was nearer the bridge where I had buried 
 our officers. I had carefully noted the spot, and 
 thither I was at once conducted. 
 
 We reached the place about four o clock. I was 
 received by Colonel Moore and Major Bryan, of 
 General Evans s staff, accompanied by Dr. De Fon 
 taine, formerly a correspondent of the New York 
 Herald, and now a correspondent of the Charleston 
 Courier. Colonel Moore had been prominent as 
 the messenger between the authorities of South 
 Carolina and Major Anderson in Fort Sumter, at 
 the breaking out of the war. Both he and Major 
 Bryan were from Charleston. I having pointed 
 out the graves of our three officers, negroes were 
 directed to exhume the bodies, while I stood near. 
 
 Meantime, Confederate officers crowded about 
 to see and hear the " Yankee chaplain ;" and they 
 plied me with curious questions, or made comments 
 on recent events in Virginia or North Carolina. A 
 Major McNeill was there. He had been a secre 
 tary of the American Bible Society in New York 
 
Under a Flag of Truce 247 
 
 City before the war. He and I had many friends 
 in common. Although a clergyman, he was now a 
 major of cavalry. A Captain McClennahan who 
 was there had been in General McGruder s division 
 when, at Malvern Hills, it had charged on a battery 
 commanded by my brother, Major Trumbull, and 
 been repulsed with fearful loss. Dr. De Fontaine 
 had been a student in the Yale Medical School in 
 1 857- 5 & He, also, knew many of my friends in 
 Connecticut 
 
 While speaking with entire freedom, so far as I 
 could do so, in this conversation, I did not hesitate 
 to decline to give a reply when I felt that to be my 
 duty. There was no lack of deferential consider- 
 ateness on either side. Only a single incident 
 broke in on the harmony of the interview. As I 
 stood in this group, an officer with flushed face and 
 excited manner came up from a distance, and, push 
 ing his way through the others, spoke defiantly and 
 profanely of the " Yankee officer " and the " Yankee 
 nation." At once he was rebuked by several offi 
 cers, and one of them said positively : 
 
 "This chaplain is our guest, and he must be 
 treated courteously." 
 
 With a vindictive glare in his face, the excited 
 officer slunk away. The next time I saw that face 
 was the year following, when I was a prisoner in a 
 Charleston hospital. These two interviews well- 
 nigh brought me to the gallows on the charge of 
 being a spy. But I had little thought of this on 
 
248 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 that December day in Kinston. It is in my mind 
 now, however, when I recall that incident and that 
 vindictive look. 
 
 It was after dark before the three bodies were in 
 their coffins and the ambulance was ready with its 
 gruesome burden. Then I mounted my horse 
 again, and was on my way down the New Berne 
 road, in the care of Lieutenant Hines and his 
 cavalry escort. 
 
 It was a chilly December evening. I had not 
 had a morsel to eat since leaving the place of my 
 last night s sleep. I was hungry and cold. The 
 day s ride had been tedious, notwithstanding the 
 objects of interest to be observed. Ordinarily, on a 
 march with my own command, I could vary the 
 gait of my horse, and quicken my blood, by an oc 
 casional gallop, in going to the advance or the rear 
 for a time, and returning to my place in the 
 column. But now I must keep constantly by the 
 side of my escorting officer, and conform my pace 
 to his, which was a uniform cavalry slow trot or 
 jog. This was monotonously tiresome, as we kept 
 on hour after hour at the rate of not more than 
 three miles an hour. Now, in the darkness, it was 
 doubly trying. An hour had at least a hundred 
 and twenty minutes in it, and I wondered if the 
 end would ever come. 
 
 Lieutenant Hines sent one of his men on in ad 
 vance to announce our coming to a planter whose 
 house was on the road about six or seven miles 
 
Under a Flag of Truce 249 
 
 from Kinston, and to notify the planter to provide 
 supper and lodging for our party. It seemed as if 
 we should never reach there ; but at last the lights 
 of the plantation house were seen ahead, and then 
 we were soon before its entrance. Light seemed 
 never more welcome than as it shone through the 
 windows and out of the open door, as the planter 
 showed himself to give his rough but hearty wel 
 come, when the sound of our horses hoofs and the 
 clanking of the cavalry sabers announced our 
 arrival at a place of rest 
 
 " Glad to see you," he called out, " even though 
 you bring a cussed Yankee with you. Come in, 
 all of you. Come in." 
 
 Inside the house, in the principal room, a table 
 was spread which was more than tempting. Light, 
 warmth from a blazing fire, steaming food on the 
 table, all were attractive. Before we sat down to 
 supper, the planter offered " apple jack " (cider 
 brandy) to all. He appeared surprised that I de 
 clined it As he passed into the back room, he 
 said, with a peculiar emphasis : 
 
 "Yank don t know what s good for him, if he 
 won t drink this." 
 
 I noticed a look of meaning in his eye, as he 
 again proffered me a drink. At once I stepped 
 toward the back room door, and said : 
 
 " I don t care for any apple jack ; but I would 
 like a drink of water, if you ll be kind enough to 
 give it to me." 
 
25 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 He went at once to a bucket of water, and, 
 taking out a dipperful, he handed it to me as I 
 came into the rear room. He pressed my arm as I 
 took the dipper, and said earnestly, in a low tone : 
 
 " I ve got to cuss you while these fellows are 
 round ; but I m with you, heart and soul. I m a 
 Union man through and through." 
 
 That "cup of cold water" in a strange land re 
 freshed me. It improved even my keen appetite, 
 as I sat down with the others at the well-filled 
 table. There were roast fresh pork, baked sweet 
 potatoes, hot corn-cake, fresh Southern "beaten" 
 biscuit, and " Confederate coffee," made of burnt 
 and ground corn, with hot milk and sugar, very 
 palatable at such a time to tired and hungry guests. 
 
 It was nearly midnight when I went upstairs to 
 bed. It had been months since I had had the 
 luxury of a bed to sleep in. The best bedroom in 
 the house was assigned to me. I was alone in it, 
 although a cavalry man was to sleep on the floor in 
 the hallway before my closed door. Hardly had I 
 entered my room when my host appeared through 
 another door, and greeted me with heartful earnest 
 ness. 
 
 He told of the widespread Union feeling in the 
 state among soldiers and civilians. He said that 
 only military power kept it down. 
 
 "We re worse off than ever the nigger slaves 
 were," he added. 
 
 He told of the arrests and imprisonments that 
 
Under a Flag of Truce 25 1 
 
 followed our recent military advance into the state. 
 Many had been sent to Salisbury on the charge of 
 showing sympathy with the Union army. He 
 wanted to do anything in his power to help the 
 Union cause, and he longed for the triumph of the 
 Federal government. He asked me to call on a 
 nephew of his in New Berne, and he wished me to 
 take for myself a fine horse which was now in the 
 care of his nephew. 
 
 While thanking him for his proffer, I declined to 
 accept the gift. I was afraid, for his sake, that his 
 visit to my room might be discovered, and he suffer 
 harm, and I urged him to leave. It was long past 
 midnight when he finally left me. As to his earnest 
 ness and sincerity there was no room for doubt. 
 His story was confirmed when I was again in New 
 Berne ; and I afterward learned that he was soon 
 arrested and shut in prison for his discovered Union 
 sentiments. 
 
 That was the last night of the year 1862. At 
 midnight, when 1863 was ushered in, as I stood 
 conversing in that bedchamber of a Union planter 
 of the South, while I was under a flag of truce 
 within the enemy s lines, guarded by soldiers of the 
 "Southern Confederacy," the New Year brought 
 with it the operation of President Lincoln s procla 
 mation of emancipation to all the slaves within the 
 bounds of that Confederacy. As when a great light 
 shined into the gloomy prison at Jerusalem, and a 
 messenger of God wakened Peter from his sleep, 
 
252 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 and his chains fell off as he rose to his feet, while 
 none of the guards were alarmed or realized the oc 
 currence, a great light now shined into the gloom 
 of the Southern bondman s prison, and a messenger 
 of God told him that he was a slave no more. The 
 shackles fell at one stroke from four millions of 
 bondmen, and the agonizing prayers that for long 
 years had gone up from weary-hearted fathers and 
 mothers and children for help from God, according 
 to Daniel s prophecy, so dear to them, of the "king 
 of the North s" final triumph over the South, were 
 answered in God s good time and way. 
 
 Like many another great historic event, the 
 emancipation of the slaves came without observa 
 tion ; but it is looked back to with amazement and 
 gratitude. That night is a night to be much ob 
 served, to all generations. 
 
 After a night of refreshing rest, I rose, on that 
 New Year s morning, and started again with the 
 cavalry escort. We rode at the same monotonous 
 gait some twenty-five miles, displaying a flag of 
 truce after we had passed the line of Confederate 
 pickets, until we were met by a flag of truce from 
 our lines, on the watch for us. Being transferred to 
 the new escort, I proceeded gladly to New Berne, 
 reaching General Foster s headquarters about dark 
 to report my safe return. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 PRISON EXPERIENCES 
 
 To die in battle, falling at the front in a conflict 
 worthy of one s life struggle, seems a fitting end to 
 a soldier s earthly career. A Christian soldier can 
 anticipate that with a measure of restful satisfaction, 
 and his loved ones can look back upon it with a 
 sense of its exalted fitness. But to be disarmed 
 and held a captive, and to languish on in inactivity 
 while his companions continue in the fight to which 
 he gave himself so heartily, is a fate from which the 
 soldier mind recoils, and which he who loves the 
 soldier cannot contemplate without a shudder. 
 
 The sufferings and endurances of prisoners of 
 war form a dark chapter in the record of great 
 military operations all along the later centuries, and 
 commanders and governments are often more se 
 verely criticised for their treatment of soldier pris 
 oners than for murderous conduct in the field in 
 the most relentless warfare. It seems to many that 
 the imprisonment of a soldier is in itself unsol- 
 dierly ; while but few are ready to recognize the 
 fact that prisoners of war are a mark of positive 
 progress in humanity, in civilization, and in a rev- 
 
 253 
 
254 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 erent recognition of the sacredness of life and of 
 the common brotherhood of man. 
 
 In the earlier ages, men who gave deadly battle 
 to one another were supposed to yield, in that veiy 
 act, their ricrht to live if overborne and subdued. 
 
 o 
 
 In those days, it was in many countries supposed to 
 be a duty of the conqueror to offer the lives of 
 those captured in battle in sacrifice to the god in 
 whose name he went out to war. In other lands, 
 again, the captives were deemed the property pos 
 session of the captors, to be made use of as slaves 
 in such manner as would best meet the needs of 
 those who had overborne them. It was only after 
 centuries of progress that the idea gained a place 
 in the human heart, that the soldier who was a 
 captive in honorable warfare was a captive only 
 during the continuance of that warfare, and was en 
 titled to his life and to its protection and support 
 by his captors until the proper time for his honora 
 ble release and untrammeled freedom. Then was 
 the beginning of the peculiar experiences of pris 
 oners of war as we now understand the term. 
 
 Prisoners taken in the earlier engagements of our 
 Civil War were in some instances paroled and re 
 leased on the battlefield at the close of the engage 
 ment, to be exchanged and set free for renewed 
 active service when a cartel should be agreed on 
 for such exchanges. In other cases they were from 
 the first held as prisoners of war, in jails or forts, or 
 other buildings set apart for the purpose, on the one 
 
Prison Experiences 255 
 
 side or the other, while awaiting formal exchange. 
 Not until more than a year had passed was a cartel 
 agreed on between the contending authorities for a 
 general exchange of prisoners. After that the ex 
 changes were for a time comparatively prompt and 
 regular. Again, there were occasional interrup 
 tions to the operation of the cartel from one cause 
 and another. During the last year of the war, it 
 was in accordance with the policy of General Grant 
 to send back no soldiers to resume fighting in the 
 Confederate army, even though Union soldiers 
 could be secured in exchange. Then all exchanges 
 were intermitted ; and this policy inevitably caused 
 much discomfort and suffering on both sides, as 
 necessarily incident to such a conflict as ours, and 
 as a part of the great cost of final peace and order. 
 The Rev. Hiram Eddy, chaplain of the First 
 Connecticut Regiment, was taken prisoner in the 
 battle of Bull Run, or Manassas, and confined for 
 eleven months in what was known as the "Tobacco 
 Warehouse Prison," in Richmond. Soon after his 
 exchange and release, I was appointed to the chap 
 laincy of the Tenth Connecticut Regiment, already 
 in the field, and he preached the sermon at my or 
 dination. A year from that day I recalled his ser 
 mon from my quarters as a prisoner of war in 
 Richland Jail, Columbia, South Carolina. I had 
 already had experiences as a prisoner in Charleston 
 Jail, and I was subsequently an inmate of Libby 
 Prison, in Richmond. Some of my experiences in 
 
256 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 prison life are as vivid as any recollections of camp 
 or campaigning in more active service, and they go 
 to make up the lights and shadows of a chaplain s 
 war memories. 
 
 It was on Saturday evening, July 18, 1863, that 
 General Gillmore made his disastrous assault on 
 Fort Wagner, at the entrance to Charleston Harbor. 
 The next day the dead, and many of the wounded, 
 lay on the sand plain and among the sand hills be 
 tween that fort and the outer line of the Union 
 works, then held by our brigade. A flag of truce 
 arranged for a cessation of hostilities, in order to 
 bury the dead and remove the wounded. At the 
 suggestion of one of my commanders, I went out 
 on the field to render such assistance as I could in 
 the line of ministry to the wounded. My tent-mate 
 and intimate friend, Adjutant Camp, accompanied 
 me. As we were moving along in the prosecution 
 of my work, we were met by a Confederate officer 
 and three or four men who were on a similar 
 humane mission. The officer claimed that we had 
 passed the truce line agreed on, although it was un 
 marked, between the two forces, and that we were 
 in consequence hi% prisoners. When we protested 
 against being thus r held, as we were still very near 
 our works, and at a much greater distance from the 
 enemy s, we were assured that the commanding 
 general would not wish to take any advantage of 
 an unintentional mistake as to the truce line at such 
 a time, but that we must be detained until he 
 
Prison Experiences 257 
 
 authorized our return. It was thus that I came to 
 be a prisoner of war. 
 
 While awaiting a decision in our case from Gen 
 eral Hagood, in command on the island, we con 
 versed pleasantly with a group of Confederate 
 officers who gathered about us. Among these was 
 Captain Thomas Y. Simons, of Charleston, a Yale 
 graduate of the class of 1 847. We found that we 
 had a number of friends in common with him, and 
 we talked freely with him and with the others of 
 the causes and possible outcome of the great con 
 flict in progress. He was an original secessionist, 
 heartily in favor of disunion, and was sure that the 
 independence of the South was the predetermined 
 and only possible result of the Civil War. 
 
 When word came back from General Hagood, 
 referring the ultimate decision of our case to Gen 
 eral Ripley at Charleston, we were led up the 
 island. Our eyes were blindfolded while passing 
 the works of the enemy, so that we should not have 
 any important information to carry back in case of 
 our release. As the armistice was now at an end, 
 there was a resumption of picket-firing on both 
 sides. Led along by an enemy , in utter darkness, 
 while rifle-shots were heard in front and rear, and 
 an occasional bullet whistled inconveniently near 
 us, it was not a pleasant thought that we might be 
 shot in the back by our friends, without the satis 
 faction of feeling that any good to us or to our 
 cause was likely to come of it Reaching Cum- 
 
258 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 mings Point, we rested for several hours, with the 
 privilege of looking about us. 
 
 Here was the battery which had played so im 
 portant a part in the original bombardment of Fort 
 Sumter, and which again had poured its destruc 
 tive flank fire on our assaulting column on the 
 recent Saturday night. Left to ourselves we for 
 the first time had an opportunity to think over our 
 unfortunate position as prisoners of war. It was 
 hard to realize that we were out of the great strug 
 gle for a season, and harder yet to realize all that 
 prison life would bring to us. The enforced quiet 
 and inaction were worse than our severest conflicts 
 and struggles in active service. We were fairly 
 bewildered by the unexpected change in affairs. 
 It seemed like a fearful dream, yet we knew it was 
 not. 
 
 Just after dark we were taken on board a small 
 steamer, on which were many of our wounded in 
 the recent fight, together with sound enlisted men, 
 both black and white, who were also prisoners. 
 On our way up to Charleston we stopped at the 
 sally-port of Fort Sumter, through which Major 
 Anderson and his command had passed out after 
 the opening conflict of the war. We realized, even 
 then, the historic associations and profound impres- 
 siveness of that spot. I think we were the last 
 Union officers who were there before the army and 
 navy bombardment reduced the imposing fortress 
 to a shapeless ruin, without, however, destroying 
 
Prison Experiences 259 
 
 its value as a fortification. A way for our steamer 
 was opened, from that point, through the chain of 
 obstructions across the entrance of the harbor, and 
 we proceeded to Charleston. 
 
 We were led through the lighted streets of the 
 city, whites and blacks together, while the citizens 
 looked on and jeered and derided. The battle of 
 Fort Wagner was the first one in which negro sol 
 diers were taken prisoners, and the feeling against 
 the employing of such troops was strong and bitter 
 in the South. The Yankees and the negro soldiers 
 now marched through the streets of Charleston 
 represented everything that was most hateful to 
 the Southern mind. It is easy to say, in one s 
 home or among friends, that one has no care for 
 adverse public criticism if only he knows he is 
 right ; but in practical experience it is not a pleas 
 ant thing to be in a community, or in a crowd, 
 where every looker-on has a feeling of hatred or 
 of contempt because of one s conduct or one s 
 associations. It was not a pleasant march, that 
 evening, through the streets of Charleston from 
 the steamer landing to the provost-marshal s, and 
 thence to the jail, nor were we in a mood for its 
 enjoyment. 
 
 About ten at night we were passed through the 
 gloomy portals of the Charleston jail, and taken to 
 a small room for confinement. We were told that 
 by special orders we two white officers were to be 
 shut for the night in the same room with the 
 
260 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 enlisted men, white and black. As this was con 
 trary to the usual custom with prisoners of war, 
 and as other Union officers were in another room 
 in the building, we saw that this was intended as a 
 humiliation, against which it was useless to protest. 
 The physical discomforts of the place were, how 
 ever, the chief annoyance of that night. 
 
 For months we had lived in the open air, often 
 without even the shelter of a tent. This was the 
 month of July, in the heat of a Southern summer. 
 Brought at once from the freedom of the field to 
 the confinement of a gloomy city prison, shut, in 
 dense darkness, within the close walls of a small 
 room, which lacked even window space for suffi 
 cient ventilation, and which was closed by an 
 oaken door outside of the iron grating which was 
 its ordinary door ; packed among so many prison 
 ers that there was not room for all to stretch them 
 selves at length on the bare floor, we found the 
 foul air of that place stifling to the verge of suffo 
 cation, and our first night in prison was a night to 
 be remembered for all time in our soldier experi 
 ences. But, as the soldiers were accustomed to 
 say about every new trial in army life, " It s all in 
 the three years ;" and we lived through that dark 
 night, and the morning came at its end. Early the 
 next day we two officers were removed to the 
 room in which other Union officers taken on Mor 
 ris Island, in the two assaults on the Confederate 
 works there, were confined. We talked over with 
 
Prison Experiences 261 
 
 them our mutual experiences, and we condoled 
 together over our common misfortune. 
 
 It seemed to us at the time that our companions 
 who were killed in the assault, and now lay in 
 death on the Morris Island sands, were more 
 favored in the issue than we who were denied that 
 repose, and condemned to imprisonment in the 
 enemy s land. It was, therefore, with a new sense 
 of their force, that I read, from my pocket Bible, 
 in the passage which was my reading for that day, 
 the words of Jeremiah 22 : 10, " Weep ye not for 
 the dead, neither bemoan him ; but weep sore for 
 him that goeth away : for he shall return no more, 
 nor see his native country." Yet we had hope, at 
 the first, that we should soon be exchanged, and 
 returned to our command. The fact that there 
 were to be no assured exchanges for months or 
 years, would have been too terrible a thought to 
 face at the outset ; therefore we lived on in hope 
 in our dark lot. 
 
 Soon we were summoned to the jailer s office, 
 for examination by an aide of General Beauregard. 
 He examined us separately with the purpose of 
 obtaining information as to the force and plans of 
 the army operating against Charleston. Of course, 
 he had a right to know our name, rank, regiment 
 or battalion, brigade, division, corps, and com 
 mander. Possessing this information, he could 
 infer, from the various commands represented, 
 much concerning the force in action. He could, 
 
262 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 however, seek by questions to obtain knowledge 
 to which he was not entitled, and a prisoner must 
 be on his guard, while being examined, lest he 
 should disclose too much to the enemy. 
 
 Talking over, afterwards, our special experiences 
 under our examiner, we learned something of the 
 ways of meeting an enemy s searching questions. 
 One of our officers answered readily the usual 
 questions concerning his name, rank, command, 
 and commander; but when suddenly asked what 
 was the present strength of the force on Morris 
 Island, he responded quietly, " Two and a half mil 
 lions." Asked by his startled questioner if he was 
 speaking the truth, he responded by asking if his 
 questioner expected him to tell the truth in answer 
 to such a question. This was a polite way of in 
 forming his enemy that he could not be drawn into 
 the disclosure of information to which the other 
 had no right 
 
 This going as a prisoner before one s captors 
 was sometimes a critical matter, at least in the 
 thought of the prisoner. At the time of the Fort 
 Wagner affair, colored soldiers and their white 
 officers were in a peculiar position. A proclama 
 tion of President Davis of the Confederate govern 
 ment declared that negroes taken in arms would 
 be executed, and that a white officer captured in 
 command cf such soldiers would be denied the 
 treatment of an ordinary prisoner of war. Hence 
 the colored soldiers and their officers in jail with 
 
Prison Experiences 263 
 
 me were still in doubt as to their treatment. It 
 may be said, however, that none of the threats of 
 exceptional severity were carried out by the Con 
 federate authorities ; but at this time the prisoners 
 could not but be anxious. It was about this time 
 that an officer of a colored regiment recruited in 
 the vicinity of New Orleans, was taken prisoner. 
 Coming with other officers before a Confederate 
 official to be examined, he was asked the name of 
 his regiment. He gave the name as the " First 
 Louisiana Corps d Afrique," realizing that he newly 
 periled his life by the answer. 
 
 " What s that ? " asked the official. 
 
 " That s a nigger regiment, as you call it," was 
 the heroic reply. 
 
 It was a soldierly answer by a soldier to a soldier, 
 and no harm came of it to either. Yet it required 
 courage to speak the truth in such an emergency. 
 
 Before many hours had passed, an order came 
 from General Beauregard s headquarters directing 
 me to report at the provost-marshal s for parole, 
 and for service among the wounded Union soldiers 
 in the "Yankee Hospital." Nineteen of our en 
 listed men were to accompany me. At the provost- 
 marshal s I signed a parole, by which I agreed not 
 to attempt to escape while on this duty, and to 
 obey meanwhile the orders of the surgeons in 
 charge. Thus a new phase of prison life opened 
 before me. 
 
 Wounded Union soldiers, from the fight of Satur- 
 
264 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 day night on Morris Island, falling into the hands 
 of the enemy after the repulse of the assault, and 
 brought on Sunday evening and Monday morning 
 to Charleston, were together in a large four-story 
 brick building on Queen Street, to which I was 
 conveyed. This building was said to have been 
 originally a private dwelling, then a grain ware 
 house, and for a time a slave mart, before its use as 
 a prison hospital. It was well suited in size and 
 structure for its present purpose. 
 
 What a sight met my eye as I entered that 
 building ! Our wounded men, shot on Saturday 
 night, had, many of them, lain where they fell 
 until the next day, exposed to the trampling of our 
 retreating soldiers, and to flying sand half burying 
 them by bursting shell, some indeed being again 
 wounded by the enemy s rifles as they lay on the 
 field. Taken into Fort Wagner during the day on 
 Sunday, they had passed Sunday night on the little 
 steamer at the dock and on Monday were brought 
 to this " Yankee " hospital. One hundred and 
 sixty-three of them were here. As they were 
 brought in, they were laid in rows on straw on the 
 floor of the long lower room. Their blood-matted 
 hair and beards, and their blood-saturated clothing, 
 marked their need of care that could not yet be 
 given them. In the yard of the building back of 
 this room were six operating-tables, at which a 
 force of busy surgeons was constantly at work. 
 The severely wounded were taken, one by one, 
 
Prison Experiences 265 
 
 from their resting-place on the straw to those sur 
 geons tables, where they were examined and 
 operated on. After this treatment they were re 
 moved to hospital cots on the upper floors. 
 
 The Confederate surgeons did everything in 
 their power, with the means at their command, for 
 the safety and comfort of the wounded Union 
 soldiers, both white and black. Sisters of Mercy 
 were unceasing in loving ministry to the poor men, 
 and Bishop Lynch was much of the time present, 
 directing and aiding in their work. Yet at the best 
 the lot of a Union soldier there, wounded and a 
 prisoner, with the blood yet unwashed from his 
 wounds two days after he fell in an unsuccessful 
 assault, heartsick and homesick, suffering from 
 fierce wound-thirst in the July heat, with not a 
 friend to whisper a word of sympathy, or to proffer 
 relief, facing death, or a prolonged imprisonment 
 that seemed even worse than death, was a pitiable 
 lot for any man. As, with the approval of the 
 surgeons, I went from man to man, " to pour water 
 on him that was thirsty," and to speak words of 
 hope and cheer to the despondent, announcing that 
 I too was a Union prisoner, while also an army 
 chaplain, I was sure of a glad welcome; and as 
 I took dying messages from those prisoners to 
 their home loved ones, or knelt by them in prayer 
 and in counsel, I knew that I was a means of com 
 fort to the needy, and I thanked God for the privi 
 lege. 
 
266 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 More than fifty amputations were made on those 
 surgeons tables that first day, and as many more 
 were planned for the day following. Men were 
 sinking from the shock of the operation, or from 
 their original wounds, and closing their eyes to 
 earth, as the hours passed by in my chaplain s 
 ministry there. There were sad death scenes, and 
 soul-harrowing interviews with the dying. It was 
 hard for me to take time for even a brief nap, when, 
 far into the night, with overstrained nerves and 
 exhausted strength, I lay down on a bench to try 
 to gain, in sleep, strength enough for further work. 
 And the early morning waking was worse than the 
 troubled sleeping. 
 
 Many outsiders from the city came into that 
 prison hospital to witness the sad scenes enacted 
 there. It was in my second day s ministry, while 
 I was bending over a poor sufferer on a cot on the 
 second floor, that a voice near me jarred on my 
 ear with peculiar force, awakening unpleasant 
 memories. Looking up, I saw, on a visiting officer, 
 a face which I had last seen while on a flag of 
 truce in North Carolina the year before. Only 
 one officer had then treated me with discourtesy, 
 or spoken with bitterness of his enemies. His 
 commanding officer then promptly rebuked him 
 for his rudeness, and he turned away with a vin 
 dictive look. It was his face that now confronted 
 me. It was evident, by his start, that he recog 
 nized me instantly. 
 
Prison Experiences 267 
 
 " Ah ! " he said, " we have met before." 
 
 " At Kinston," I responded. 
 
 " And you are the chaplain of" 
 
 " The Tenth Connecticut." 
 
 " Yes, yes, yes ! " 
 
 He turned away with the old threatening look. 
 I went on in my work of ministry. A little later, 
 as I was talking tenderly with a dear dying lad, I 
 was tapped on the shoulder and ordered to follow 
 my guide. Going out at the main entrance below, 
 I was taken in charge by a file of soldiers, under 
 an aide of General Beauregard, and told that I was 
 remanded to jail. The officer in charge spoke to 
 me in a tone of pity akin to tenderness. As I 
 marched through the streets of Charleston, I heard 
 cheers over the news of the terrible draft riots in 
 New York City. This was not in itself inspiriting 
 to a Union prisoner. As the jailer received me at 
 the jail door he also spoke pityingly, as if he antici 
 pated the worst for me. I could not understand 
 the new state of things. 
 
 My friend Adjutant Camp and the other Union 
 officers had been sent to Columbia, and I found in 
 the corridor of the jail only those who were under 
 special charges, or who were criminals under 
 South Carolina laws. Those who took any notice 
 of me showed the kindlier side of human nature, 
 even though they could not give me real sympathy. 
 There was one man, a notorious forger, swindler, 
 and confidence man generally, who seemed to be 
 
268 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 recognized as a privileged character, a sort of 
 " Father of the Marshalsea." Genteel in appear 
 ance, with well-brushed gray hair and rusty-black 
 silk hat, pleasing in address, yet with a sinister 
 look in his keen evasive eyes which forbade con 
 fidence, he greeted me with an air half patroniz 
 ing and half deferential, expressed regret for my 
 misfortunes, and speaking mysteriously of a certain 
 connection he had with supposed sources of influ 
 ence and power, he made, as it were, a call of intro 
 duction, and fell back into the crowd with an inti 
 mation that he should see me again. 
 
 Before I had time to consider well my situation, 
 I was told that, by special order from General 
 Beauregard s office, I was to be put in solitary con 
 finement, but no intimation was given to me of the 
 reason for this. I was led to a small room, open 
 ing out from this corridor, without furniture, even 
 a bedstead, a bench, or a stool, and there was shut 
 in by a heavy oaken door closing over an iron 
 grating. Then for the first time I realized how 
 much more intolerable than the worst companion 
 ship, and how much worse than any form of active 
 toil or endurance, is solitary imprisonment without 
 occupation. 
 
 I tried to think, but my brain whirled so that 
 consecutive thought was an impossibility. I tried 
 to read from my pocket Bible, but my mind could 
 not confine itself to a series of printed words. I 
 tried to pray, but intelligible prayer was beyond 
 
Prison Experiences 269 
 
 my power. I tried to walk across my cell times 
 enough to measure a mile, but a half dozen times 
 the length of the room was all I could compass. 
 I tried to compose myself to sleep on the stone 
 floor, and I lay in a restless nightmare agony until 
 I could continue in that position no longer, but 
 when I looked at my watch I found that only 
 twelve minutes had passed since I lay down. This 
 fearful solitude and inaction in sharp and sudden 
 contrast with the busy and intense activities among 
 the living and the dying in the outside clashing 
 world, from which I had been jumped while every 
 nerve was keyed up to its highest possible tension, 
 was too much for a man of my intense and nervous 
 nature. 
 
 I was like a locomotive steamed up, and its 
 machinery working with the power to drive a 
 loaded train at seventy miles an hour, suddenly 
 coming to a wet track without the possibility of a 
 forward move. Its machinery would whirl and 
 whiz, and tear itself to pieces, with the motive 
 force that could not stop generating, and could not 
 find its use or vent It was terrible, terrible ! No 
 former trial to which I had been subjected was to 
 be compared with it. 
 
 Suffering from thirst in the close hot jail, I had 
 asked the turnkey for water as he came to shut me 
 in that solitary room. He gave me a small tin pail 
 of it. Taking only a scanty drink, I set the pail 
 on the floor that I might have it at hand for greater 
 
270 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 need. Soon after, I found it was a leaky vessel, 
 and that its precious contents were already gone. 
 I was refused another drink until the next day, 
 when, about noon, water was brought me in an old 
 whisky-bottle. My most substantial meal of that 
 second day was when a slave prisoner, accompany 
 ing the turnkey, appeared at my door with a bucket 
 of coarse soup containing beef and rice, and an 
 other bucket of Indian corn-meal mush. I was 
 told to take my rations, but I had neither bowl, 
 pitcher, nor plate. On my asking what I should 
 take them in, the turnkey said, with an oath, that 
 he didn t know nor care. The negro slave, seeing 
 my plight, set down the buckets and ran to the 
 courtyard below, where he found a broken, dirt- 
 begrimed pitcher, into which was poured a ladleful 
 of mush, and over it a ladleful of soup and meat. 
 I was left to eat this with my fingers, which I did 
 most gratefully. 
 
 It seems to me that I should have sunk under 
 the trials of this solitary imprisonment, if I had not 
 been relieved by an occasional removal for another 
 examination. First I was taken out under guard 
 to General Beauregard s office, for close question 
 ing. Again remanded to jail, I was once more 
 taken out, and led to the provost-marshal s office, 
 thence to the "Yankee Hospital," and thence again 
 to General Beauregard s, where I was renewedly 
 examined by his chief of staff, General Thomas 
 Jordan. No direct intimation was given to me, in 
 
Prison Experiences 271 
 
 any of these examinations, as to the reason for my 
 treatment, yet I suspected, from remarks which 
 were dropped by others, that I was looked at as 
 one who was likely to be executed. 
 
 Long afterwards I ascertained that word had 
 come to General Beauregard from the "Yankee 
 Hospital " that I was recognized as a probable spy 
 by one who had seen me at Kinston on a flag of 
 truce the year before. I later found an account of 
 this in the Charleston Courier. In the excited 
 state of the public mind just then, I was quickly 
 arrested, and might have been quickly disposed of, 
 without due examination, if my release had not 
 just then been demanded by a flag of truce from 
 General Gillmore, at the request of General Terry, 
 on the ground of my unfair detention. This made 
 me a subject of negotiation, and it became neces 
 sary to have proof that I was not what I claimed 
 to be, before extreme measures were adopted by 
 my captors. Therefore these repeated examina 
 tions were made in search of incriminating evi 
 dence. 
 
 At the time, these examinations were a relief 
 to me. Even the gallows would have seemed 
 preferable, for a change, to that fearful confinement 
 alone and in inaction. When taken back to the 
 jail after the last questioning, I was put into an 
 other room with only an iron grating for a door, 
 so that I could see and converse with those in the 
 corridor beyond. It seemed good to speak again 
 
272 War Memories of a CJiaplain 
 
 to a fellow-man, even the poorest specimen of his 
 kind, as when a prisoner came to the grating and 
 told, as he talked, of a cold-blooded murder he 
 had committed, for which he would probably be 
 hanged. When, indeed, just after this, a young 
 naval surgeon (who had been captured much as I 
 was, while seeking to help the wounded on Morris 
 Island, and who had been with me in the "Yankee 
 Hospital ") was brought to my new quarters as a 
 room-mate, the feeling of relief in fellowship was 
 positive and refreshing ; and as, the day following, 
 we learned that we were actually to be forwarded 
 to Columbia to rejoin our fellow Union prisoners, 
 including my friend Adjutant Camp, I felt that 
 life was no longer a burden, and that the gallows 
 would not be preferable to confinement in a South 
 ern military prison. Comfort is a relative term, 
 after all. Contentment depends not so much on 
 what we have, as upon what we are, and the light 
 in which we see our possessions. 
 
 From Charleston we were taken by a night train 
 to Columbia. We were in a comfortable first-class 
 car, with our accompanying guard. We slept and 
 waked by turns as we rode, with an occasional 
 glimpse of some peculiarly Southern sight of those 
 war-time days. At Branchville, an important junc 
 tion, where we made quite a stop, lunch-tables in 
 the open air were along the station platform, at 
 which negro " mammies " were selling " snacks " 
 of fried chicken and corn-cakes, with hot rye 
 
Prison Experiences 273 
 
 coffee, to Confederate soldiers, who were the only 
 white men we saw on the route, while blazing 
 torches of " light wood " (pieces of dense pitch 
 pine), swung by negro men, or piled on standing 
 mortar-boards on the platform, cast their weird 
 glare over the picturesque scene, sending their 
 clouds of smoke outward and upward as a reliev 
 ing background. 
 
 Reaching Columbia in the early morning, we 
 were taken to the office of Colonel Preston, the 
 post commandant, where we waited for his repre 
 sentative to appear. On the arrival of the adjutant, 
 he received us as prisoners from the Charleston 
 guard, and we were taken to Richland Jail for con 
 finement. It is not often that going to jail is a joy 
 to a soldier ; but, in view of my Charleston experi 
 ences in solitary confinement, it was with a glad 
 heart that I passed the doors of the jail in Columbia, 
 and found myself once more in the companionship 
 of my friend Adjutant Camp, and his fellow Union 
 officers. 
 
 Prison life in Columbia was more tolerable than 
 prison life in Charleston, although it was still 
 prison life, and therefore hard for a soldier in war 
 time. The jail itself was more like a large private 
 dwelling than like a fortress. It was near the 
 center of the city, on one of the principal streets, 
 close by the Town Hall, underneath which was the 
 city market. The jail windows were iron-barred, 
 but light and air had free ingress, and it was 
 
274 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 pleasant for us to watch the signs of life outside, 
 day by day. 
 
 A central passageway from front to rear divided 
 the six rooms on the lower floor. Back of the jail 
 was an open yard, with rude barrack structures, 
 on the one hand for laundry work and storage, and 
 on the other hand for extra prisoners in an emer 
 gency. Beyond this was a large printing and litho 
 graphic establishment, in which were prepared the 
 treasury notes of the Confederate government, and 
 through the windows of which were to be seen 
 bright-faced young women at work. Sentries paced 
 their beat on all sides of the jail building, day and 
 night. Two connecting rooms on one side of the 
 lower floor were occupied by our Union army 
 officers at the time I entered. In the third room 
 on that side, at the rear, were Confederate pris 
 oners, conscript deserters, and others under special 
 charges. Across the hall from our rooms there 
 was a small room near the front, in which was a 
 Union officer from Tennessee, under suspended 
 death sentence as a deserter from the Confederate 
 army. He was watched day and night by a soldier 
 chained, or secured, to him, so as to preclude all 
 possibility of escape. The back room on the same 
 side was at that time used as quarters for the 
 prison guard. The middle room was just then 
 vacant, but it was subsequently occupied by naval 
 officers captured in Admiral Dahlgren s unsuccess 
 ful assault on Fort Sumter. 
 
Prison Experiences 275 
 
 On the second floor of the jail were confined for 
 a time a hundred and more of our enlisted men, 
 taken prisoners on Morris Island, and in another 
 room various Confederate prisoners. Enlisted men 
 of the navy, captured in the assault on Fort Sumter, 
 were, when brought in, assigned to the barrack 
 buildings in the back yard. 
 
 The only furniture in our two rooms was a rude 
 two-story bedstead, or pair of berths, looking like 
 one plain table set on top of another, capable of 
 holding eight officers ; also a long pine table, on 
 which three more officers could stretch themselves 
 at night. The other officers slept on the floor, 
 with such covering as they could obtain from out 
 side. If we had money, as some of us had, we 
 could purchase little conveniences through officers 
 of the guard. Adjutant Camp and I purchased a 
 bed-tick of common brown sheeting, and had it 
 filled with dry pine needles ; also a similar pillow 
 case filled with corn-husks. An officer of the 
 guard loaned us a blanket. This fitted us out very 
 comfortably for the night, and the bed, when rolled 
 up, was a good seat by day. 
 
 On the tower of the Town Hall near us was an 
 iron-railed balcony, just below the clock face, 
 where a vigilant lookout paced his nightly rounds. 
 At 8.45 the curfew bell was rung vigorously as a 
 signal for the housing of negro slaves all over the 
 city, and the making ready for the night. Fifteen 
 minutes later, when the clock had ceased its strokes 
 
276 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 of nine, the watchman s voice rang out in a peculiar 
 tone that could be heard afar in the stilly night : 
 
 " Pa-ast ni-i-ne o -clock ! " 
 
 At 9.15 his encouraging cry in the same tone 
 was : 
 
 "All-swe-ell!" 
 
 At the half-hour his cry was as at the full hour, 
 and at the third quarter as at the first This con 
 tinued through the night. It was a pleasant sur 
 vival of the old English custom, which had its 
 attractions because of its suggestion of watchful 
 ness. If the Southern air had been cooler in July 
 and August, and mosquitoes and vermin had been 
 fewer and less active, we might have slept com 
 posedly on our prison-floor bed. 
 
 Daily rations were furnished us of beef or ham, 
 and corn-meal and rice. These we must cook or 
 have cooked for ourselves, and, if we desired any 
 thing more, we could purchase it at our own cost. 
 Slave women were coming and going, in the early 
 morning, in the vicinity of the market, with supplies 
 of fruit and vegetables, and coffee and its substi 
 tutes ; and from them we could purchase what we 
 would, with the permission of our guard. We em 
 ployed a slave woman to cook for our officers 
 mess. After several experiments in this line, we 
 settled down on " Old Maggie," a typical Southern 
 mammy. She was perhaps seventy years old, a 
 gray-haired, yellow-skinned, wrinkled granny, bare 
 footed, and wearing a red-and-white checked turban, 
 
Prison Experiences 277 
 
 and a scant-skirted homespun gown. Quite short, 
 very thin, active, and animated, she was efficient 
 and determined, and served us faithfully. She had 
 had sixteen children, and grandchildren and great 
 grandchildren in corresponding numbers. Her 
 owner lived up in the country, and she hired her 
 time of him at two dollars a week, while she had a 
 stall in the market, and did outside jobs. Two of 
 her great-grandchildren were her immediate attend 
 ants. While ordinarily good-natured, she could, 
 on occasion, scold and swear immoderately. 
 
 Prices for fruit and vegetables in their season 
 were reasonable; but those for coffee, milk, and 
 sugar, were beyond all reason, in Confederate 
 money. Rio coffee cost seven dollars a pound; 
 therefore it could not be afforded as a daily bev 
 erage. We used in place of it ground parched rye, 
 or barley, or Indian corn. The daily question was, 
 " Shall we have Ri-o coffee or ry-e to-day ? " Milk 
 was then fifty cents a quart, and butter was three 
 dollars a pound. Poor tallow candles cost us 
 seventy-five cents each. A common crockery plate 
 cost two dollars, and a bowl the same. Two iron 
 spoons were bought by us for a dollar. We paid 
 three dollars for a horn comb, and two dollars for a 
 tooth-brush. Yet we were glad to have these 
 things at even these prices. 
 
 Each day we were permitted to have an hour in 
 the yard for exercise, a few officers at a time. This 
 was a great relief. We were like school-boys at 
 
278 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 recess. Wrestling, quoit-pitching, leap-frog, hop 
 scotch, and boys games generally, were the order 
 of the hour. We also did our own clothes washing 
 at such times. There was a hydrant in the yard, 
 but water from the pipes was too warm for drink 
 ing. The special privilege was given us of going 
 out, two at a time, under guard, to draw water from 
 a cool well at a considerable distance from the jail. 
 This was a coveted service. It was looked upon as 
 a promotion to be " a drawer of water " for our 
 comrades. Little honors were great ones in prison. 
 After a while this privilege was taken from us, be 
 cause of its offense to citizens, who disliked the 
 appearance of Yankee prisoners on their streets. 
 One day, as Adjutant Camp and I drank from the 
 bucket on the well-curb, two little boys were 
 watching us. As we turned away, one of them 
 said feelingly : 
 
 " I was goin to ha drinked, but them Yanks ha 
 spoiled the well." 
 
 And it was too bad. 
 
 The officers of our guard were soldiers tem 
 porarily disabled for more active service. As sol 
 diers they gave us soldierly treatment. We were 
 grateful for their immediate course toward us. Yet 
 we were their prisoners, and as such we were 
 necessarily in a hostile attitude toward them. We 
 represented the Federal government; they repre 
 sented the Confederacy. They held us in confine 
 ment, without any promise on our part. It was 
 
Prison Experiences 279 
 
 our duty to escape if we could. It was their duty 
 to prevent our doing so. We were desirous of 
 getting information from without. They tried to 
 keep it from us. All this called for alertness on 
 both sides. 
 
 We could almost always depend on the slaves to 
 aid us to the extent of their ability. They tried 
 various ways of getting to us the daily papers, 
 which we were denied by the authorities. At first 
 they concealed a paper in their garments, and man 
 aged to deliver it under the eye of a corporal or 
 sergeant of the guard, who always came in with 
 our cook. Some of us would get between him and 
 her, and engage him in conversation, or arrest his 
 attention by some altercation, while she passed 
 over the paper. When this plan was discovered, 
 the cook was searched before she entered, and we 
 had to try another way. For a time the small 
 newspaper, closely folded, was put inside of a large 
 loaf of corn-cake, hollowed out for the purpose; 
 but when they learned of this, they cut open every 
 loaf before it was given to us. Then we tried a 
 new plan. 
 
 Picking up in the back yard a tin blacking- 
 box cover, we fitted its plate into the lid of the 
 coffee-pot in which " Old Maggie " brought our 
 steaming-hot rye coffee. The blacking-box plate 
 served as an inner lid to the coffee-pot cover, 
 being secured in place by the bending down of 
 slots in the rim of the cover with corresponding 
 
280 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 notches in the plate. The newspaper, closely 
 folded, was packed in the space between the two 
 covers thus secured to the coffee-pot. When the 
 coffee-pot was opened, as it always was, for exami 
 nation, before our guard would leave it with us for 
 the morning, the outcoming steam would so far 
 confuse his sight that he never suspected there was 
 anything contraband there. 
 
 Of course, the paper was wet with steam when 
 taken out, but it was handled carefully and dried 
 thoroughly before we read it. Thus, in one way or 
 another, we had the news of the day, with very rare 
 exceptions, during all our imprisonment. 
 
 Although we were supposed to have no direct 
 communication with prisoners in other parts of the 
 jail, we had little difficulty in keeping up full cor 
 respondence with them. By a series of agreed 
 signals with the Confederate prisoners in the room 
 back of ours, we knew when it was safe to pass a 
 word along. Then we would send a letter from 
 our room to theirs, through a break in the plaster 
 of the intervening partition near the floor. That 
 letter would by them be attached to a bent pin, 
 lowered by a thread through the ceiling and floor 
 above, and be drawn up by our enlisted men. In 
 like manner a letter would come back to us, or be 
 lowered to our naval officers on the opposite side 
 of the hall. In this way plans for escape were 
 considered, and important information was com 
 municated. 
 
Prison Experiences 281 
 
 In sight from our jail windows was the office of 
 one of the daily newspapers. Its bulletin-board 
 was near by, at the corner of two of the principal 
 streets. The conduct of those who stopped to read 
 these bulletins gave us a pretty good idea of the 
 nature of any fresh intelligence. When men read 
 slowly, and moved off with downcast heads, we 
 took courage as to the progress of affairs in the 
 great struggle. When they showed delight at what 
 they saw, and evidently congratulated one another 
 on the good news, we were correspondingly de 
 pressed. 
 
 We saw reinforcements for General Bragg at 
 Chickamauga, on their way from General Lee s 
 army, passing in sight of our windows, and it was 
 hard to be unable to notify our commanders of this 
 movement of troops. Prisoners from the army of 
 General Rosecrans, in the battle which followed 
 that movement, were taken toward Salisbury, before 
 our eyes but beyond our greeting, when we longed 
 to give them words of sympathy and cheer. News 
 of Federal losses and defeats, and rumors of retalia 
 tory measures which should cause the wholesale 
 execution of prisoners on both sides, were inevitably 
 depressing, and it was so hard to be inactive while 
 intense action seemed the only life worth living. 
 
 We had our occupations and diversions in our 
 jail rooms. Two German-American officers gave 
 us lessons in German. Two others were our in 
 structors in phonography. We whittled out a set 
 
282 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 of wooden chessmen, and had a series of competi 
 tive chess games. Adjutant Camp was a fine 
 player, having been president of the Yale Chess 
 Club while in college. He was sometimes person 
 ally matched against all the other good players 
 united, while the rest of us watched the contest 
 with interest. As we were shut up to our dull life 
 in common, with no opportunity to work off sur 
 plus feeling in any outside effort, it was easy to get 
 up an excitement without much seeming provoca 
 tion. Some of our more mischievous fellows would 
 take advantage of this, and stir up an unexpected 
 breeze when there seemed a dead calm. 
 
 One of our phonographic teachers was an enthu 
 siastic admirer of Pitman s system, the other in 
 clined to Graham s modification of Pitman. Often 
 they discussed the rival systems earnestly. The 
 rest of us took no part. One evening, when things 
 inside were peculiarly dull, the Pitman man ven 
 tured a remark in praise of his favorite. A waggish 
 young officer whispered to me : 
 
 "Who is that other fellow that they talk 
 about ? " 
 
 " Graham," I answered. 
 
 Then he spoke aloud : 
 
 " I ve understood that Graham s system is a good 
 deal better than Pitman s." 
 
 This was an unlooked-for friend of the enemy. 
 The Pitman man was aroused. Like a flash he 
 sprang to the defense of his hero, and the follower 
 
Prison Experiences 283 
 
 of Graham replied vigorously to his opponent. 
 Soon the air of the jail was thick with excited 
 controversy, and it was more like a theological or 
 scientific combat between friends and foes of 
 Higher Criticism, or of Evolution, than like a quiet 
 military prison. Meantime the waggish officer 
 who set the thing agoing was laughing in his 
 sleeve if he had on a sleeve just then over the 
 combustibility of tinder under flint and steel. 
 
 Occasionally we had a share in a special enter 
 tainment in the neighboring Town .Hall. Our 
 stage-box in the jail was secured to us for the 
 season for whatever performances went on there, 
 and we had no fear of being crowded out by a rush 
 of other spectators. We could hear the speeches 
 in political meetings there, and no one took more 
 interest than we in what was said. A negro min 
 strel performance by imitation negroes seemed to 
 us a poor substitute for the genuine article, as we 
 had been familiar with it in New Berne and on St. 
 Helena Island ; but it was a great deal better than 
 nothing, and we retained our box through it all. 
 
 By and by there came a Madame Ruhl, a refugee 
 from New Orleans, with a corps of good assistants, 
 and gave several concerts. We were all on hand 
 those nights. Every jail window-seat that looked 
 toward the hall was crowded. Earnest faces were 
 pressing between the bars above and below. 
 Strains of stirring and of plaintive music coming 
 through the still air across the starry night, with 
 
284 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 their thrilling associations of former times in other 
 places, touched our hearts with unwonted power. 
 We held our breath at her sweetest strains, and we 
 dared not show one another how deeply the music 
 moved us. When at last she sang " Home, Sweet 
 Home," it was more than we could bear. It was 
 harder than ever to sleep that night in the dreary 
 jail, as we tried not to think of home. 
 
 With all the occasional lights on its gloom, our 
 life in prison was still gloomy prison life. With all 
 the soldierly treatment of their soldier prisoners by 
 the Southern officers immediately over us, we were 
 subject to the caprices of their enlisted men, volun 
 teers, or conscripts, sometimes coarse, ignorant, 
 and even brutal, in spirit and conduct, who were on 
 guard in charge of us, and even the officers them 
 selves were at times compelled to carry out orders 
 from those above them, which they could not but 
 regret. 
 
 The Confederate prisoners on the floor above us 
 were even more severely dealt with than ourselves. 
 They were forbidden to stand near the iron-barred 
 windows looking out into the yard. One afternoon 
 we heard several shots in succession and a subse 
 quent commotion in the rooms above. In a few 
 minutes we learned that one of the guard, con 
 cealed in an outbuilding in the yard, had, without 
 warning, fired at Confederate prisoners who were 
 quietly looking out of their windows, and killed 
 two of them within five minutes. The sergeant of 
 
Prison Experiences 285 
 
 the guard told us boastingly that that man had 
 killed two men in firing only three shots. As 
 there had been no outbreak among the prisoners, 
 but merely a careless looking out of the window 
 into the jail yard, we chafed indignantly under this 
 cruel severity on the part of those who were over 
 us. When the bodies of those dead prisoners were 
 brought from the upper floor past our room doors, 
 it was hard for us to contain ourselves in our help 
 lessness. 
 
 A few days later, one of our fellow-officers, who 
 had been severely wounded, and had lain several 
 weeks in the hospital, had taken his seat in one of 
 the windows looking toward the Town Hall, in 
 order to get a little fresh air on a hot afternoon. 
 We had not been forbidden to keep back from the 
 windows, but a brutal sentry came up from outside 
 and told the wounded captain to get out of his 
 place or he would shoot him. Our poor weak 
 companion attempted to comply with the sentry s 
 demand. But one of our number sprang up into 
 the window-seat, and, putting his body in front of 
 the captain, said indignantly : 
 
 " If you want to shoot anybody, shoot a well 
 man ; don t be so cowardly as to shoot down 
 a poor, sick, wounded officer. Take a well one, if 
 you must shoot anybody. We shouldn t be in 
 here as prisoners if we hadn t been willing to face 
 shooting. Shoot away, then, if you want to." 
 
 Instead of firing, the sentry lowered his musket 
 
286 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 from his shoulder, and moved off on his beat. The 
 noise of the altercation was heard by the lieutenant 
 on duty. He came in to inquire its cause. Learn 
 ing the facts, he put another man on that sentry s 
 beat, and said that we might occupy the window- 
 seats as we pleased. These incidents were not 
 composing to the intense nature of a soldier pris 
 oner, and it was hard to keep an equable frame of 
 mind. 
 
 For a while two of our naval officers were held 
 in irons in a separate room, as hostages for two 
 Confederate officers held by our government on a 
 charge of piracy. Two of our army officers were 
 similarly shut away from their fellows, because of 
 an attempt to escape. Such things increased and 
 intensified our prison-life trials. 
 
 Imprisonment did not shut me off from opportu 
 nities of service as a chaplain. Every evening I 
 conducted prayers with my companions in misfor 
 tune, before we lay down to sleep. On Sundays I 
 led in a service of worship in our officers quarters. 
 After a while, our naval officers from across the 
 hall had permission to come into our room at this 
 hour; and they were glad to avail themselves of 
 the opportunity. I obtained permission to go up 
 stairs and preach to our enlisted men ; and again 
 to go out into the yard and preach to our sailors 
 there. We organized a choir of singers in both 
 places, which added greatly to the attractiveness of 
 the services. 
 
Prison Experiences 287 
 
 Pastoral work seemed even more effective in 
 prison than in camp. Men were glad to speak out 
 their heart thoughts to one who could proffer them 
 sympathy in their need. Many privileges were 
 accorded me in this line, and I have precious 
 memories of personal interviews with soldiers and 
 sailors in that jail, who afterwards went out to Salis 
 bury and Andersonville to suffer and to die, far 
 from home and friends. As I had a little money 
 with me to the last, I would buy a supply of soft 
 bread each day, and, standing at the door of my 
 quarters while the men were passing along on the 
 way from the hour of recreation in the yard to their 
 room above, I would give a portion to the more 
 needy on the sick list. Of course, this was appre 
 ciated by men who had no other variation from the 
 coarse corn-bread of their prison fare. As I handed 
 a loaf to a worn and sickly-looking German soldier 
 one day, he smiled a forlorn smile as he thanked 
 me for my kindness, and added his extra petition, 
 as if to say that there was one thing better than 
 bread : 
 
 " Shaplin, I vish you vud pray de good God dat 
 he take us out of dis dam hole." 
 
 It was in the spirit of earnest prayer, even though 
 not in conventional phrase, that he blurted out this 
 heart -cry. 
 
 Confinement and constant nervous strain were 
 too much for me. After a few months imprison 
 ment my health gave way, and I had an attack of 
 
288 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 low fever. A Confederate surgeon was called in 
 and prescribed for me. Had it not been for the 
 unremitting tender ministry, in care and sympathy, 
 of my loved friend Adjutant Camp, I should have 
 sunk beyond hope of recovery. He would not let 
 me go down. He breathed his own courage and 
 hope into my failing spirits. He gave me life when 
 mine was going out. When I seemed at the low 
 est point, he secured for me nourishing food from 
 outside, because I was unable to find needed sus 
 tenance in prison fare. We had learned that board 
 at a good hotel was then costing twenty dollars a 
 day in Confederate currency. He sent by one of 
 the guard a request for as good a meal for me as 
 could be obtained at the best hotel in the city. He 
 was ready to part with his gold watch to pay for 
 this, if necessary. The tempting food came in. It 
 rallied me by its appetizing and nutritious qualities. 
 When he asked for the bill, he was told that the 
 proprietor would not take a cent for it, as he 
 learned that it was for a sick chaplain. It was just 
 at that time that the order came for my removal to 
 Richmond, presumably on my way to freedom. 
 And I have always felt that my life was saved in 
 this way. 
 
 Six years after this incident, I was in Savannah, 
 Georgia, with a friend who had been an officer in 
 the Confederate army and a prisoner of war in Fort 
 Delaware. We were talking over war times 
 together. We were in the office of the Screven 
 
Prison Experiences 289 
 
 House. My friend mentioned that the proprietor 
 of the Screven House had had charge of a hotel in 
 Columbia during the war. At this I questioned 
 the proprietor about the dates of his life there. He 
 mentioned incidentally that, in the fall of 1863, he 
 had heard of a sick Union chaplain in Richland 
 Jail, and sent him as good a meal as he could pro 
 vide. 
 
 " I was that sick Union chaplain," I said, " and I 
 have always felt that that meal was one of the 
 things that saved my life when I was sinking under 
 prison life and prison fare." 
 
 " My heavens ! you the man ! I m glad I sent it, 
 then." 
 
 And / was glad. 
 
 It was good to rise up from that jail floor and 
 take a start toward home. But it was hard to part 
 with my loved friend Adjutant Camp, leaving him 
 in the gloomy prison-house. It was like the part 
 ing of friends when one is going out into the free 
 dom of a better life beyond, and the other is to stay 
 behind. Each was glad, and each was sad. It 
 must be so. 
 
 Dr. Luck, the naval surgeon, was my companion 
 toward Richmond. Before five o clock in the 
 morning we, with several Confederate conscripts 
 and deserters, who were to be left at Wilmington, 
 North Carolina, were on our way, under guard, to 
 the railroad station, to take the early train north 
 ward. The sergeant in charge of us was a gentle- 
 
290 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 manly college student, and he made the journey as 
 pleasant as he could for us. It was a slow journey 
 at the best. We had long waits at junctions. Once 
 we were delayed for hours during the night by a 
 broken-down freight train, and then were obliged 
 to go on foot around the wreck, and take a train on 
 the other side. The cars were crowded with Con 
 federate officers and men. We conversed freely 
 with them, and this without any bitterness on 
 either side. There were many expressions of 
 Union sentiment. Indeed, with all the degree of 
 unanimity there was among the people of the South 
 as to the war against the government, I never at 
 any time in my army service met a number of them 
 while I was on flag of truce, or in my prison life, 
 without finding some expression of hearty love for 
 the Union, and of earnest hope for the triumph of 
 the United States government After a stop over 
 a part of Sunday night at a hotel in Petersburg, we 
 came into Richmond early on Monday morning 
 too early to report at the provost-marshal-general s 
 office. In a Richmond restaurant, by consent of 
 the sergeant, I bought a cup of hot " ry-e " coffee 
 for a dollar and a half, and found it very refreshing. 
 Being taken, as soon as he came to his office, 
 before General John H. Winder (familiarly known, 
 from his West Point days, as " Hog Winder "), 
 Provost-Marshal-General of the Confederacy, in 
 charge of all prisoners of war, we were remanded 
 to the Libby Prison, and were started thither. As 
 
Prison Experiences 291 
 
 we passed through the streets, snow, from a sudden 
 cold flurry, was driven in our faces. I had on only 
 the thin clothing, worn thinner by jail wear, in 
 which I had been captured below Charleston in the 
 heat of July. It was now the second week in 
 November. The cold wind of that wintry day cut 
 to the bones of my emaciated frame. Nothing but 
 the trying side of a soldier s life was just then 
 prominent in my personal situation; but just then 
 I thanked God that my life was likely to be once 
 more in the war for the life of our God-given gov 
 ernment. 
 
 Libby Prison was a very different place from the 
 jail at Charleston, or at Columbia ; life here was 
 very different from life there. The Richmond 
 building, near the James River, on Carey Street, 
 was an extensive three-story brick structure, for 
 merly occupied by Libby & Co. as a ship-chandlery 
 establishment. Its rooms, quite low between joists, 
 were broad, long, and capacious. There were six 
 large rooms for prisoners, besides the kitchens, 
 mess-rooms, and a hospital. The commandant s 
 office was on the ground floor, at the right of the 
 main entrance. Below the street, in the cellar, 
 were dungeons for the confinement of prisoners in 
 disfavor. Only officers held as military prisoners 
 were in the Libby. On the opposite side of Carey 
 Street, a little to the west, was " Castle Thunder," 
 another brick warehouse, for the confinement of 
 prisoners of state held on special charges. On 
 
292 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 Belle Isle, in the James River, in sight from the 
 windows of the Libby, were our enlisted men, in 
 far worse plight than the officers. 
 
 Taken into the office of the Libby, I was exam 
 ined by Major Turner, the prison commandant. 
 He was a gentleman in comparison with " Dick 
 Turner," the prison inspector, who was a man of the 
 old-time slave overseer sort. Yet I had been told 
 by one of the veteran Confederate officers over us 
 at Columbia that I might not expect the same 
 treatment at the Libby as at Columbia, for " Major 
 Turner has never been in active service." Yet I had 
 no cause of complaint of his treatment of me per 
 sonally. It was indeed trying to a soldier to find 
 the United States flag, " union down," fastened 
 behind Major Turner s desk in that prison office, 
 and it was with a feeling of relief that I received 
 the order to pass up to the floor above, and share 
 the lot of my fellow-prisoners. As I ascended the 
 ladder leading to the upper rooms, and my head 
 showed itself above the floor to the crowd of pris 
 oners there, I was greeted by the cry from a hun 
 dred voices : 
 
 " Fresh fish ! fresh fish ! fresh fish ! " 
 
 And that gave me a place as a freshman in the 
 great prison college where the seniors were known 
 as " sardines." 
 
 Nearly a thousand Union officers were in the 
 Libby at that time. It was a bewildering throng 
 in which I found myself as I stood among those 
 
Prison Experiences 293 
 
 who pressed forward at the announcement of a new 
 prison comer. It seemed as though there was no 
 more standing-room for prisoners, and how all 
 could find room to lie down was a matter of 
 wonder. It was not easily arranged, after all. 
 When night came, the officers stood in rows, each 
 in his appointed place, and then they lay down, so 
 closely packed that the floor was literally covered 
 by them. All must go to bed, and all must get up, 
 by agreement. There was no walking around by a 
 restless sleeper, no getting up in advance of one s 
 fellows in the morning. There seemed to be no 
 space for me on the over-packed floor, and at first 
 I thought I must stand up all night; but provision 
 was made for me. General Neal Dow, of Maine, 
 was at that time the ranking officer in the Libby. 
 Naturally he had a little larger space than the 
 others assigned to him, and he generously accorded 
 me room to lie down on his floor patch, which was 
 in the center of the front end of the second story 
 of the Libby. 
 
 Most of the windows at both ends of the room 
 had been broken out, and, although the spaces 
 were barred, the cold winds swept through piti 
 lessly. No sunlight found its way in even on a 
 bright day, and the bare floors were damp all day 
 and all night from each morning s washing. In my 
 weak and worn condition, I was cold all the time. 
 When night came I must shiver in my one thin 
 blanket. Falling asleep, I would dream of being 
 
294 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 near a fire trying to warm myself, and then I would 
 awake to find it was a dream. Of all forms of mere 
 physical discomfort, I never knew anything more 
 trying than this continuous shivering with cold by 
 day and by night. 
 
 " Skirmish for graybacks ! " was the morning 
 signal in the Libby for preparing to rise. Each 
 officer then, sitting up in his place, would strip off 
 his upper garments, and cleanse himself from 
 vermin for the day. " Graybacks " was the popular 
 term for a Confederate enemy, and again for our 
 most obnoxious insect foe. It was a strange sight, 
 those long rows of Union officers, including men 
 in the highest spheres of life in the North, indus 
 triously striving to exterminate their insect enemy, 
 which was fattening itself on the best blood in 
 the land. It was a struggle for the survival of the 
 fittest. When all was ready, men stood up for the 
 new day, to answer to the prison roll-call from 
 " Dick Turner." 
 
 The bare, cobwebbed, and dusty walls of the 
 prison-rooms had been nailed, and pegged, and 
 shelved, and cord-strung, for the hanging and stow 
 ing of cups, and pots, and pans, and jars, and 
 bottles, and books, and musical instruments, and 
 fencing-foils, and smaller articles of clothing, while 
 between the naked floor-beams above were hang 
 ing, on lines, blankets and shawls and overcoats 
 and towels. On the floor were boxes and razeed 
 barrels, and an occasional crippled chair, for seats. 
 
Prison Experiences 295 
 
 These made the place look more like a pawn 
 broker s, or a city junk-shop, than like our Colum 
 bia Jail quarters. 
 
 At the end of each main room was a single 
 water-faucet, where the one hundred and fifty to 
 two hundred inmates of that room could wash, 
 without basin or tub, when they could get access 
 to it. The eating-rooms on the lower floor had 
 rude tables of unplaned boards running their en 
 tire length, with narrow benches of the same 
 material alongside of them. Along the sides of 
 these eating-rooms were ten small cook-stoves, at 
 each of which a hundred men must do their cook 
 ing for the day. Thorough system and prompt 
 work were necessary to secure this. Our officers 
 must arrange for it. They had an organization, 
 with the ranking officer in prison as the com 
 mandant, and a designated adjutant, and a com 
 missary. Groups of officers formed into messes, 
 each man in turn sharing in the cooking for his 
 mess, and putting into the common stock his por 
 tion of fuel. The messes agreed together as to the 
 hour of the day or night when they could have 
 the use of the stove during the next week. Thus the 
 stoves were in use all the twenty-four hours, and 
 this was none too much time. 
 
 Meals in the Libby at the best were not of the 
 best. One of my fellow-officers found a whole rat 
 baked into a loaf of corn-cake furnished with his 
 rations. The rat had probably jumped into the 
 
296 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 dough-trough while the corn-cake was making^ 
 and been knocked in the head and worked into 
 the cake. It was not a good appetizer. Another 
 fellow-officer, a cultivated Boston gentleman, was 
 cooking for his mess at one time. He made a 
 savory dish for himself of " pea soup " by boiling a 
 lot of beans together with a fresh ham-bone. It 
 was midnight when the soup was cooked. If he 
 should eat it before he slept, he would lose the 
 pleasant feeling of having a full stomach while wide 
 awake ; therefore he set it aside until daylight. 
 On looking at it in the morning, he found its sur 
 face covered with cooked maggots. He could not 
 but be glad that he had not eaten it in the dark. 
 But he welcomed the next prison-meal, because it 
 was the best he could get. 
 
 During the day there were classes in German, in 
 French, and in phonography. Men played cards, 
 or chess, or checkers. Others fenced with prison- 
 made foils. Some sketched ; some carved beef- 
 bone napkin-rings, or shirt-studs, or seals, or other 
 ornaments ; some made thread " tatting " as they 
 had learned to in boyhood. All knew well that 
 the hardest work in the world is to do nothing, and 
 no one attempted that. 
 
 Boxes from the Sanitary Commission, and from 
 the Christian Commission, containing supplies for 
 the prisoners, as well as boxes from home friends, 
 were now being received at the Libby, thus supply 
 ing them with comforts we had lacked in Columbia. 
 
Prison Experiences 297 
 
 It would have gladdened the home hearts to see 
 the delight with which a prisoner unpacked the 
 box from his dear ones, and gloated over each 
 longed-for or unexpected treasure in the gloom of 
 his prison-house. 
 
 There were prison amusements of their kind. 
 The " Libby Minstrels " and the " Libby Warblers " 
 gave an occasional concert. Now and then there 
 was a lecture by some officer on a topic of interest 
 to all. Moreover, there were well-attended prayer- 
 meetings three evenings of the week. When there 
 were any chaplains in prison there were religious 
 services, with sermons, twice each Sunday ; and 
 even when there was no chaplain, some non- 
 clerical officer often performed this duty. 
 
 It was only at occasional intervals that a pris 
 oner was released from the Libby, while exchanges 
 were suspended ; hence, when a man was released, 
 he had many messages from the prisoners to their 
 friends. As he was searched for contraband 
 articles on going out, as on coming in, it was not 
 easy to carry a note undetected; but a man can 
 generally do what he has to do. An important 
 message was carried, in one instance, on very thin 
 paper rolled up in tin-foil, and pressed into and on 
 top of a decayed back tooth. Many a message 
 was written in lemon-juice (to be brought out by 
 heat) between the lines of an open letter submitted 
 for examination. At last the authorities realized 
 that the tricks of " Yankees " could not be found 
 
298 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 out by examination ; therefore they dropped the 
 searching, and put a prisoner on his word of honor 
 not to carry " any written communication of any 
 sort from any one inside to any one outside." A 
 soldier, of course, regarded that assurance, even to 
 an enemy in war time, binding on him without 
 qualification. Then the memory had to be substi 
 tuted for writing. 
 
 As it was understood that I would soon pass 
 through the lines, I was plied with verbal messages 
 to those at home. One man, whose family lived 
 near Borden s condensed-milk factory, wanted me 
 to ask his wife to have a twenty-dollar gold-piece 
 sealed up in a can of milk at that factory, and then 
 to send the can to him in a box of home comforts 
 by flag of truce. He knew that at the Libby they 
 would simply punch a hole in the can to see that it 
 contained milk, and then hand it over. A man 
 who lived near the Willimantic Thread Company 
 wanted his wife to go to the factory and have 
 a twenty-dollar greenback wound round a spool 
 before the thread was machine-wound over it. The 
 factories were always ready then to help a soldier 
 in such ways. I planned to send a letter, in one 
 instance, between the layers of the pasteboard 
 bottom of a little box that had an unsuspicious 
 look, with its harmless contents of sewing and 
 writing materials. Again I sent maps and a pocket- 
 compass, with other helps for a fugitive, in the 
 double bottom of a wooden packing-box. In order 
 
Prison Experiences 299 
 
 to avert suspicion of the fact that the box had a 
 double bottom, the bottom was two double bottoms 
 side by side, with a space between them ; so that 
 when the contents were turned out, the authorities 
 would see the light shining through the bottom of 
 the box, and be convinced that there was no double 
 bottom there. Thus, in one way and another, help 
 was to come to those in prison from those outside, 
 although I bore no written message from any one 
 inside the Libby to any person outside. 
 
 " Boat up ! boat up ! " was the glad cry that 
 rang through the Libby rooms one day, when the 
 news came that a flag-of-truce boat had just come 
 from City Point, bringing a mail for prisoners, and 
 possibly bringing orders for the release of some of 
 us. Then followed the thrilling reception and dis 
 tribution of the home mail. Another night on the 
 cold floor, with the restless, anxious hoping that it 
 might be my last there, although all was still un 
 certainty. There was a rumor that several of us 
 were to go back in this boat, but no one knew how 
 the rumor started. About noon of the following 
 day, " Dick Turner " made his appearance at the 
 entrance-way of our room. His voice rang out, as 
 his first call : 
 
 " Chaplain H. Clay Trumbull of the Tenth Con 
 necticut ! " 
 
 I had never in my life been so glad to hear my 
 own name as then. I sprang toward him at his 
 call. He said : 
 
oo War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 " If you want to go back in this boat, hurry up." 
 
 " Is there time for me to run upstairs and get 
 my things ? " 
 
 " No ; go just as you are, or not at all." 
 
 I had left upstairs, on the floor above, a little 
 basket of my belongings, which I had brought from 
 Columbia, but it was nothing in comparison with 
 liberty. I left all, and followed him who gave me 
 hope of freedom. 
 
 As I passed out from the Libby and down Carey 
 Street, under guard, I looked up and saw the glad, 
 sad faces of my fellow-prisoners crowding the 
 windows of that gloomy building. Their kindly 
 farewells made my heart sick, because I must leave 
 them there. 
 
 " Good-by, Chaplain ; I m glad you re going 
 home." 
 
 " God bless you, Chaplain ! I wish / was going 
 with you." 
 
 " Good-by ! Good-by ! " 
 
 These sounds are in my ears to-day, as fresh as 
 thirty-five years ago. 
 
 I went on the little steamer, "A. H. Shultz," 
 down the James River. A white flag was above 
 her bow, the Confederate flag was above her stern. 
 Until the steamer had passed the defenses of Rich 
 mond I was kept below. As we neared City Point 
 I was permitted to come on deck. When I came 
 in sight of the United States flag floating over our 
 flag-of-truce steamer New York, I could hardly 
 
Prison Experiences 301 
 
 contain myself for joy, but I had to be restrained 
 until formally released. I was compelled to pass 
 one more night under the Confederate flag. I was, 
 however, treated courteously by Captain Hatch, 
 the Confederate agent of exchange, and I made 
 myself as contented as possible until the hour for 
 my transfer. On the following morning I was 
 given over by Captain Hatch to Major Mulford, 
 our agent of exchange, and my prison experiences 
 were at an end. 
 
 From Major Mulford I learned more about my 
 imprisonment and my return. My government had 
 steadily pressed for my release. Finally Judge 
 Ould, the Confederate Commissioner of Exchange, 
 asked Major Mulford if he could give his personal 
 assurance that I was what I claimed to be, a simple 
 chaplain, and not a spy. The Major said he had 
 relatives in Hartford, where I lived, and could 
 easily ascertain the truth. The Judge said if he 
 was satisfied on this point I should be released. 
 He also promised not to use to my disadvantage 
 the Major s silence on the subject, if he found he 
 could not vouch for me. Major Mulford, afterwards 
 General Mulford, had a cousin living near me, con 
 nected with the church of which I was a member. 
 In response to his inquiry, she spoke of me in such 
 terms that he was no longer in doubt. He told 
 Judge Ould, and an order was sent to General 
 Beau regard for my release. 
 
 When Richmond was taken, a friend of mine, in 
 
302 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 command at the Libby, found among the official 
 files an important paper in my case, and gave it 
 over to me. It contained the order of Judge Ould 
 for my transfer to Richmond, in response to the 
 demand of General Meredith, our agent of ex 
 change, with the protest of General Jordan, General 
 Beauregard s chief-of-staff, endorsed on it : 
 
 " Chaplain H. Clay Trumbull has been directed 
 to be sent to Richmond at once. He is a tricky 
 fellow, and has little the air of a chaplain. The 
 great desire manifested to get him back, coupled 
 with the circumstances of his capture, make it 
 doubtful whether he is really a chaplain or a spy." 
 
 Some years after the war, a man, who then met 
 me for the first time, said : 
 
 " Mr. Trumbull, you don t look a bit like a 
 minister." 
 
 " I know that," I replied. " I once came near 
 being hanged for it. Because of my lack of the con 
 ventional choker/ they proposed to give me one 
 of hemp." 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 GLIMPSES OF GENERAL GRANT 
 
 Because a man is in an army it does not follow 
 that he has any personal knowledge of its com- 
 mancler-in-chief. He may know a great deal about 
 him. He may even have studied his character and 
 history for years. He may be guided in his every 
 day life by the orders issued by that commander- 
 in-chief. Yet, while serving under him for a pro 
 longed term, he may never have a glimpse of him, 
 any more than if an ocean separated them. All his 
 knowledge of the man who is so much to him may 
 be only at second-hand, as hearsay information. 
 
 This is not the popular opinion of army service. 
 It certainly was not the idea which was in my 
 mind, as a boy, when occasionally I met an old 
 soldier of the American Revolution or of the great 
 Napoleon. At one time, when I went with my 
 father to pay some pension money to an old colored 
 man who had served in the Revolutionary War, I 
 asked the pensioner, with interest, what he could 
 tell me about the appearance of General Washing 
 ton. The old man was too kind-hearted to disap 
 point his benefactor s boy by telling the truth, and 
 
 303 
 
304 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 saying that he had never set eyes on the com- 
 mander-in-chief, so he replied at once : 
 
 " Gen al Washin ton was a gran an imposin 
 man. He d come out afore the line ev ry mornin 
 an speak out in a loud voice : Boys, I want you 
 all to be good sojers to-day. Ev ry one o us den 
 ready to die for de Gen al." 
 
 That met a boy s idea of army service. A good 
 many older persons felt as that boy did about sol 
 diers serving always under the eye of the com- 
 mander-in-chief. They took it for granted that a 
 Revolutionary soldier was accustomed, as a matter 
 of course, to see General Washington at least fre 
 quently, even if not every day. 
 
 A little later, when I was presented, in my 
 father s sitting-room, to Colonel John Trumbull 
 the artist, who served on the personal staff of 
 General Washington as an aide-de-camp, I was 
 interested in being face to face with a man who 
 had had special opportunities of knowing the 
 " Father of his Country," and of feeling his im 
 press ; but somehow, as he said nothing of the 
 personal appearance and ways of General Wash 
 ington, I found that my early thoughts were most 
 influenced as to these by the words of the old 
 colored pensioner. Personal testimony as to a 
 great commander s looks and ways is very effective 
 when you know, or think, that it is all true. 
 
 When once I saw an old soldier of the first 
 Napoleon, I asked him what he thought about his 
 
Glimpses of General Grant 305 
 
 great commander. I did not ask how Napoleon 
 looked, but how his soldiers felt about him. The 
 old Frenchman s face was all aglow, and his form 
 was in a quiver, as, with excited gestures, he ex 
 claimed : 
 
 "We believed m Napoleon. You believe in your 
 God, we believed in Napoleon. Napoleon say, 
 Go to the moon/ every soldier start ; Napoleon 
 find the way." 
 
 Whether that soldier had ever seen Napoleon I 
 did not ask; but I could have no doubt that he 
 had felt his influence, and that he could bear sure 
 testimony of it. Thus with the soldiers of General 
 Grant. Not all of them were privileged to see him 
 personally, but all felt the impress of his person 
 ality, and the testimony of any one of them who 
 ever saw and heard him, and who was thus the 
 more impressed by him, is worthy of heeding, be 
 cause it is an added evidence of General Grant s 
 surpassing personality. 
 
 General Grant was not a " gran an imposin 
 man," like General Washington, or, again, like 
 General Scott ; nor was he a man of magnetic and 
 inspiring presence, arousing enthusiasm wherever 
 he showed himself among his soldiers, like Napo 
 leon, or even like McClellan, or Sherman, or, yet 
 more, like Sheridan. Neither his personal appear 
 ance nor his manner was calculated to impress the 
 average man with a sense of his greatness ; and his 
 soldiers had to learn gradually to trust implicitly 
 
306 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 the commander who held their lives and the inter 
 ests of the entire country in his control. 
 
 I have seen General Grant riding quietly along 
 the front, at a time when an important movement 
 of his was evidently a success, as at Fort Harrison, 
 in September, 1864, and our men were flushed with 
 a sense of victory at the right, while the sounds of 
 battle at the left were still to be heard ; yet not a 
 cheer greeted his progress as he moved among the 
 men who were ready to lay down their lives at his 
 order. I could have heard a cheer from other 
 divisions had it been given on that occasion, as he 
 passed on his way with no show of authority or 
 apparent wish to be greeted, but not a cheer was 
 to be heard. Very different was the case with 
 many another general. When General Burnside 
 showed himself among his soldiers in North Caro 
 lina, in 1862, the men seemed to go wild with 
 enthusiasm ; and it was much the same with Gene 
 ral John G. Foster, or, later, with General Gillmore 
 or General Terry. It is true that Colonel Horace 
 Porter testifies that the soldiers of the Army of the 
 Potomac were aroused to such enthusiasm over 
 their new commander, at the opening of the cam 
 paign in May, 1864, that it was necessary to check 
 their vociferous cheers, lest the noise should dis 
 close the commander s presence to the enemy. 
 Yet any one familiar with General Grant s appear 
 ance and manner on the field would testify to his 
 absence of imposing presence. 
 
Glimpses of General Grant 307 
 
 But gradually, and with increasing force, as the 
 war went on, officers and men came to feel confi 
 dence in the wisdom and ability of General Grant, 
 and to have rest in their abiding trust in him as 
 fully competent for whatever he had to do. It was 
 said that, when he was in command in the West, 
 the soldiers would look up and say quietly, as he 
 passed, " There goes the old man. Pretty hard 
 nut for * Johnny Reb to crack ! " And when it 
 was seen that those commanders who were brilliant 
 and magnetic, and who, like Sherman and Sheri 
 dan, could immediately arouse and inspire their 
 men, were themselves aroused and inspired by the 
 supreme ability of General Grant, confidence in 
 him came down through them to those who lacked 
 the ability to measure him for themselves at his 
 true worth, and caused them to perceive in him 
 that greatness which was earlier patent to the 
 larger minds. 
 
 My first opportunity of seeing General Grant was 
 after he crossed the James River in June, 1864, 
 and made his headquarters at City Point. My 
 regiment was then in the Army of the James at 
 Bermuda Hundreds, where General Butler s com 
 mand was " bottled up," we having come thither 
 from the Department of the South. General Grant 
 came over to Bermuda Hundreds with General 
 Butler, soon after the Army of the Potomac was in 
 position before Petersburg, and rode along our 
 lines reconnoitering our defenses. He made less 
 
308 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 display than General Butler, or than an ordinary 
 division commander, and we failed to see in him 
 evidences of the power that we knew he possessed. 
 
 A month later, July 16, 1864, when our brigade 
 occupied a newly taken position at Deep Bottom, 
 north of the James River, about ten miles from 
 Richmond, near the New Market Road, General 
 Grant, accompanied as before by General Butler, 
 passed through our regimental lines toward a house 
 known as the " Grover House," for the purpose 
 of sending over to Richmond, by flag of truce, 
 two civilians, Mr. James R. Gilmore (" Edmund 
 Kirke ") and Colonel Jaquess, on a special mission 
 to Jefferson Davis, with the consent of President 
 Lincoln. As we then had a better opportunity of 
 observing General Grant personally, we watched 
 him with curious interest, vainly seeking some 
 visible sign of his greatness. 
 
 General Grant was not given to display in dress 
 or in surroundings. He was seldom in full uni 
 form, and, as he himself says, he rarely wore a 
 sword on the field. Often a single member of his 
 personal staff, and sometimes only a single orderly, 
 accompanied him. On one occasion, as he passed 
 by our regimental camp, on the New Market Road, 
 below Richmond, with only an orderly, and wear 
 ing a private soldier s blouse, with no sign of rank 
 other than the three stars on his shoulder-strap, 
 one of our men said to the others in quiet surprise : 
 
 " Why, there goes General Grant ! " 
 
Glimpses of General Grant 309 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said another ; " that isn t General 
 Grant. It doesn t look a bit like him." 
 
 " Well, I say it is. Don t you see those stars on 
 his shoulder ? There s only one man in this army 
 who wears three stars." 
 
 And that was conclusive. 
 
 When, in the spring of 1865, just prior to the 
 movement of his armies that culminated in victory 
 at Appomattox Court House, General Grant re 
 viewed our division, and a week later, when he 
 accompanied Secretary Stanton at a review of our 
 corps, in full uniform as he was, and accompanied 
 by his brilliant staff and distinguished generals, his 
 appearance better met the common idea of the 
 commanding general of a great army. By that 
 time, moreover, even his impassible countenance 
 showed its signs of continual strain and anxiety, 
 and gave proof that he was not insensible to the 
 tremendous responsibilities upon him in that pro 
 longed campaign. Slowly, however, at the best, 
 did the majority of those who were under General 
 Grant grow to any just appreciation of his simple 
 greatness. 
 
 It was not until after the war that I came into 
 any personal relations with General Grant. My 
 first meeting with him was at his home in Wash 
 ington, just after his nomination at Chicago as the 
 Republican candidate for the Presidency, in May, 
 1868. I was returning from a trip to the South. 
 General Joseph R, Hawley, who was chairman of 
 
3 1 o War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 the nominating convention, and who as such was 
 to notify General Grant of his nomination, invited 
 me to accompany him on that occasion. Not 
 reaching Washington in season for this, I ventured 
 to make a personal call on General Grant, on the 
 strength of it, as I came northward. I sent in my 
 card, simply writing under my name, " A friend of 
 General Joseph R. Hawley." In a few minutes 
 General Grant came in, and, greeting me cordially, 
 he said : 
 
 " Excuse me for keeping you waiting, but I was 
 out in the yard playing circus with my children." 
 
 This gave me a glimpse of his home life, and 
 newly attracted me to him. I explained the cir 
 cumstances of my call, and told of my personal 
 relations with General Hawley, adding that I took 
 advantage of this to pay my respects to the com 
 mander whom every soldier held so dear. The 
 simplicity and naturalness of General Grant im 
 pressed me from the start. I could not but be at 
 my ease, as he talked to me familiarly, asking in 
 what command I had served, and about my army 
 service. As I spoke of the time when he rode 
 through the lines of our regiment on his way to 
 the " Grover House," with " Edmund Kirke," in 
 July, 1864, the General asked artlessly: 
 
 " What horse did I ride that day ? " 
 
 I suggested that I could not answer that ques 
 tion, for I was thinking just then a good deal more 
 about the man who was so much to us all than 
 
Glimpses of General Grant 311 
 
 about the horse which he rode, but I was sure it 
 was a good horse. 
 
 When I proposed to leave, after this first saluta 
 tion, the General kindly asked me to remain longer, 
 and he spoke of the political outlook. This was at 
 a time when the newspaper correspondents were all 
 speaking of the peculiar reticence of General Grant, 
 " the silent man," and the impossibility of getting 
 any expression of opinion from him. Yet he 
 seemed free to express himself without restraint, 
 apparently convinced that no unfair use would be 
 made of it. He spoke warmly of General Hawley, 
 and of his opening address at the nominating con 
 vention at Chicago. Then he asked who I thought 
 would be nominated for President by the Demo 
 crats. I answered that there seemed more than 
 a possibility that they would nominate Chief Justice 
 Chase. At once General Grant replied : 
 
 " I hope they ll nominate Chase. Then we shall 
 feel easy for our country in either event." 
 
 This showed the unselfish and patriotic spirit of 
 General Grant. His chief thought was of the 
 country he loved and served. It was not an op 
 posing candidate who could easily be beaten that 
 he wanted in the field, but one who would be best 
 for the whole country, if elected. This was the 
 tenor of General Grant s talk at that time, as of his 
 life throughout. From the time of that first per 
 sonal interview of mine with General Grant, he 
 grew in my love and admiration continually. 
 
312 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 On various occasions subsequently I was brought 
 into pleasant relations with him, and I always found 
 him remarkably free as a conversationalist, whether 
 he was relating incidents of his campaigns or speak 
 ing of public affairs. One evening, as two or three 
 of us sat by him in a private car, he related some 
 of his experiences in the Mexican War, while he 
 was still a lieutenant. Our troops, under General 
 Taylor, had gained a position in the city of Mon 
 terey, but the Mexicans were not yet driven out. 
 They were firing from the windows and house 
 tops at our men, who were for the time unable to 
 silence their fire. Moreover, our forces were in 
 need of ammunition, and it was a perilous thing to 
 go for it outside. 
 
 " I volunteered to go for it, and to report our 
 condition," said General Grant. " To do this, I 
 must run the gantlet of this fire, while every at 
 tempt was making to pick me off by the Mexi 
 cans. I had a good horse. I swung myself down 
 alongside of the horse, holding on by one leg in 
 the saddle (you see, I could always ride like a 
 monkey), and then I started my horse on a run. 
 The bullets flew pretty lively, but I got through 
 safely." 
 
 It was interesting to consider, as we heard this 
 recital, what a change there might have been in 
 American history if a Mexican marksman had had 
 a surer aim just then, as he fired at that young 
 lieutenant, who was riding monkey-fashion out of 
 
Glimpses of General Grant 313 
 
 the streets of Monterey in pursuit of more ammu 
 nition. But that head was providentially covered, 
 for a purpose, in the day of battle. Thus it is that 
 God cares for a people, in little things, as in great. 
 
 At another time, as I sat alone with him, Gene 
 ral Grant spoke freely of the circumstances of his 
 finally relieving General Butler from command, and 
 of what preceded it. The details of the affair 
 showed the caution, the discernment, and the pre 
 cision, of General Grant s mind. Being in doubt 
 about certain matters in General Butler s depart 
 ment, and distrusting reports he received as to a 
 firm of wholesale sutlers, and their relations to the 
 enemy, he said : 
 
 " I knew I could depend absolutely on General 
 George Gordon, so I sent him down there to make 
 thorough investigation." 
 
 Telling of the obstacles afterwards encountered 
 by General Gordon in his investigations, and of 
 his own determination to have the matter thor 
 oughly sifted, General Grant said : 
 
 " I concluded it would be best to have General 
 Butler out of the department forthwith, and that 
 was when I issued my order to him to report for 
 orders at once at his home in Lowell." 
 
 Soon after this recital by General Grant, I met 
 General Gordon, and he gave me the same facts 
 from his side of the story. Such incidents illus 
 trate the freeness of General Grant in speaking of 
 important matters, when he was under no restraint 
 
War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 through fear that he should be misreported or in 
 volved in controversy. 
 
 When, on one occasion, I spoke to General 
 Grant of the sense of personal responsibility which 
 he must have felt for the great number of officers 
 and men under his immediate command, in the 
 widely extended field of our national conflict in the 
 last year of our war, I added : 
 
 " I should think that the mere carrying in mind 
 the personality of the officers who were to exe 
 cute your orders in connection with your best laid 
 plans must have taxed any human memory and 
 thought to the utmost. I don t see how it was 
 possible for you to remember all those whom you 
 must have in mind in order to be sure that they 
 could be depended on for the doing of your special 
 work on an occasion ; for everything showed that 
 you had considered them all." 
 
 " As to that matter," he said, " I didn t have to 
 consider personally as many men the last year of 
 the war as the first. When I was colonel of a 
 regiment, I knew every man in the regiment, and I 
 had them all in mind. But, as I rose in command, 
 I made it my business to keep up my knowledge 
 of commanders under me sufficiently to be sure 
 that they could be trusted to attend to those whom 
 they commanded, and not to concern myself about 
 others. When I was at the head of all the armies, 
 I didn t specially burden my mind with any man 
 below the rank of division commander. Being 
 
Glimpses of General Grant 3 1 5 
 
 sure of these, I could trust them to look out for 
 those below them." 
 
 These simple words testified to General Grant s 
 ability to rise to the responsibilities of the highest 
 command without being burdened with the details 
 of a lower position. In this he succeeded, where 
 so many before him had failed. Great administra 
 tive ability always shows itself in the power to shut 
 unnecessary details out of mind. Knowing what 
 not to do, often settles the question of what to do. 
 
 Although General Grant was not in the habit of 
 joking, he had a keen sense of humor, and his wit 
 often showed itself in his laconic phrases. I was 
 with him one evening in Governor Burnside s parlor, 
 when I was one of a delegation who had come from 
 Hartford to invite him to that city. As we were 
 talking with him familiarly, Mayor Doyle of Provi 
 dence came in to say that a large delegation of 
 citizens was outside, having come to serenade the 
 President. Governor Burnside at once stepped to 
 the front window, which opened from the floor, and, 
 throwing it up, stood there with the President while 
 the band serenaded. Mayor Doyle presented the 
 greetings of the assembled citizens to the President, 
 who bowed his acknowledgments. The crowd then 
 clamored for a speech. Governor Burnside said, 
 in response, as the President stood silent by his 
 side: 
 
 " You know, fellow-citizens, that the President 
 doesn t make speeches." 
 
316 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 " O General Grant, do just say two words to 
 us!" cried an enthusiastic voice. 
 
 "I won t" responded General Grant, in a quiet, 
 firm tone, without moving a muscle of his face. 
 The man s request for "just two words" was 
 granted, and the President had not made a speech. 
 
 The Hon. E. A. Rollins, who was Commissioner 
 of Internal Revenue at Washington while General 
 Grant was Acting Secretary of War, gave me an 
 other illustration of this power of General Grant. 
 A man in New York had been urged on Mr. 
 Rollins, by a distinguished statesman of the day, 
 for an important position in his department. Want 
 ing to know about the man, he went to General 
 Grant and asked him if he knew him. The General 
 said he did. 
 
 " I m urged to appoint him to a responsible 
 position in the revenue department, General. What 
 do you think of his fitness for such a place ? " asked 
 Mr. Rollins. 
 
 " Well," said General Grant, " if I had to choose 
 between taking him or making a scoop at a ven 
 ture into Sing Sing I d try the scoop." 
 
 Although he was not accustomed to show emo 
 tion, and was supposed by many to be regardless 
 of adverse criticism, General Grant was sensitive to 
 the opinion of others, and felt deeply the misjudg- 
 ment of his spirit and motives by those who ought 
 to have understood him better. Being with him in 
 a private car, on one occasion, during the second 
 
Glimpses of General Grant 3 1 7 
 
 term of his administration, I sat near him while no 
 one else was by, and ventured to speak of the love 
 which I, in common with his old soldiers generally, 
 bore him, in view of what he had been to us and to 
 our country when he was all the world to us all. 
 My words seemed to touch his heart, and to start 
 him on a train of thought about the popular judg 
 ments of his course. As he thanked me for my 
 grateful words, he continued, in a kind of personal 
 soliloquizing : 
 
 " I don t wonder that people differ with me, and 
 that they think I am not doing the best that could 
 be done. I can understand how they may blame 
 me for a lack of knowledge or judgment. But 
 what hurts me is to have them talk as if I didn t 
 love my country, and wasn t doing the best I knew 
 how." 
 
 Then his thoughts seemed to go back to former 
 days, as he continued his soliloquy : 
 
 " It was just that way in war time. I didn t do 
 as well as might have been done. A great many 
 times I didn t do as well as I was trying to do. 
 Often I didn t do as well as I expected to do. But 
 I had my plans, and I was trying to carry them 
 out. They called me Fool, and Butcher ; they 
 said I didn t know anything, and hadn t any plans. 
 But I kept on, and they kept on, and by and by 
 Richmond was taken, and I was at Appomattox 
 Court House, and then they couldn t find words 
 enough to praise me." 
 
318 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 Then he returned to present days, in his quiet 
 soliloquy : 
 
 " I suppose it will be so now. In spite of mis 
 takes and failures, I shall keep at it. By and by 
 we ll have specie payments resumed; reconstruc 
 tion will be complete ; good feeling will be restored 
 between the North and the South ; we shall be at 
 Appomattox again, and then I suppose they ll 
 praise me." 
 
 That soliloquy of General Grant gave me a 
 glimpse into his great heart. I knew better than 
 before how he felt, how he endured, how he 
 trusted, and how he hoped ; and I loved him more 
 than ever. 
 
 In a message to the people of the United States, 
 in the early days of our Centennial year, President 
 Grant invited the churches of all denominations to 
 make some special recognition of the occasion in 
 their public services on the Sunday nearest to July 
 4, 1876, with a view to impressing its lessons on 
 the community. At this I ventured to write to the 
 President, suggesting that the lessons of our Cen 
 tennial year would have practical value, in propor 
 tion as they were impressed on the minds and 
 hearts of the children of the country, who could do 
 most in making them effective in the first third of 
 our second century. In view of this, I asked him 
 if he would not send a message to that effect to the 
 children of our country through the columns of the 
 principal undenominational weekly Sunday-school 
 
Glimpses of General Grant 319 
 
 paper in this country, which I edited. Promptly 
 he acceded to my request, and sent a message as 
 
 follows : 
 
 WASHINGTON, June 6, 1876. 
 
 To the Editor of The Sunday School Times, Philadelphia : 
 
 Your favor of yesterday, asking a message from me to 
 the children and youth of the United States, to accompany 
 your Centennial number, is this moment received. 
 
 My advice to Sunday - schools, no matter what their 
 denomination, is : Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet- 
 anchor of your liberties ; write its precepts in your hearts, 
 and practice them in your lives. 
 
 To the influence of this Book are we indebted for all the 
 progress made in true civilization, and to this we must look 
 as our guide in the future. 
 
 " Righteousness exalteth a nation ; but sin is a reproach 
 
 to any people." 
 
 Yours, respectfully, 
 
 U. S. GRANT. 
 
 The influence of this unique message of a Presi 
 dent of the United States was very great, copied 
 as it was into wellnigh every paper, religious and 
 secular, in the United States. The appropriateness 
 of the Bible text quoted by him at the close of his 
 message was recognized by all. Twenty years 
 later the same text was quoted by General James 
 Longstreet, in a public letter, with reference to a 
 great political issue then before the country. On 
 the reading of that letter, General O. O. Howard, 
 being present, remarked : 
 
 " I know how that text suggested itself to 
 General Longstreet; it is written on the walls of 
 
320 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 our chapel at West Point, over the desk. Every 
 cadet remembers that." 
 
 So it seems that General Grant recalled it out of 
 his early memories when he commended it as a 
 lesson to the young people of the United States. 
 It is a text worthy of remembrance by every lover 
 of his country. It evidently has had its influence on 
 successive generations of young cadets preparing 
 in that chapel for active service as army officers. 
 
 On the closing day of the Centennial Exhibition, 
 November 10, 1876, I was witness of an incident 
 that illustrated the promptness and self-reliance of 
 General Grant in deciding what was to be done in 
 an important matter of public policy, and the ease 
 and simplicity with which he expressed himself as 
 to the principles which guided his action. 
 
 The President and members of his Cabinet were 
 in Philadelphia, attending the closing ceremonies 
 of the Exhibition. By invitation of my friend 
 General Hawley, president of the Exhibition, I was 
 a member of his party. As the President came 
 into General Hawley s office, after formally closing 
 the Exhibition, a telegram was handed to him with 
 reference to the condition of affairs in Louisiana 
 and Florida. There was just then an excited state 
 of feeling throughout the country as to the result 
 of the still undecided presidential contest between 
 General Hayes and Mr. Tilden. It was a critical 
 time. There was danger of violence. Anxiety and 
 unrest prevailed. General Grant read the despatch, 
 
Glimpses of General Grant 321 
 
 and then seated himself at General Hawley s desk, 
 at the invitation of the latter, who handed him tele 
 graph-blanks. 
 
 General Grant had put a cigar in his mouth as 
 he left the hall where the closing ceremonies were 
 held. He said not a word as to the nature of the 
 despatch he had received, but, with a peculiar 
 movement of the cigar in his mouth, he began at 
 once to write. Secretary of State Fish was in the 
 room, but did not take any part in the proceedings. 
 While the President was writing, Secretary of War 
 Cameron came hurriedly into the room, having 
 apparently heard of the reception of the despatch. 
 As he approached the President, the latter, without 
 saying a word, pushed toward him the message he 
 had received, and went on with his writing. In a 
 few minutes he had finished his answer, and, having 
 simply shown it to Secretary Cameron, it was at 
 once, without change or delay, sent on its way. 
 
 That was the message sending directions to 
 General Sherman, which stated the President s 
 view of the course to be pursued in the national 
 crisis, and which did so much to reassure public 
 confidence in the President s purpose to maintain 
 law and order at every cost. 
 
 It read : " Instruct General Augur in Louisiana, 
 and General Ruger in Florida, to be vigilant with 
 the force at their command to preserve peace and 
 good order, and to see that the proper and legal 
 Board of Canvassers are unmolested in the per- 
 
322 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 formance of their duties. Should there be any 
 grounds of suspicion of fraudulent count on either 
 side, it should be reported and denounced at once. 
 No man worthy of the office of President should be 
 willing to hold it if counted in or placed there by 
 fraud. Either party can afford to be disappointed 
 in the result, but the country cannot afford to have 
 the result tainted by the suspicion of illegal or false 
 returns." 
 
 As I was within a few feet of General Grant 
 from the time he received the despatch until he 
 had sent off the reply, I can testify with positive- 
 ness as to his immediate and unaided preparation 
 of that explicit and comprehensive order. And 
 when afterward I read in prominent newspapers the 
 suggestion that, in the phrasing of that order, the 
 experienced hand of Secretary Fish was to be seen, 
 or that it bore traces of the adroit shrewdness of 
 Secretary Cameron, I realized that the independent 
 judgment and the wisdom and decision of General 
 Grant, in any crisis, were not yet fully compre 
 hended by the public. 
 
 It were easy to find evidence of the power of 
 General Grant s personality in whatever sphere he 
 was placed. Taken prisoner on the field of Mor 
 ris Island, before Charleston, in July, 1863, I met 
 there Captain Thomas Y. Simons, in command of a 
 light battery from Charleston. He was of the class 
 of 1849 m Yale. As I knew several of his class 
 mates, we had a pleasant conversation together. 
 
Glimpses of General Grant 323 
 
 He said that he had longed for this conflict for 
 years. He was a secessionist before secession was 
 accomplished. He was a member of the state con 
 vention that declared South Carolina out of the 
 Union, and voted for that action. And now that 
 the war was in progress, he was sure that it could 
 never end except in the independence of the South. 
 
 "You can never subjugate us," he said. "We 
 would fight, if need be, till our last man was in the 
 field." 
 
 Later he called on me in Columbia Jail. He 
 spoke again in the same confident strain. The 
 following year he sent a kindly greeting to me 
 across the lines in Virginia, when he found that he 
 was once more over against my regiment. 
 
 After the war, I learned that he was editor of the 
 Charleston Courier. Being in that city, I called on 
 him. Welcoming me cordially, he said frankly : 
 
 " Well, Chaplain, when I saw you last I didn t 
 think the war would end as it did." 
 
 Then he continued : 
 
 " But, oh dear ! I was ready for the end long be 
 fore it came. We couldn t stand that Grant of 
 yours. It was his eternal pound, pound, pound, 
 that did the business. We would have been glad 
 to go into one great battle and fight it out to the 
 finish. But he kept at it all the time. Whether 
 we whipped him or not one day, we had to go at it 
 the next day, and try it over again. He wouldn t 
 give us any rest. Finally we found it was just die 
 
324 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 to-day, or to-morrow, or the next day, or next 
 week, and gain nothing by it. There was no other 
 alternative, and we longed for the end to come." 
 
 General Grant had said, in his final report of his 
 military operations, in command of the army, as to 
 his policy from the beginning, in dealing with the 
 enemies of his government : " I therefore deter 
 mined, first, to use the greatest number of troops 
 practicable against the enemy, preventing him from 
 using the same force at different seasons against 
 first one and then another of our armies, and the 
 possibility of repose for refitting and producing 
 necessary supplies for carrying on resistance. Sec 
 ond, to hammer continuously against the armed 
 force of the enemy and his resources, until by mere 
 attrition, if in no other way, there should be nothing 
 left to him but an equal submission with the loyal 
 section of our common country to the constitution 
 and laws of our land." 
 
 It was evident that my Charleston friend was at 
 last convinced that General Grant had carried out 
 his determination. That was a peculiarity of Gene 
 ral Grant s. 
 
 On two memorable occasions, after this, I was 
 brought into peculiar relations with General Grant 
 and his place in history, once when he was wel 
 comed home after his triumphant circuit of the 
 globe; again when he had finished his earthly 
 course, and was laid at rest at Riverside Park. In 
 neither case was it what he said or did, but in both 
 
Glimpses of General Grant 325 
 
 instances it was what others felt and thought about 
 him, that stood out pre-eminently, and that gives 
 interest to the recollections of an observer. 
 
 In May, 1877, General Grant sailed from Phila 
 delphia, on his journey round the world. In 
 December, 1879, he reached Philadelphia again, by 
 way of the Pacific coast, at the close of that re 
 markable journey. At this latter time a grand 
 public demonstration by the citizens of Philadel 
 phia was accorded him, which concluded with a 
 formal reception in the Academy of Music. Vete 
 rans of the war, with their friends, packed the vast 
 building to its utmost capacity. Their old colors 
 and battle-flags were displayed on the platform. 
 Governor Henry M. Hoyt, in the name of the citi 
 zens of Pennsylvania, gave General Grant welcome 
 again to the birthplace of that American indepen 
 dence which he had re-secured to the nation ; and, 
 deputed by George G. Meade Post I, of the Grand 
 Army of the Republic, of which post General 
 Grant was a member, I gave him welcome from 
 his old comrades. 
 
 Extending this greeting in their name, I natu 
 rally suggested : 
 
 " It might seem that one who has received the 
 glad greetings of all the sovereigns of earth, and 
 who has fairly encircled the globe with the echo of 
 his praises, would tire of even the heartiest expres 
 sions of honor or esteem that could come to him 
 from any source or by any person whatsoever. 
 
326 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 But no true man ever tires of words of love and 
 confidence from those who are dear to him. And 
 as you, sir, have already been reminded, and as a 
 single glance about you would have assured you, 
 this vast assemblage is made up of those who are 
 no strangers to you. They are your old soldiers, 
 your former companions in arms * blood relatives 
 all ; and it is not too much to say that they are 
 very dear to you. You depended on them, and 
 they proved true to you, in the hour of need to you 
 and to them an hour of need to our nation and to 
 humanity. Because, then, you were capable, and 
 they were trustworthy, you had success, and they 
 had victory and its rejoicings. 
 
 " Here are men from wellnigh every field where 
 you did service and won honor, from your Bunker 
 Hill at Belmont to your Yorktown at Appomattox 
 Court House. . . . Meeting you again face to face, 
 they cannot but recall those days when you were 
 all the world to them ; when you held their lives 
 and honor in your keeping ; when on your sagacity, 
 your courage, and your fidelity, depended all that 
 they loved or lived for and for which they were 
 ready to die. 
 
 " As once more they look on you, and on those 
 dear old flags beside you, they remember how, at 
 your order and under your lead, they followed 
 those flags in the storm of battle, or stood by them 
 in the dreary siege, upholding and defending them 
 amid the shower of bullets or under the crash of 
 
Glimpses of General Grant 327 
 
 bursting shell ; on the death-crowned parapet, or in 
 the open field, with ringing charge and counter 
 charge ; or on the weary march, by night and by 
 day, in summer s heat and in winter s cold, until 
 the weather-beaten, tattered, and bullet-pierced 
 remnants of those flags bear mute but eloquent 
 witness to the true-hearted devotion of those sol 
 diers and their great commander to the interests of 
 that country which under God he saved, which he 
 has governed so wisely and represented everywhere 
 so grandly, and of which he stands to-day con 
 fessedly the foremost, best-loved citizen." 
 
 When, in the name of his own Post of the Grand 
 Army of the Republic and of every lover of the 
 grand republic itself, I extended to General Grant 
 the hand of heartfelt welcome, and he rose, and 
 with evident emotion returned the hand-clasp, while 
 every person in the vast assembly sprang to his feet 
 and joined in the cheers that rang through the 
 building, I knew that he was having a foregleam 
 of the place he was to hold for all time as the pre 
 eminent preserver and lover of his country, while 
 his old soldiers, who were present, as representa 
 tive of all the surviving veterans of the war, felt 
 that the trials and sufferings of that prolonged con 
 flict were not worthy to be compared with the 
 glory and honor given by the whole world to this 
 great nation and this great commander in the 
 attained triumph, in which they had borne so im 
 portant a part, 
 
328 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 At last there came the end of that life of heroism 
 and sacrifice, the end of the long days and nights 
 of suffering, while the great soldier battled so 
 bravely with the last enemy he must encounter, 
 the only enemy who ever could bring him even for 
 a time into subjection. Struggling successfully 
 hour by hour with wasting strength to secure com 
 petent provision for his own dear ones, and to pre 
 pare a new legacy for his countrymen, in the full 
 story of his great campaigns in their behalf, until 
 all was accomplished, 
 
 "He was ready not to do 
 At last, at last." 
 
 Peace had come to him, and he was at rest. 
 
 When his last heart-throb was announced, it 
 seemed as if for the moment the heart of the world 
 stood still. Waiting was followed by weeping. 
 As the sad news was flashed from shore to shore 
 and under the sea and around the world, ruler and 
 ruled in every land felt that earth was the poorer 
 for his death, as it had been the richer for his life. 
 The nation which he had saved and ruled, and 
 which he had represented and honored, claimed 
 the privilege of guarding his worn body until it 
 could reverently and with tenderness lay it in its final 
 resting-place. In distant lands men met in mourn 
 ing assemblages to share each other s sorrow, and 
 to honor themselves in giving honor to his memory. 
 At a special memorial service in Westminster Ab- 
 
Glimpses of General Grant 329 
 
 bey, the great of Great Britain thronged that Pan 
 theon of our race to show to each other and to the 
 world how highly he was esteemed, and how greatly 
 he was loved. 
 
 General Grant died at Mount McGregor, New 
 York, July 23, 1885. United States soldiers and 
 veterans of his old command guarded his body 
 there, and on August 6 escorted it on its way 
 through watching thousands at every stage of its 
 progress to New York, where it lay in state in the 
 city s care, while a quarter of a million of mourning 
 citizens passed in line to gaze reverently on that 
 loved face, more impassible now than ever, until, 
 two days later, it was borne to its tomb with such a 
 pageant as never before honored an American citi 
 zen, while a million people, as representative of 
 sixty millions, walked or watched in loving sorrow. 
 
 At least a half-million people were added on that 
 memorable day to the million and more already in 
 New York City. All business was suspended. 
 Traffic and travel were intermitted. Along the 
 route from the City Hall to Riverside Park, fully 
 seven miles, the way was lined with sympathetic 
 mourners. On the sidewalks, at windows and 
 doors, on the roofs, and on ascending platforms at 
 every opening and square, large or small, the 
 people gazed reverently as the great procession 
 slowly moved on. There was no excitement, no 
 show of disturbance, not even any loud talking. A 
 quiet and solemn hush prevailed. Faces were sad, 
 
330 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 and many eyes were moist. Consciousness of a 
 great loss pervaded the vast assemblage, and all 
 felt that it was good to have lived under the imme 
 diate influence of such a life, as he whom all 
 mourned had lived for them all. 
 
 On an imposing catafalque, drawn by twenty- 
 four black horses, rested the coffin, covered by a 
 purple velvet pall. The greatest and the best in 
 our land followed that body to the tomb, accom 
 panied by a military and a civic procession of at 
 least three miles in length. President and ex- 
 Presidents; justices of our Supreme Court; sena 
 tors and members of Congress ; ambassadors 
 from foreign courts ; governors of states ; army 
 and navy officers of the highest grade; repre 
 sentative clergymen of every denomination, Chris 
 tian and Jewish ; veterans of the Civil War and 
 of the Mexican War; officers and men who had 
 fought against General Grant, as well as those who 
 had fought with him and under him ; citizens of 
 every class or grade, from those of wealth and emi 
 nence to the humblest in our land, all were there, 
 and all were mourners. 
 
 Marching all the distance as a chaplain of the 
 occasion, in conjunction with the Department 
 Chaplain of the Grand Army of the Republic of 
 Pennsylvania, just before the catafalque, I had 
 occasion to note the deep solemnity and evident 
 sympathy pervading that mighty concourse of 
 mourners as they fixed their eyes on the honored 
 
Glimpses of General Grant 331 
 
 casket which bore the body of him who had cen 
 tered the eyes of the world while he lived, and who 
 was now the center of the world s loving thoughts. 
 General Grant s evident greatness never seemed 
 greater. 
 
 A salute- of guns from the naval vessels in the 
 harbor marked the starting of the great procession. 
 As it moved along its course, military bands, one 
 after another, played a funeral dirge, the subdued 
 notes of which fell gently on the ears of all. 
 When, after seven hours of marching, the proces 
 sion entered Riverside Park, another salute from 
 the navy noted the approach of the closing scene. 
 Tens of thousands of mourning observers covered 
 the adjacent hillsides. The afternoon sun shone 
 softly across the waters of the Hudson, while 
 minute guns were fired from the naval vessels on 
 the river below the tomb, as the coffin was lifted 
 reverently from its place on the catafalque and was 
 rested near the tomb. 
 
 As the designated bearers came from their car 
 riages to perform their last sad ministry, it was 
 seen that General William T. Sherman walked arm 
 in arm with his friend and old antagonist, General 
 Joseph E. Johnston, and that General Philip H. 
 Sheridan was arm in arm with General Simon B. 
 Buckner, whose " unconditional surrender " to 
 General Grant first evidenced General Grant s 
 power to the country ; General John B. Gordon, 
 chief lieutenant of General Lee, was serving for the 
 
332 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 day on the staff of General Winfield S. Hancock, 
 who was in command of the funeral ceremonies. 
 All felt then that at last dear General Grant s 
 heartfelt prayer was answered, " Let us have 
 peace ! " 
 
 Within the wonderful inner group gathered at 
 that tomb, while the closing offices of reverent 
 affection were being performed, the scene was im 
 pressive and oppressive to the last degree. Chil 
 dren and grandchildren of the dead hero were 
 nearest. President Cleveland was there, ex-Presi 
 dents Hayes and Arthur, foreign diplomats, chief 
 officers of our army and our navy, government offi 
 cials, and eminent citizens in every walk of life ; 
 such an assemblage of the great and the good as 
 never before was gathered at a grave on this conti 
 nent. As the last words of prayer were spoken, 
 and as a volley of musketry, and guns from the 
 navy, marked " the last of earth," while all stood 
 with bowed heads and throbbing hearts, an army 
 bugler sounded the familiar call " Taps," closing 
 with " Lights out." As the penetrating notes of 
 that solemn bugle call died away, the pall of silence 
 was on all. None seemed able to break it, or to 
 move. The pause seemed an age. General Sher 
 man, grim old hero as he was, realized the crisis. 
 He broke the silence and the spell. With a quick 
 motion of his extended hands, he said, " Our work 
 is done ! " All were released. 
 
 Twelve years later the American people joined 
 
Glimpses of General Grant 333 
 
 once more in giving honor to the memory of the 
 great commander, as his body was removed from 
 its temporary resting-place to the splendid granite 
 tomb erected near by, through a nation s gratitude, 
 for its permanent earthly rest. On April 27, 1897, 
 the seventy-fifth anniversary of General Grant s 
 birth, half a million of citizens from outside of New 
 York, together with the nearly two millions of its 
 own population, were united as in a common love 
 and a common sorrow to pay another tribute of 
 respect to his honored memory. 
 
 The President of the United States was there, to 
 make by his presence and words the occasion one 
 of national import ; governors of states, North and 
 South, East and West; officials and dignitaries, 
 with representatives of foreign governments ; more 
 than fifty thousand soldiers, including regular 
 troops and citizen soldiery; veterans of the Civil 
 War from both the Union and Confederate armies ; 
 while on the Hudson River, in sight from the 
 tomb, were war vessels of our American navy, and 
 others of England, France, Spain, and Italy. 
 
 It was like the funeral ceremony repeated, with 
 the added impressiveness of the universal convic 
 tion that the passage of years only brought out 
 more and more distinctly the greatness of General 
 Grant as a soldier and a man, and the depth 
 and permanency of the nation s gratitude to him. 
 Again it was my privilege to bear a part in the 
 closing tribute of the day s ceremonies, by being 
 
334 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 one of a detail of the Grand Army Post of which 
 General Grant was a member, to lay a wreath with 
 these loving words at the door of his tomb, and to 
 utter words of prayer for God s blessing on the 
 lessons of his life to those who have survived him. 
 
 " With the placing of this memorial tribute, 
 comrades, our service for General Grant is at an 
 end; but his service for us and for our country still 
 goes on. While this granite structure stands, and 
 so long as our country endures, his life story will 
 be a lesson and an inspiration to the citizens of the 
 great republic which he saved and served. It is 
 enough for us that we were of the mighty host by 
 which he was enabled to do his work, and that we 
 may strive and hope to be of that multitude which 
 no man can number, who shall gather finally in the 
 presence of the Captain of his Salvation, whom he 
 served and trusted, and whom we may trust and 
 serve forevermore." 
 
 It is a high privilege to have been in touch, in 
 any way, with the personality and career of such 
 a man as General Grant. It ought to prove a high 
 inspiration. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 LINKINGS WITH THE NAVY 
 
 During our Civil War, army and navy were as 
 one force in restoring the supremacy of the Federal 
 authority. The two arms of service co-worked 
 harmoniously and with efficiency toward the one 
 end. While the power of the navy was felt for 
 good by all who were in the Union army anywhere, 
 those soldiers whose field of service was along our 
 Atlantic or Gulf coast, or in the vicinity of our 
 great rivers, had occasion to rely on the navy more 
 consciously than those who served only at a dis 
 tance from navigable waters. 
 
 General Grant relied on Admirals Foote and Far- 
 ragut and Porter for the carrying out of his best- 
 laid plans of army occupation at important points, 
 from his early operations against forts Henry and 
 Donelson, and against Vicksburg, in the south 
 west, to his final capture of Fort Fisher on the 
 Atlantic coast. New Orleans, and Mobile Bay, and 
 Port Royal, and Fort Pulaski, were captured, and 
 made available as bases of military operations, 
 through the brilliant strategy and the splendid 
 daring of Admirals Farragut and Dupont in co- 
 
 335 
 
336 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 operation with Generals Butler and Mitchell and 
 Benham and Seymour and Gillmore and Terry, 
 and other army commanders. Neither army nor 
 navy could say to the other, at any period in our 
 Civil War, " I have no need of thee." 
 
 My regiment went out originally in General 
 Burnside s Coast Division, which was to co-operate 
 with Commodore Goldsborough s command for 
 the capture of Roanoke Island and New Berne; 
 and army and navy were as one force in all the 
 movements in North Carolina. Later the regiment 
 was on the sea islands of the South Carolina coast, 
 under Generals Hunter, Gillmore, and Terry, in 
 operations against Charleston. There, we of the 
 army came to rely more and more on the navy for 
 opening the way for our landing, for protecting our 
 flanks when we moved forward, and for adding 
 force to every movement in attack or defense. 
 
 Memories of particular war experiences in which 
 the navy bore an important part are vivid in our 
 soldier minds to-day. For instance, our brigade 
 was ordered to take possession of Seabrook Island, 
 in the waters of South Carolina, in the early spring 
 of 1863. Moving along the coast in a steamer 
 transport, by night, from Port Royal Harbor, we 
 found ourselves in the early morning in North 
 Edisto Inlet, just off the shores of Seabrook Island. 
 The island was covered by a dense Southern forest 
 of typical luxuriance. It was still occupied by the 
 enemy, prepared to oppose its occupancy by our 
 
Linking s with the Navy 337 
 
 soldiers. We were ordered to land a small force 
 on the sandy beach at the lower end, and move up 
 the island through the forest to a suitable position 
 for an entrenched line. Five launches containing 
 a hundred men each comprised our landing force. 
 
 Knowing that the enemy under cover would 
 naturally attack us while we were landing, before 
 we were in line to defend ourselves, we realized 
 that the movement was one of no small peril. 
 Then it was that our main hope of protection was 
 in the two monitors and a gunboat covering our 
 advance and protecting our flanks with the explo 
 sions of their mammoth shells. As they opened 
 fire on the woods near the beach, we felt that a 
 feasible way was opened for our landing. Under 
 cover of their thunderous artillery our launches 
 pulled toward the beach. That naval cannonade 
 was inspiring music to us, and a leader in our fore 
 most boat struck up the " John Brown " chorus, 
 which five hundred soldier voices joined in with a 
 will. The landing was effected safely, and the 
 march to the upper end of the island was made 
 with slight opposition. 
 
 For months after that we occupied that island 
 with a feeling of security, in spite of every effort to 
 dislodge us. We had confidence because of the 
 fleet of iron-clads in the inlet, under the immediate 
 direction of Commander George W. Rodgers, of the 
 monitor Catskill. On more than one occasion when 
 the enemy came down, we were enabled to main- 
 
33 8 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 tain our position on the island with the help of the 
 co-operating navy. 
 
 Again, in July, 1863, we were ordered to James 
 Island under General Terry, to make an offensive 
 demonstration in co-operation with General Gill- 
 more s advance against Charleston by way of Folly 
 Island and Morris Island. On the night of July 15, 
 we were on picket at the upper end of the island. 
 The left of the line, held by our regiment, rested 
 on the shore, its flank being protected by the 
 Pawnee and a small gunboat. The right of our 
 picket line, which was refused considerably in the 
 alinement, was held by Colonel Robert G. Shaw s 
 Fifty-fourth Massachusetts regiment of colored 
 soldiers, now for the first time at the extreme front, 
 and as yet untested in battle. A reconnoissance 
 had been made along our line by a small force of 
 the enemy s cavalry the preceding afternoon. 
 
 During the night there was a heavy rain, and 
 there was an opportunity, under cover of the storm 
 and darkness, for offensive preparation by the 
 enemy. About dawn of July 16 the storm cleared 
 off, and a sharp attack was made on the right of our 
 line by the enemy in force. The purpose was evi 
 dent, to break through the line of colored pickets 
 and thus flank and overpower our regiment at the 
 left. But the colored soldiers stood their ground 
 bravely, and only fell back slowly, skirmishing as 
 they yielded their ground foot by foot under the 
 pressure of a greatly superior force, thus enabling 
 
Linking s with the Navy 339 
 
 the left of the line to fall back to a position for a 
 permanent stand. 
 
 It was a thrilling sight that morning. Cavalry, 
 infantry, artillery, and a naval force, all engaged at 
 the same time, within the sweep of a watcher s eye, 
 in the reddening dawn of the eastern sky above 
 that field. The attack by the enemy was simulta 
 neous all along our lines. In front of our left, the 
 enemy had brought down and masked a battery 
 during the night, to engage the United States 
 steamer Pawnee and the gunboat Marblehead, lying 
 near the shore for our protection ; and the first 
 notice of this the Pawnee received was its rapid 
 shots crashing into her wooden sides before she 
 could be swung around and dropped down stream 
 to a position where she could bring her heavy guns 
 to bear on the attacking battery. When these 
 guns opened fire they soon silenced those of their 
 opponent, but not until the Pawnee had been struck 
 forty-two times. 
 
 A government steamer in the river at our right 
 did good service with her guns against the enemy s 
 lines in that direction, and one of our gunboats 
 beyond Secessionville opened a vigorous fire on the 
 enemy s rear. We realized that morning, as at 
 many another time, how important was the co 
 operation of the navy with the army, as enabling 
 our bravest soldiers to do their best work in an 
 emergency, and to have success at a critical time. 
 
 It was much the same while we were in Virginia, 
 
340 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 at Gloucester Point, and on the banks of the Appo- 
 mattox or of the James, at Bermuda Hundreds, or 
 before Petersburg or Richmond. We were never 
 at a distance from the navy, from the opening to 
 the close of our term of service. 
 
 Yet while we were thus linked with the navy in 
 all our service in the army, and while we had 
 reason to recognize the exceeding value of this co 
 operation of the two branches of service in their 
 work to a common end, it cannot be truly said that 
 at that time we rightly estimated the importance 
 and power of the navy in serving and saving our 
 country in its supreme crisis. It is unquestionably 
 true that the magnitude of our armies and the 
 sanguinary nature of land engagements in our Civil 
 War gave for the time a disproportionate promi 
 nence to the military arm of service, in contrast 
 with the naval, in the work of re-establishing our 
 national authority. Gradually, however, it has 
 come to be recognized that the world learned 
 more from our naval achievements on river and 
 coast and on the high seas, in that war, than from 
 all that was done by our land forces. Our military 
 successes were not unparalleled, our naval suc 
 cesses were. 
 
 So impartial an observer as the Edinburgh Re 
 view said on this point, soon after our war closed : 
 " The important part borne by the American navy 
 in the contest ; . . . the powerful share taken by it 
 in the river campaigns which cut the seceded states 
 
Linking s with the Navy 341 
 
 in twain ; the vast weight due to its exertions in 
 the final successes of the Federal generals, have 
 been but little noticed as compared to the din and 
 shock of the great battles with which the New 
 World rang. Yet nothing is more surprising in 
 this great contest no military, political, or financial 
 success has more completely defied expectation, 
 prophecy, and precedent than the work wrought 
 by this arm of the Union forces, and wrought by 
 it in the very process of creation out of actual 
 nonentity." 
 
 Dupont, whirling his vessels around the battle- 
 ellipse at Port Royal, and battering into submissive 
 ruins in four hours such earthworks as stood a 
 siege of months from the foremost engineers of the 
 Old World at Sevastopol ; Foote, resistlessly sweep 
 ing up and down the Mississippi and its tributaries 
 with his motley fleet of unique craft, making havoc 
 with his foes on shore and stream six days in the 
 week, and on the seventh standing in some river 
 side church, or on his quarter-deck, the earnest 
 and eloquent preacher of the gospel of Christ; 
 Farragut, even by British critics " confessed the 
 first seaman of the age," moving his mighty fleet 
 at New Orleans through the grim gantlet of com 
 manding forts at dead of night by the light of 
 flashing guns and blazing rafts, bursting through 
 river -booms, scattering hostile gunboats, sinking 
 armored rams, eluding burning barges, and si 
 lencing shore batteries, to bring the Crescent City 
 
342 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 in surrender at his lieutenant s feet; or again, as 
 he stood in the Hartford s rigging at Mobile Bay, 
 handling his squadron of monitors in cavalry tac 
 tics against the leviathan Tennessee and its atten 
 dant minor sea-monsters ; David D. Porter, in all 
 his brilliant service from the relief of beleaguered 
 Fort Pickens in the very opening scenes of the war 
 down to his magnificent fight at Fort Fisher as a 
 closing act of the bloody drama ; " Jack " Rodgers, 
 in his lightning-like destruction of the supposed 
 invincible Atlanta, in presence of the gaily be 
 decked fleet of merry-making civilians from Savan 
 nah, with his subsequent hearty offer to his 
 complaining prisoner to take back his huge iron 
 clad and try the fight over again if one thrashing 
 were not enough for him; young Gushing, Phil 
 Sheridan of the seas, raiding audaciously through 
 the enemy s lines to destroy single-handed the 
 dreaded ram Albemarle under the guns and watch 
 of a vigilant and strong-armed foe, and performing 
 a half-score of similar feats of daring, either of 
 which might have made a world-wide hero of that 
 beardless boy ; Morris, going down with the grand 
 old Cumberland, sinking but not surrendering, fir 
 ing his farewell broadside of defiance as his vessel 
 settled calmly into her grave of glory, with the 
 dear old flag still flying at her peak ; Worden, 
 coming up in the puny " cheese-box " Monitor, 
 like the stripling David to beard and vanquish the 
 defiant Goliath of the deep; Boggs, selling so 
 
Linking s with the Navy 343 
 
 dearly the life of " the vessel Varuna " at the Mis 
 sissippi s mouth, Samson-like carrying with him 
 to destruction the Philistine host of gunboats ; 
 Winslow, fighting the decisive nautical duel with 
 the representative freebooter of the seas, in the 
 presence of its scowling seconds, the liberty-hating 
 aristocracies of England and France ; ay, and plain 
 John Davis, the Valley City gunner, throwing his 
 body across the open barrel of powder to protect 
 the magazine from fire in the waters of North 
 Carolina ; and Frisbie, gunner s mate on the Pi- 
 nola, when the berth-deck was on fire, closing the 
 magazine against the flames, himself remaining 
 inside; these starred names, with the countless 
 host of their gallant fellows, famous or unknown, 
 who dared and endured and suffered in the long 
 months of dreary watching along three thousand 
 miles of embargoed coast ; in the perilous scouts 
 of huge launches, or of swift-flying gigs within the 
 enemy s closest harbor defenses ; and in the ever- 
 present danger from submerged torpedoes, or sud 
 denly descending rams, or coast and ocean storms ; 
 or who went down in a moment to a sailor s living 
 grave, as in the original Monitor, the Housatonic, 
 the Weehawken, and the Tecumseh, are not 
 they worthy of ever -fresh remembrance among 
 the noblest and bravest defenders of our republic ? 
 Shall they not be borne always gratefully in mind, 
 for what they did and for what they were, while 
 heroism and unselfish devotion to country are held 
 
344 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 in honor by those who reap the fruits of their 
 patriotic daring ? 
 
 As a hearty tribute of respect for the ability and 
 worth of the many officers of our navy whom I 
 have known personally, I wish to tell of four of 
 these of widely different characteristics, yet each 
 one the representative of a class with whom I 
 was brought into somewhat intimate relations in a 
 Southern prison, or in active service on the South 
 ern coast. 
 
 First there was Lieutenant Benjamin H. Porter, 
 " Ben Porter " as he was commonly called, an 
 admirable specimen of the wide-awake, enthusiastic 
 American sailor-boy ; for boy he was to the last, 
 being barely twenty years old when he yielded his 
 noble young life in the assaulting column at Fort 
 Fisher, after four years of active naval service. 
 When about fifteen, young Porter was appointed to 
 the Naval Academy at Annapolis, from Lockport, 
 New York. This was in 1859, before the first 
 mutterings were heard of the coming storm of civil 
 war. Little thought had he of what was really 
 before him. "Just think of my being here," he 
 wrote, " going to school, and the government pay 
 ing me thirty dollars a month for my company ! 
 Ain t it bunkum?" The government had the 
 worth of its money from that school-boy before it 
 was through with him. 
 
 At the opening of the year 1861, Porter was joy 
 ous in the thought of his first vacation. His new 
 
Linking s with the Navy 345 
 
 uniform was a delight to him, and he had a boyish 
 pride in the thought of showing it off before his 
 home neighbors. His letters of that period showed 
 him utterly free from any forebodings of national 
 peril, or any anticipations of the weighty responsi 
 bilities so soon to rest on him. " Last Saturday," 
 he wrote about this time, " I sent one of the ser 
 vants out into town to get some oysters. After 
 taps, at night, we got out our chafing-dish, 
 crackers, butter, pepper, and salt. I got down 
 under my bed, and took the chafing-dish with me. 
 
 After all was ready, P and H hauled 
 
 down the bedclothes over the front part of the bed, 
 so the light could not reflect from the opposite 
 wall out of the window. Everything being ready, 
 I struck the light and lay down on the floor to 
 wait for the oysters to cook. After they were 
 cooked, we drew the table up to the window, and 
 then commenced the fun ! We ate a quart this 
 time, and, as soon as we had finished, we cooked 
 another quart and ate them." 
 
 It was while young Porter was thus fun-loving 
 and careless, at Annapolis, that the storm-cloud 
 of civil war burst suddenly upon our country. 
 Beautifully then did he illustrate the change 
 which seemed to transform the people of the loyal 
 North. As by a single bound he sprang from 
 light-hearted boyishness to a mature young man 
 hood, ready for the severest patriot service. No 
 more talk of home leave and gold lace. No more 
 
346 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 time wasted in student frolics. " I suppose you 
 have heard before this that civil war has com 
 menced," he wrote home on the dark I4th of April. 
 " Fort Sumter has been taken. ... I think that the 
 Secretary [of the Navy] will graduate the first class 
 immediately, and that the third and fourth classes 
 will go on leave. I think I shall apply to be sent 
 down to the Gulf if my class goes on leave. ... I 
 have sworn to stand by the glorious Stars and 
 Stripes, and just as long as there is a star left I will 
 fight for it." Nobly did the young hero fulfil the 
 spirit of that pledge ! 
 
 Porter s first service was as midshipman on the 
 Roanoke, on blockade duty off the Atlantic coast. 
 That was dull work for him ; and he was glad 
 enough when his petition for a share in the then 
 fitting Burnside expedition was favorably received, 
 and he was put in command of six launches, with a 
 battery of Dahlgren howitzers and one hundred 
 and fifty men. At the battle of Roanoke Island, 
 Midshipman Porter s battery was in position on 
 land, with the army s extreme advance. In that 
 fight one of the sharpest of the war for the num 
 bers engaged that boy of seventeen stood at his 
 guns, under a destructive fire, inspiring his men by 
 his magnetic presence and irrepressible enthusiasm, 
 and doing eminent execution by the fire he directed. 
 Admiral Goldsborough, Commodore Marston, and 
 Generals Burnside and Foster, commended his 
 " admirable conduct " as " deserving of the highest 
 
Linkings with the Navy 347 
 
 praise," and as having " not only contributed 
 largely to the success of the day, but won the 
 admiration of all who witnessed the display." 
 
 After this battle young Porter was assigned, as 
 an acting master, to the command of the gunboat 
 Ellis, on duty in the North Carolina waters. Not 
 yet eighteen, with such a responsible command ! 
 He had an active part in the reduction of Fort 
 Macon. In the fall of 1862, on his promotion as 
 ensign, he was ordered to report to Admiral 
 Dupont, at Port Royal. After several months of 
 blockading service he was, in the summer of 1863, 
 selected by Admiral Dahlgren to explore Charles 
 ton Harbor, and learn its obstructions and chan 
 nel ways. This was a difficult and delicate task, 
 requiring judgment and caution, as well as energy 
 and daring. The work must be done by night, in 
 the face of dangers from sunken torpedoes and 
 from an ever-watchful enemy. For twenty-four 
 consecutive nights that eighteen-year-old boy was 
 on this service, while during sixteen of the inter 
 vening days his vessel was in action and he on 
 duty there. Night after night he groped his way 
 in the darkness among the harbor obstructions, 
 and day after day he was active on his ship s gun- 
 deck. He found the passage-way of the blockade- 
 runners, passed the enemy s forts again and again, 
 and actually skirted the wharves of the city of 
 Charleston. On one occasion, when a boat from 
 the fleet was run down by the Confederate steamer 
 
348 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 Alice, that daring and chivalrous boy flashed his 
 lights and rescued eight of the drowning men, 
 although thereby making himself the target of 
 guns from land and sea. It is not to be wondered 
 at that, such was the strain of this service on his 
 nervous system, the brave young ensign would 
 at times be so exhausted on his return to his ship 
 that his men must lift him from the boat, and his 
 loss of flesh was a pound a day during the more 
 than three weeks of this venturesome scouting. 
 
 For a night attack on Fort Sumter, in Septem 
 ber, 1863, Ensign Porter volunteered to join a 
 scaling-party, and was taken prisoner with the few 
 other officers who were brave enough to persevere 
 in the assault after most of the boats had been 
 driven from the scene. Carried first to Charleston, 
 he was soon sent up to Columbia, and it was there 
 that I was his fellow-prisoner for several months. 
 Prison-life was more trying to young Porter than 
 scouting in Charleston Harbor had been, but he 
 submitted to it as cheerfully as he did to every 
 other privation or trial in the line of duty. He 
 had fourteen months in prison. A part of the time 
 he was in irons as one of the hostages for two Con 
 federate privateersmen, who were held by our gov 
 ernment as pirates. Once he aided in digging a 
 tunnel under the jail building in the hope of 
 escape ; but the plan was frustrated, through 
 treachery, just on the eve of its realization. 
 
 The boy side of Porter s nature showed itself in 
 
Linkings with the Navy 349 
 
 prison as elsewhere. He was the life of the party. 
 He was always taking a cheery view of the situa 
 tion. If at times he would seem to give way under 
 the heavy pressure, and would stand in the jail 
 window with his fair young face pressed against 
 the bars, evidently longing for liberty, the first call 
 of a comrade would bring him back to his wonted 
 joyousness, and he would spring to the floor with 
 a hopeful word, and perhaps follow a joking sen 
 tence with his contagious laugh. In a room of 
 the jail adjoining that of the naval officers there 
 was confined in irons a Captain Harris, of Ten 
 nessee, held as a hostage for some Confederate 
 prisoner under special charges. It was a delight 
 of Ben Porter to put his mouth to the key-hole 
 of the door and whistle a lively tune, while the 
 Captain danced to it with the accompanying clank 
 ing of his chains. After Porter had been himself 
 in irons he taught Captain Harris how to remove 
 and replace his handcuffs and fetters without the 
 knowledge of the prison officials. It was through 
 this instruction that Captain Harris s life was saved 
 when the Columbia jail was burned, early in 1865. 
 At last Porter was out of prison. Passing his 
 examination for promotion before a special board 
 at Washington, he was commissioned as lieutenant, 
 to rank from the month when he was nineteen 
 years old. He was then early in 1865 ordered 
 to report to Admiral Porter at Hampton Roads. 
 By the Admiral he was put in command of the 
 
350 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 Malvern, flagship of the squadron, a high honor 
 for a boy of his years, but an honor well deserved. 
 At the second attack on Fort Fisher, Lieutenant 
 Porter led an assaulting party on the beach against 
 the sea-face of the fort, and fell at the head of his 
 men. He died as he had lived, bravely and unsel 
 fishly doing his duty. He had lived the life of 
 only a boy in years. He had shown the spirit and 
 done the work of the manliest and maturest of 
 men. His life was one of high achievement and 
 of yet higher promise. Ben Porter s character and 
 record are typical of some of the choicest speci 
 mens of American naval officers ; of those who be 
 gan to do great things in boyhood, and continued to 
 do better and greater things throughout their lives; 
 of the Perrys and Rodgerses and McDonoughs 
 and Farraguts and Porters, and others like them. 
 Of this young officer Admiral Porter said he was 
 "the most splendid fellow I ever knew; . . . my 
 beau ideal of an officer." And his classmate, Gush 
 ing, added: " I have never known an officer more 
 truly loved and admired, and justly too ; for the 
 earth contained few like him." Dear Ben Porter ; 
 his memory will never pass from the minds of 
 those who knew his attractiveness and worth. 
 
 The second naval officer to whose characteristics 
 I would call attention was Lieutenant S. W. Pres 
 ton, who, although somewhat older than Ben 
 Porter, was with him for a time in the Naval 
 Academy, was his companion in imprisonment, 
 
Linkings with the Navy 35 1 
 
 and fell by his side at Fort Fisher. Preston was 
 pre-eminently the courtly officer, the gentleman 
 sailor. Not that his comrades were lacking in 
 gentlemanly qualities, but that he was distinguished 
 even among them for his courtliness, his graceful 
 ness, and his remarkable native refinement of per 
 son and manner. Entering the Naval Academy 
 from Illinois, Preston went thence into active ser 
 vice at the outbreak of the Civil War. He was on 
 duty as midshipman and ensign until August, 
 1862, when he was promoted lieutenant. His 
 ability was everywhere recognized, and his charac 
 ter and bearing invariably commanded respect and 
 admiration. Under Admiral Dahlgren, in the first 
 attack on Charleston, young Preston was flag-lieu 
 tenant of the Wabash. Afterwards, he was on duty 
 for a time on the New Ironsides. 
 
 In the bold attempt by Admiral Dahlgren to 
 carry Fort Sumter by storm, in September, 1863, 
 Lieutenant Preston volunteered to lead a division 
 of the scaling-party. He was one of the first 
 to land, and he bore himself most gallantly through 
 the brief but sharp contest that resulted in his cap 
 ture with the remnant of the vanquished party. 
 With Ben Porter he was sent from Charleston to 
 Columbia. It was there that I met the two to 
 gether. My first impression of Lieutenant Preston 
 was in the line of his typical character. The naval 
 officers were brought into the jail during the night. 
 When we of the army were permitted to go into 
 
352 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 the yard for our morning exercise, we found the 
 new comers there. Preston I remember seeing at 
 the hydrant, washing. His clear complexion, fine 
 features, intelligent face, and bared chest his skin 
 fair as a woman s stamped him as a gentleman of 
 unusual delicacy and refinement. I was drawn to 
 him from the start. Then we were shut up to 
 gether for months, and I learned to admire him 
 more and more. He was a man of cultivated 
 tastes and faculties, well read, and well informed. 
 He had a poetic mind, with a transcendental turn, 
 and a love of the mystical. Nor did he neglect 
 special studies in science and languages during his 
 long imprisonment. He was a fine conversation 
 alist. He had a high sense of honor, and a sensi 
 tive conscience. And he was remarkably pure in 
 thought and speech. There was withal a love of 
 adventure and a touch of romance in his nature, 
 that, with his other qualities, would have fitted him 
 for a prominent place in the age of chivalry. 
 
 During his imprisonment his handsome face 
 attracted attention at the jail windows looking out 
 on the public square of the Palmetto State capital, 
 and a love affair was the result, one which by 
 itself would form the substantial basis of a glowing 
 poem or a thrilling novel. There were all the de 
 sired accessories ; the imprisoned brave and hand 
 some hero, the wealthy and beautiful young lady, 
 the clandestine correspondence, the bribed guards, 
 the temporary release of the young officer, the 
 
Linkings with the Navy 353 
 
 midnight meeting and the plighted troth, the hero s 
 return to captivity, his final release from imprison 
 ment, and his death in the battle s front before the 
 nuptials could be celebrated. That picture of life 
 and love stood out in bright colors against the 
 dark background of prison gloom before those who 
 were fellow-captives in Columbia; and it is told 
 and re-told among the survivors to-day. 
 
 After fourteen months of imprisonment Preston 
 was again at liberty. Refusing a proffered leave 
 of absence, he was assigned to duty with the North 
 Atlantic Squadron, and became Admiral Porter s 
 flag-lieutenant on the Malvern. In the second 
 attack on Fort Fisher he went on shore with the 
 storming party, and had charge of an intrenching 
 force in advance of the main column moving 
 against the sea-face of the fort. He went into 
 action in full uniform, in accordance with the 
 traditional etiquette of the navy, and was conse 
 quently a conspicuous mark for the enemy s sharp 
 shooters. The special service assigned to him in 
 this action was completed, and just as he had 
 reported his work finished, and asked of his com 
 manding officer what further duty he could per 
 form, he fell mortally wounded. He was the 
 courtly gentleman to the last. As I was told by a 
 comrade who lay near him, when Preston found 
 that he was dying he turned himself on his back on 
 the beach, straightened out his handsome form to 
 the full, reached up his arms, and, with both hands 
 
354 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 carefully gathered under his head the soft sand and 
 a tuft or two of the shore-grass, as a supporting 
 pillow, then folded his arms with his gloved hands 
 across his chest, and composed himself to die. 
 
 Although Porter and Preston are named by me 
 as illustrating different types of the naval officer, 
 they had much in common in their characters, as 
 they had in their experiences. Their common 
 qualities are well brought out in the tribute to 
 their memory by Fleet-Captain Breese, in his 
 official report of their death to Admiral Porter. 
 He says of them : " Preston, after accomplishing 
 most splendidly the work assigned him by you, 
 which was both dangerous and laborious, under 
 constant fire, came to me, as my aide, for orders, 
 showing no flagging of spirit or body, and, return 
 ing from the rear, whither he had been sent, fell 
 among the foremost at the front as he had lived, 
 the thorough embodiment of a United States officer. 
 Porter, conspicuous by his figure and uniform, as 
 well as by his great gallantry, claimed the right to 
 lead the headmost column, with the Malvern s men 
 he had taken with him, carrying your flag, and fell 
 at its very head. Two more noble spirits the world 
 never saw, nor had the navy ever two more in 
 trepid men. Young, talented, and handsome, the 
 bravest of the brave, pure in their lives, surely their 
 names deserve something more than a passing 
 mention, and are worthy to be handed down to 
 posterity with the greatest and best of naval 
 
Linkings with the Navy 355 
 
 heroes. ... I must speak of their singleness of 
 purpose to do their whole duty; always cheerful 
 and willing, desirous of undertaking anything which 
 might redound to the credit of the service, . . . 
 combining with their intelligence a ready percep 
 tion as to the best mode of accomplishing their 
 orders." 
 
 Quite a different person from either Porter or 
 Preston, yet well known to and respected by both, 
 was Commander E. P. Williams, familiarly called 
 " Barney " Williams. He was a good specimen of 
 the genuine sailor, of the duty-loving follower of 
 the sea, one of that sort of men who, under the 
 lead of its officers of genius and brilliancy, have 
 given a substantial character to the United States 
 navy in all its honored history. Williams was from 
 Castine, Maine, a region of hardy sailors. From 
 his entrance into the navy to the opening of our 
 Civil War he was most of the time on sea duty. 
 In the Indian Ocean, on the coast of Africa, along 
 the shores of Brazil, and in the Paraguay Expedi 
 tion, he served with credit, growing in the confi 
 dence of his superiors. For a short time he was 
 on duty at the Naval Academy. Early in the war 
 he was doing efficient service in the South Atlantic 
 Squadron, in command of the steam gunboat Paul 
 Jones. He had a lively engagement with the 
 enemy at St. John s Bluff, in Florida, and made a 
 venturesome run up the St. John s River to Enter 
 prise. Off Morris Island he had a sharp contest 
 
356 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 with the Confederate ram Chicora, while seeking to 
 draw off the enemy from the wreck of our double- 
 turreted monitor Keokuk. 
 
 In September, 1863, Williams was in command 
 of a division of the assaulting column in the night 
 attack from the navy on Fort Sumter. He there 
 bore himself most gallantly, and his subsequent 
 feeling was that had he been well supported by his 
 entire force the move would have been successful. 
 He was taken prisoner at the same time with 
 Porter and Preston, who were his juniors, and with 
 them he came to Columbia. In prison he was the 
 ranking naval officer, and as such was looked up to 
 with respect by his comrades. His characteristics 
 stood out there as elsewhere. He chafed less in 
 confinement than some others, he adapted himself 
 more easily to the situation. The prevailing desire 
 in his mind was not a love of adventure, nor a wish 
 for promotion and renown ; it was to do a sailor s 
 duty wherever his lot was cast ; hence he could be 
 more contented in prison, when he must be there. 
 There was, moreover, a genial heartiness about the 
 man which attached his friends to him warmly. 
 He did much to make the prison life endurable to 
 others, and he is remembered most pleasantly by 
 his Richland Jail companions. He naturally longed 
 for liberty, and he was engaged in more than one 
 unsuccessful plan of escape. He had a most trying 
 experience while held in irons for several months 
 as one of the hostages for Beale and McGuire, who 
 
Linking s with the Navy 357 
 
 were on trial for piracy; yet even this he could 
 stand better than young Porter, who was his com 
 panion in it all. When, after fourteen months of 
 imprisonment, Williams, with his brother-officers, 
 was again at liberty, he had no such brilliant ser 
 vice, nor such a tragic end in battle, as gives point 
 to the story of Preston and Porter. He survived 
 the war, and after it was all over I more than once 
 recalled with him its varied and thrilling experi 
 ences as I visited him in his Roxbury home, or at 
 his office at the naval rendezvous in Boston. 
 
 Yet Commander Williams died a sailor s death 
 died as bravely and as grandly as either of his 
 prison comrades, died a death which entitles his 
 memory to love and honor from all. It was on the 
 afternoon of January 24, 1870, that Williams, in 
 command of the sloop-of-war Oneida, left the port 
 of Yokohama, Japan, to return to the United States 
 after a three years cruise. When fifteen miles 
 from port, in the Bay of Yeddo, after the darkness 
 of night had shut in, the Oneida was run into by 
 the British mail-steamer Bombay, bound for Yoko 
 hama, and cut down to the water s edge. Com 
 mander Williams was in his cabin at the time. He 
 was in a reclining-chair, having fallen asleep, per 
 haps to dream of home, when the shock of the 
 collision came, and he was thrown violently to the 
 cabin-floor, while the water rushed in upon him, 
 and the sounds of confusion were heard on the 
 deck above. In an instant he was on deck, as calm 
 
358 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 and collected as if nothing unusual demanded atten 
 tion. Seeing the lights of the moving steamer 
 which had done the foul deed, he at once compre 
 hended the situation. 
 
 " I told him," says one of his surviving officers, 
 "that the ship had ported her helm and cut us 
 down." 
 
 " I know it, sir," he quietly replied ; and, with a 
 sailor s instinct, added, " Let us save the ship." 
 
 But the ship was not to be saved. His executive 
 officer came up and reported : 
 
 " Captain, we shall sink by the stern in three 
 minutes," urging him at the same time to take at 
 once to one of the two remaining boats. His own 
 safety was not, however, the thought of Com 
 mander Williams at such a time as that. There 
 were twenty-four officers and one hundred and 
 fifty-two men on that vessel, and he was respon 
 sible for them all. He would not desert his ship 
 while they were on it in peril. 
 
 " I saw him," said one of his sailors, " on the port 
 side of the bridge, one hand resting on the iron rail 
 of the bridge, and the other on the gunwale of the 
 first cutter. I said to him, Captain, you had 
 better get into this boat! and he answered me, 
 Never mind me ; I will go down with the ship ; 
 you stay in the boat. " 
 
 And there, unmoved, he stood, stood at the 
 post of duty, even when standing there took him 
 under forty fathoms of water. Twenty-one officers 
 
Linkings with the Navy 359 
 
 and ninety-five men went with him to the bottom. 
 There was no scramble for places of safety; no 
 neglect of discipline. Those who left the ship did 
 so under orders ; those who went down with it 
 were where for the time they belonged. 
 
 It was no false pride, no undue sensitiveness to 
 his reputation, which made Commander Williams 
 ready to sink with his ship. His life was a life of 
 duty, a sailor s duty, duty to his vessel, duty to 
 his flag, duty to his country; his death was con 
 sistent with his life. It is examples like his that 
 make discipline and coolness and heroic unselfish 
 ness possible in such a scene of disaster on the 
 seas, and that secure the safety of many who would 
 otherwise be lost, and the honor of those who 
 perish. How much better it is to thus conform to 
 the scriptural duty of being " faithful unto death " 
 than to heed the godless suggestion that " self- 
 preservation is the first law of nature " ! 
 
 Fourth on the list of naval officers whose memo 
 ries I am now recalling, and chief of all, comes 
 Captain George W. Rodgers. He stands out in 
 my mind as distinctively the Christian officer, a 
 naval Havelock or Hedley Vicars. Yet he com 
 bined the choicest qualities of the other three 
 officers of whom I have told. Like Ben Porter, as 
 a youth George Rodgers had gallantry, attractive 
 ness, and promise. He was, like Preston, a refined 
 and polished gentleman. No less than Williams 
 was he the skilled and duty-loving seaman. And 
 
360 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 over and above all he was the pronounced and 
 consistent Christian, whose sincerity and earnest 
 ness in the service of the Captain of our Salva 
 tion were recognized by all who knew him. 
 
 George Rodgers was, as it were, born into the 
 navy. He was a son of Commodore George W. 
 Rodgers, who for his services in the War of 1812 
 received a sword from his native state, and from 
 Congress a gold medal and a vote of thanks; a 
 nephew of Commodore John Rodgers, who fired 
 the first gun of that war, and was for some years 
 senior officer of our navy; a cousin of Admiral 
 John Rodgers, and a brother of Admiral C. Ray 
 mond Rodgers. This on his father s side. His 
 mother was a daughter of the first Commodore 
 Perry ; a sister of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, 
 of Lake Erie fame; of Commodore M. C. Perry, 
 who opened Japan to our commerce; of the two 
 young Perrys who commanded under McDonough 
 at Lake Champlain ; and of Ensign Alexander 
 Perry, who at ten years old served so bravely at 
 Lake Erie as to win the thanks of Congress and a 
 sword of honor. In army service his grandfather 
 was Colonel Rodgers, who commanded the Mary 
 land line in the Revolutionary War ; an uncle was 
 Colonel Robert Rodgers, of the Third Massachu 
 setts Infantry in our Civil War ; one of his brothers 
 was Lieutenant Alexander Rodgers, who fell at 
 Chapultepec ; another brother was for a time in the 
 quartermaster s department ; and a brother-in-law, 
 
Linking s ivith the Navy 361 
 
 Lieutenant Smith, went down in mid-ocean in com 
 mand of troops on the San Francisco. 
 
 Thus George Rodgers seemed predestined to the 
 United States service, and by his own free will he 
 was in the navy from boyhood, entering it before 
 he was fourteen years old. It is unnecessary here 
 to speak of the varied service to which he was 
 called before our Civil War, the opening of which 
 found him an instructor at the Naval Academy at 
 Annapolis, giving the impress of his character and 
 spirit to the young men like Preston and Porter 
 and Gushing, who were there preparing for a 
 greater work than they yet suspected. My pur 
 pose is to speak of him in his distinctive character 
 istics, as I saw them during my intercourse with 
 him in the latter months of his life. 
 
 I had known George Rodgers in his mother s 
 home, in the days of my boyhood. In war time I 
 first met him again in the waters of South Caro 
 lina, in the spring of 1863, where he was in com 
 mand of the fleet of ironclads in North Edisto Inlet. 
 My regiment, as I have already said, was then on 
 duty on Seabrook Island. He called on me there, 
 and invited me to visit him on his vessel, the 
 monitor Catskill. On the occasion of my first 
 dining with him, I was impressed with the sym 
 metry of his Christian character. Our only com 
 panion at table was my tent-mate and loved friend, 
 Adjutant Camp, the "Knightly Soldier." As we 
 three sat together, the steward brought wine to us. 
 
362 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 The adjutant and I declined it. " Would you like 
 a lighter wine than this ? " asked Commander 
 Rodgers. " Thank you, no," was the reply from 
 each of us. " Do neither of you drink wine ? " 
 " Neither of us." " Then, steward, you can remove 
 the wine," he said. " I have not used wine for 
 twenty years." Strictly abstemious himself, he did 
 not force his views upon others. It was only when 
 he found that we three were in accord on this point 
 that he told of his practice of total abstinence. 
 
 Then, in the freedom of after-dinner chat, he 
 spoke of his interest in the religious welfare of his 
 men. He had already invited me to come, when I 
 could, and preach on his vessel on a Sunday, or on 
 a week-day evening. I now learned that, while an 
 Episcopalian, and accustomed to the more formal 
 services of that communion, he would leave his cabin 
 of a Sunday evening, and, despite the barrier which 
 necessarily separates officers and men in the disci 
 pline of a man-of-war, would lead a social prayer- 
 meeting among the men of his command. Reading 
 a portion of Scripture, he would make familiar 
 comments on it, would lead in prayer and singing, 
 and then would call on one and another of his 
 godly sailors to take part in the meeting at their 
 pleasure. As we talked together of such work as 
 this, he raised a cushion from one of his cabin 
 seats, and opened below it a locker stowed with 
 religious books and papers, of which he kept a 
 supply for distribution among his men. 
 
Linkings with the Navy 363 
 
 The impressions of that first visit to his vessel 
 were deepened in my mind by all our subsequent 
 intercourse. I was frequently with him on ship 
 and shore. He made an arrangement with my 
 honored commander, General " Tom " Stevenson, 
 to signal to him from headquarters when the 
 church call notified a religious service in our 
 camp ; and he rarely failed of coming at once on 
 shore for a part in the service. I had many de 
 lightful conversations with him ; and latterly his 
 increasing spirituality and interest in religious 
 themes forced upon me a conviction that he was 
 ripening for heaven. I had never seen anything 
 of this nature so marked in one in full health. It 
 was not a presentiment of death, for he appar 
 ently had no anticipation of his speedy decease. 
 Neither was there gloom in his manner. He was 
 always cheerful, and seemed thoroughly to enjoy 
 life. But there was manifest in him a growing 
 power of spirit over matter; and his face came to 
 glow as with a preternatural light from the already 
 opening gates of glory towards which his steps 
 were trending. Again and again I spoke of this 
 to my friend the adjutant. 
 
 On the first Sunday in July, 1863, when Com 
 mander Rodgers had been signaled of an approach 
 ing church service in our camp, he came hurriedly 
 on shore to say that he had just received orders to 
 coal up at once for a new move against Charleston, 
 and he could not remain at the meeting as he 
 
364 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 wished to. As we stood together then for a few 
 minutes, and he spoke with deep-toned earnestness 
 of the duty of the hour, of the impending engage 
 ment, and of his regret at losing the privileges of 
 worship that day, I was more than ever convinced 
 that his days in this life were few. As he bade us 
 good-by, and I turned with my tent-mate towards 
 our little rustic chapel, I said, 
 
 "We shall never see George Rodgers again on 
 earth." 
 
 In a few weeks the army and navy were co 
 operating actively against the defenses of Charles 
 ton. Adjutant Camp and I were prisoners of war, 
 and George Rodgers was thundering with his huge 
 Dahlgrens against Wagner and Sumter and Moul- 
 trie. When, in August, he had been called to duty 
 as chief-of-stafT to Admiral Dahlgren, he obtained 
 permission to continue in command of the monitor 
 Catskill during one more attack on the defenses of 
 Charleston harbor, before leaving his monitor for 
 his new place with the admiral. It was while he 
 was on this service, in advance of the rest of the 
 fleet, that a huge shot from the fort struck the iron 
 pilot-house in which he stood, and shivered a scale 
 and bolt from its inner surface, killing him in 
 stantly. When I learned through the papers at 
 my prison home in Columbia that a prominent 
 officer unnamed had been killed on one of the 
 Federal ironclads, I said to my friend the adjutant, 
 
 " That is George Rodgers ! " 
 
o 
 
 _e 
 
 C/5 
 
 ! 
 
Linking s with the Navy 365 
 
 " You seem determined to kill him off," he re 
 plied. 
 
 "Ah, but he was almost ready for translation 
 when we left him ! " 
 
 The correctness of my impression of his identity 
 was verified when the captured naval officers from 
 Fort Sumter brought the story of his death to 
 Columbia. 
 
 Six years later I found unlooked-for evidence 
 that the remarkable change in the spirit and ap 
 pearance of George Rodgers was not a mere fancy 
 of mine, but that it was noted by others as well. 
 In a sketch of this gallant officer, Mr. William 
 Swinton, a well-known war correspondent, who 
 was with him for several weeks before his death, 
 said, " Latterly there was seen in him a strange 
 unworldliness that seemed to withdraw him from 
 life, lifting him above the evils and confusions of 
 this weary and unintelligible world ; and there 
 was that in his mood and manner which struck 
 his friends with the sad premonition that he was 
 not long to move among us." And Mr. Swinton 
 told of looking out from his berth through the open 
 stateroom door, and seeing Commander Rodgers 
 with his open Bible before him on the cabin table 
 of the Catskill, or again upon his knees in prayer, 
 and this for hour after hour through the night be 
 fore his fatal move against Fort Sumter. It was 
 not that George Rodgers had any fear of death. 
 It was rather that his fighting was now at an end, 
 
366 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 and he was drawing closer to Him whom he served 
 and trusted in peace and in war. Like the soldier 
 apostle of old, he could say, " The time of my de 
 parture is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I 
 have finished my course, I have kept the faith : 
 henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of right 
 eousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, 
 shall give me at that day." And, while thus 
 calmly expectant, " he was not ; for God took 
 him." 
 
 These four officers were types, each of a class. 
 They represent the sort of men who have been in 
 the United States navy from its beginning, and who 
 are still to be found there. The service which can 
 develop such characters is worthy of honor from 
 all. The country for which such men live and 
 battle and pray and die may well have grateful 
 pride in the heroism and devotedness of its faith 
 ful servants. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 SEEING SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION 
 
 One who reads history as the record of events 
 and conditions and changes of long-gone times, 
 has knowledge of history in one way. One who 
 lives through the events of a great national con 
 flict, and personally shares the excitements and 
 fears and struggles and hopes that eventuate in a 
 changed and improved national life that was never 
 anticipated by the most sanguine of those actually 
 in the conflict, or of those watching it from out 
 side, knows history in quite another way. This 
 difference is felt peculiarly by those who review 
 the story of slavery as it was, and emancipation 
 as it came to be, in this country within the last 
 half-century. 
 
 It is one thing to read that in 1861 there were 
 four millions of human beings held in slavery in 
 the United States of America ; and that, as a con 
 sequence of excited discussion and embittered feel 
 ing over this subject, a fierce war between brethren 
 was waged for more than four years from that time, 
 at a cost of millions of lives and thousands of mil 
 lions of dollars, resulting in the emancipation of all 
 
 367 
 
368 iVar Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 these slaves and a closer union of all these long- 
 estranged brethren. It is quite another thing to 
 have lived through those prolonged preliminary 
 discussions and excitements, while slavery was the 
 present and seemingly the permanent cause of in- 
 tensest bitterness; and to have shared the perils 
 and hopes and despondencies while that fierce civil 
 war was dragging its slow progress toward its 
 hardly hoped for but blessed outcome. Only 
 those who thus gained their knowledge of these 
 pregnant events can rightly understand what they 
 were, and what they came to ; but to them it is an 
 ever-present and vivid reality. 
 
 Slavery was formally abolished in my native 
 state of Connecticut only nine years before I was 
 born. I remember old slaves in the vicinity of my 
 early home, who had been soldiers in the Revolu 
 tionary War and in the War of 1812, and who 
 were now living comfortably and were well cared for. 
 By the law of the state their former owners were 
 bound to provide for them as long as they lived, 
 although they were absolutely free. Hence, while 
 in early life I knew of slavery, I had no sense of its 
 evils and no hostility to slaveholders as such. I 
 knew that slavery still existed in the Southern 
 States, but I was taught that we at the North were 
 no more responsible for it than for polygamy in 
 Turkey. Quite a number of my acquaintances, 
 and friends of my parents, had close business re 
 lations with the South, and some of them resided 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 369 
 
 there a portion of every year. I admired the 
 Christian character and the personal worth of 
 some of these friends, and I had no occasion to 
 be prejudiced against the South or its institutions 
 from my early knowledge and associations. 
 
 My father belonged to the old Whig party, and 
 to that conservative portion of it later known as 
 "Silver Gray Whigs," from its silver-haired leader, 
 the Hon. Francis Granger of New York State. I 
 had been given the name of "Henry Clay" of 
 Kentucky from my father s sincere affection for the 
 man and admiration for his political policy. I was 
 brought up to love and revere the " Great Com 
 moner," who had saved our country from disunion 
 in several critical emergencies by his successful ad 
 vocacy of conciliatory compromises on the subject 
 of slavery and its extension. I firmly believed 
 that the existence and stability of our government 
 rested on the sacredness of those compromises. 
 Antislavery and abolition agitation had no sym 
 pathy from me; and in this feeling, up to 1854, 
 I was like many another New England Whig, 
 opposed to agitation at the North on the subject 
 of slavery at the South, and zealous for all the 
 constitutional rights of the South. 
 
 But when, at that time, the attempt was made in 
 Congress to violate the terms of what was deemed 
 the sacred "Missouri Compromise" of 1820, and 
 to overthrow our whole national basis of compro 
 mises, and carry slavery into territory inviolably 
 
370 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 pledged to freedom by South and North alike, the 
 whole state of things was changed, and sympathies 
 and feelings were swayed accordingly. Not from 
 any feeling of hostility to the South, or even to the 
 institution of slavery as such, but for the resistance 
 of unfair slavery extension into the realm of free 
 dom, I joined the newly formed Republican party, 
 and was on the stump, in 1856, for its candidates, 
 Fremont and Dayton. I had been willing to let 
 slavery in the South alone, but I was not will 
 ing to have slavery forced on me in the North. 
 Then came the conflict on the plains of Kansas 
 and Nebraska preliminary skirmish of the great 
 Civil War ; not for the purpose of interfering with 
 slavery where it existed, but to retain, at any cost, 
 free territory for freedom. 
 
 I was personally acquainted with many of the 
 Eastern men who went to Kansas as settlers with 
 this conservative intention. I knew " John Brown 
 of Osawatomie," stern old Puritan that he was. I 
 sat by him and heard him tell, on one of his visits 
 to the East, of the fearful experiences, in Kansas, 
 of himself and his companions, in conflict with 
 slave-state champions. He said nothing, then, of 
 any purpose of his to attempt the overthrow of 
 slavery, although it was but a few weeks before his 
 final attempt at Harper s Ferry; but the glare in 
 his eyes showed that he saw more than he was 
 telling, and, although I had no sympathy with him 
 in his special purpose as disclosed later, I could 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 371 
 
 not wonder that his brain had been fired, and his 
 whole soul aroused to the determination of rising 
 up, alone as it were, to attempt the overthrow of 
 the accursed system which had wrought all this 
 wrong, and which was entrenched within the tra 
 ditions of centuries and defended by all the power 
 of a mighty national government, and he but one 
 man, with God, in the conflict. 
 
 Conservative men of New England, generally, 
 while having no personal bitterness toward South 
 erners, and while unwilling to act with those who 
 advocated the direct abolition of slavery in the 
 South, were from that time less inclined to apolo 
 gize for slavery, and they grew more impatient of 
 such apologies. Being in Boston one Sunday, I 
 met at church an old Whig whom I was surprised 
 to see just there, as he had been an active member 
 in another denomination. 
 
 " How s this ? " I asked. " What are you doing 
 here?" 
 
 "Well, I ll tell you," he said. "Our pastor 
 preached a sermon, a few months ago, in which he 
 showed that slavery was a divine institution. He 
 proved it, too. When I came out of church that 
 noon, I said to my wife, Mary, our pastor has 
 proved something to-day that we know is a lie. 
 The next thing we know he ll be proving some 
 thing that we don t know is a lie. It is time we 
 got out of this. So we got out, and came over 
 here." 
 
372 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 That process of thinking was going on all over 
 New England among the most conservative. 
 Those who saw anew that slavery would not be 
 willing to let freedom alone, began to ask them 
 selves if slavery was really worthy of a place in 
 comparison with freedom. A valued friend of 
 mine with strong Southern sympathies, who had 
 lived at the South for a number of years, was tell 
 ing me that I would think better of slavery if I 
 saw its bright side, as he had seen it. Questioning 
 him about some of its details, I asked if it were 
 true that in most of the slave states there were 
 laws forbidding the slaves to be taught to read. 
 He admitted that it was true. I asked if it were 
 true that in such states of the Union the laws 
 authorized the separation of families by slave 
 owners ; and that, in view of this fact, white clergy 
 men there were accustomed to marry slave couples 
 with a formal proviso looking to the possibility of 
 such a separation, and a consequent sundering of 
 the marriage tie as though it were a providential 
 ordering. He said that these things were so, but 
 that they were inevitable in such a system, and 
 that God-fearing masters were not responsible for 
 them. 
 
 "Well, if that be the case, my dear friend," I 
 answered, "and the system of slavery requires that 
 it be made a crime to teach one of God s children 
 to read God s Word, and also requires God s min 
 isters to perform the marriage service with a dis- 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 373 
 
 tinct proviso that man may put asunder those 
 whom God has joined together, don t you think 
 that the system itself is, to speak mildly and rev 
 erently, a damnable system ? / think it is." 
 
 And that was my opinion before the war, yet I 
 would not call myself an Abolitionist. 
 
 The election of Abraham Lincoln brought mat 
 ters to a crisis. The time for discussion had 
 passed. By special invitation I had promised to 
 pass a portion of the winter of 1 860-61 in the city 
 of New Orleans, in connection with Sunday-school 
 and Young Men s Christian Association interests. 
 My host was a prominent citizen of New Orleans, 
 a warm personal friend of Henry Clay. When the 
 result of the presidential election was known, he 
 wrote me a long letter, saying that of course it 
 would not do for me to visit New Orleans as I had 
 proposed, as social intercourse between the North 
 and the South was now practically out of the ques 
 tion. Then he spoke bitterly of the " Black Re 
 publican" party, and of his idea of its destructive 
 purposes, closing with a challenge to me to point 
 to any single verse in the entire Bible which dis 
 tinctly forbade human slavery. 
 
 I replied briefly, that I realized that a visit to 
 New Orleans just then would be impracticable, but 
 that I did not care to discuss politics. As, how 
 ever, he had challenged me to name a verse for 
 bidding human slavery, I would answer frankly 
 that I could not point to any verse in the Bible, 
 
374 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 which taken by itself, and in view of its context, 
 squarely forbade slavery, polygamy, or wine-drink 
 ing; yet, on the other hand, I found no single 
 verse expressly commanding any one of those 
 practices ; therefore, as at present advised, as a 
 matter of choice and in the exercise of a sound 
 Christian discretion, I should have but one wife, 
 no "nigger," and drink cold water. 
 
 Just after this came the arousing of the North 
 by the bombardment of Fort Sumter, and the long 
 war was open. Most of those who volunteered in 
 defense of the government had no thought of the 
 destruction of slavery. They were ready to do or 
 to die for the re-establishing of national authority. 
 But however they felt at the opening of the war, 
 the relation of slavery and slaveholders to the 
 federal government was totally changed by the new 
 state of affairs. Slaves escaping through the lines 
 northward were declared " contraband of war," and 
 therefore not to be restored to their hostile mas 
 ters. Slavery came to be seen by the army as it 
 actually was, instead of as it had been pictured by 
 its defenders and apologists. The whole North 
 was steadily educated to a higher s-tandard on the 
 slavery question. 
 
 John Brown s body lay a-mouldering in the grave, 
 His soul was marching on. 
 
 One of my neighbors, an officer in the regiment 
 of which I was later the chaplain, and in which I 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 375 
 
 was his tent-mate and devoted friend, gave this 
 incident from his early experiences in North Caro 
 lina, which greatly impressed me : 
 
 " I was in a negro house yesterday, and had 
 some conversation with the inmates. I asked one 
 gray-haired old negress if she had ever had children 
 sold away from her. Sold ! dey all sold ! chil en 
 an gran chil en an great -gran chil en, dey sell 
 eb ry one ! She clasped her bony hands over her 
 head, and looked up at me as she spoke. Dere 
 was one de las one de on y gran chile I did 
 hab lef. He neber knowed his mammy. I took 
 him when he dat little. I bringed him up to massa, 
 an I say, " Massa, dis my little gran chile : may I 
 keep him bout heah ? " An he say, " I don care 
 what you do wid him." So I take him ; he dat 
 little. Den one mornin , when he all rolled up in 
 blanket tween my knees, Massa Green com d in, 
 an say, " Dis boy sold ; " an dey take him way ! 
 O Lord Jesus, help me pray ! 
 
 Another conservative friend, an officer in that 
 same regiment, wrote me, about the same time, of 
 his experiences with the North Carolina slaves, in 
 this way : 
 
 " What shall I say of the darkies ? these poor 
 people, with whom we must now deal, for we can 
 not get rid of them. Every day they swarm in 
 upon us, bringing strange stories of fright and 
 flight on the part of their masters, and full of 
 strange hopes and expectations for themselves. 
 
376 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 What words will describe that compound of cun 
 ning and simplicity, of mistrust and faith, of virtue 
 and vice, of wisdom and folly, of which the South 
 ern nigger is made ! Here they are, all obse 
 quiousness, all curiosity, and all expectation, full of 
 wild dreams of deliverance; full of old traditions 
 about the coming salvation ; full of faith that their 
 prayers arc answered. 
 
 " They talk the eleventh chapter of Daniel in- a 
 manner that shows that the prophet s words have 
 been in their thoughts for many a long year. How 
 many hours of sadness it has shortened, how many 
 agonies it has allayed, how many yearnings for de 
 liverance it has lightened with a gleam of hope, is 
 known only to God. 
 
 " In the dark woods, where the long gray moss 
 drapes the festoons of the wild vine, and hangs like 
 the beard of age from the mammoth trees, black 
 men have recited this chapter by the blazing fires, 
 and have hoped. In plantation cabins, where the 
 wrinkled beldame and the sooty infant bounded 
 the extremes of a slave family, black eyes have 
 wept tears of faith, and have prayed for a speedy 
 fulfilment. And now they hail us as their de 
 liverers. 
 
 " And in their presence, hearing their sad stories 
 of suffering and wrong, knowing the degradation to 
 which they were born, all the fine-spun theories, all 
 the misty tissues of argument which have been 
 about my eyes and have cob webbed my brain, are 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 377 
 
 swept away, and I see in its horrible reality this 
 monster evil of our land and time." 
 
 It was soon after this that the way was open for 
 me to go to the war, as I had longed to, but as I 
 had feared would never be possible, and I joined 
 the Tenth Connecticut Regiment at New Berne. 
 Then, for three years, I had occasion to see for 
 myself slavery as it was, and emancipation as it 
 came to be ; the one a cause, and the other a re 
 sult, of that terrible conflict. 
 
 Whether slaves were well treated or ill, whether 
 their masters were kind and considerate or harsh 
 and severe, a desire for liberty seemed to possess 
 the slave heart, and all were ready to escape from 
 bondage when and as they could, with the only 
 exception of those who were unable to take their 
 families with them, and were unwilling to leave 
 them behind. This was true of the slaves as I saw 
 them in North Carolina, in South Carolina, in 
 Florida, in Virginia, and on the sea islands of the 
 Southern coast. When some one said to Mr. Lin 
 coln that the slaves had no desire for emancipation, 
 that as a class they were contented as they were, 
 he replied that, if that were really so, it would fur 
 nish the best reason he had ever heard for thinking 
 that they were unfit to be free. But the slaves 
 whom I met, or of whom I heard, did not fail at 
 this testing-point. They were not satisfied with 
 slavery. They all longed for liberty, and all were 
 ready to grasp it when they could. 
 
3/8 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 On the first raid, or dash, of my regiment into 
 the interior of North Carolina, in which I shared, 
 after I joined my command, I met, at Little Wash 
 ington, an intelligent and kind-hearted merchant, 
 who told regretfully of "his experience with his 
 slaves. At the opening of the war he had about 
 thirty slaves, whom he prized and treated kindly. 
 He went to New York to make purchases, leaving 
 them on his place. Before he left he had a 
 free talk with them to promote their contentment. 
 He assured them that if, in the progress of the war, 
 other slaves were freed, they should be, and that at 
 their emancipation he would give them a tract of 
 a hundred acres of land to settle on, where they 
 could be as independent as they pleased. 
 
 It was, he said to us, expensive keeping them, 
 with times as they were, since they could not be 
 used by himself or hired out to others to advantage. 
 They were now only a burden to him financially, 
 but he wanted to keep them "for the pride of the 
 thing." He bought, he said, several hundred dol 
 lars worth of clothing for them in New York, but 
 when he came back all but one of the slaves, and 
 he an old one, had fled. A slave who was too old, 
 or too infirm, to take care of himself, was, it seemed, 
 sometimes willing to be supported in slavery rather 
 than to starve in freedom. 
 
 In spite of the kindness of this man s heart, in 
 spite of his generous provision for his slaves, in 
 spite of his liberal promises to them for the future, 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 379 
 
 in spite of his pride in their affection and his con 
 fidence in their contentment, almost without ex 
 ception they had preferred present liberty, with its 
 uncertainties and risks, to continued slavery with 
 all its high privileges and expectations. The man 
 quite took this matter to heart, and it did look un 
 grateful from his standpoint. But this was much 
 the way with slaves generally. 
 
 They streamed in at our picket lines, men, wo 
 men, and children. They followed, on its return, 
 every detachment of troops sent out on a hostile 
 movement or for purposes of observation. New 
 Berne swarmed with them, and, the more there 
 were there, the more others wanted to come in. 
 Of course, many were doomed to disappointment 
 in what they there found in freedom ; but none were 
 deterred from seeking it by what it brought, or 
 what it failed to bring. 
 
 On one occasion a column of troops, under Gen 
 eral Foster, moved out from New Berne, and up 
 and across the country, for the purpose of burning 
 some gunboats building for the Confederates, at 
 Hamilton, on the Roanoke River. Slaves flocked 
 to follow the column. Day by day their numbers 
 grew, swelling to hundreds, women with infants 
 in their arms, and little children, barefooted and 
 scantily clad, tramping after them. They looked 
 on the Union soldiers as their saviors, and freedom 
 seemed to dawn just before them. It was hard to 
 drive these poor creatures back into slavery again, 
 
380 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 and forbid their following the army, of which they 
 asked nothing more than guidance to the Union 
 lines ; but it had to be done. 
 
 The enemy were already in our rear. They sup 
 posed we were going back by the way we came, 
 and they had effectually cut off our retreat by that 
 route* General Foster had, however, ordered a 
 sufficient number of transports to sail round from 
 New Berne and meet him above Plymouth to carry 
 his army back by water, and at the close of the 
 day we hurried across the country to board these 
 transports and put out into Albemarle Sound under 
 cover of the night. There was barely transport 
 room for the soldiers. The slaves could not be 
 taken on board the transports. Their faces were 
 sad and their hearts were heavier than before as 
 we reluctantly turned from them, leaving them not 
 only in slavery when freedom seemed just within 
 their grasp, but to probable punishment and suffer 
 ing because of their attempt at escape. 
 
 That raid was in the autumn of 1862. President 
 Lincoln had issued his proclamation,, under date of 
 September 22, declaring that all slaves should be 
 emancipated on the 1st of January, 1863, in every 
 state where armed rebellion still existed. We 
 were interested to learn how this news affected 
 the slaves and their masters. 
 
 While we rested at Hamilton, as the gunboats 
 on the stocks were burning, we chatted with the 
 slaves who stood about watching proceedings. An 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 381 
 
 intelligent slave, who was assistant foreman of the 
 shipyard, was a good specimen of the shrewd, reti 
 cent, observing negro. Evidently his family lived 
 in the neighborhood, and all his worldly interests 
 centered there. He was not going to say or do 
 anything, while we were present, which could be 
 reported to his injury when we had gone, hence 
 he was cautious and non-committal in answering 
 our questions. 
 
 " Uncle, have you heard about President Lin 
 coln s proclamation ? " 
 
 "I se heard suthin ." 
 
 " What have you heard ? " 
 
 "Some says one thin , some says another." 
 
 " Well, what do they say ? " 
 
 " Some say, Massa Linkum says fus o Janeway 
 all de slaves go free. T others say tain t so, der s 
 not in in it." 
 
 " But what do you think, Uncle? " 
 
 " Chile," said the old man, looking his questioner 
 straight in the eye, "7 don t ink not in 1 . I jus 
 Stan s a-waitin , an keeps a-hopinV 
 
 And that told the whole story for him, and for 
 many another in those days. 
 
 Governor Andrew of Massachusetts gave me 
 an illustration of this shrewdness of the negro in 
 avoiding the compromising of himself when he 
 was seeking information on a point of intensest 
 personal interest. A friend of the Governor from 
 Boston was at a hotel in Charlestown, West Vir- 
 
382 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 ginia, during the hurried trial of John Brown, in 
 1859. In the early morning, before he had arisen, 
 a slave came into his room, according to Southern 
 custom, to kindle a fire for him to dress by. The 
 excitement concerning John Brown was then at 
 its height. Knowing that the guest was from the 
 North, the negro wanted to get his opinion of the 
 case ; yet he was not sure that it would be safe to 
 disclose his own views. 
 
 " Massa ! " he said, " yer hear bout dis man John 
 Brown, dey s tryin hyar ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! I ve heard about him." 
 
 " What dey goin to do wid im ? " 
 
 " Oh ! they ll convict him." 
 
 " Cervict im ! What den ? " 
 
 " They ll hang him sure as fate." 
 
 There was yet no sign of the Northerner s sym 
 pathies. The negro waited a minute, and then 
 asked cautiously : 
 
 " Wouldn t dat be a little abrup , massa ? " 
 
 Those who were within our lines in nominal 
 freedom seemed impressed with the idea that, be 
 cause learning to read had been forbidden them 
 while in slavery, reading was somehow a means of 
 power, which they must strive to acquire in order to 
 fit themselves for their new sphere of being and act 
 ing, in competition with the white race. It was 
 surprising how anxious they were to know how to 
 read, and how zealous and earnest they were in 
 endeavors to learn. 
 
These boys were poring over their treasured books. 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 383 
 
 While we were in camp on St. Helena Island, 
 opposite Port Royal, South Carolina, there were 
 twenty or thirty of these freed slaves who were 
 personal servants of our regimental officers, field, 
 staff, and line. In some way they had obtained two 
 spelling-books, or small readers, and these were 
 in constant use among them. Not only in the 
 intervals of active work during the day, but all 
 through the night, some of these boys were poring 
 over those books. Having got a start in their 
 reading from some of the officers or privates, the 
 more favored ones were always ready to help the 
 others by their knowledge. They seemed to ar 
 range among themselves so that all should have a 
 share in the valued helps to learning at some time 
 in each twenty-four hours. 
 
 As I lay in my tent at night, and waked from 
 time to time, I would hear low negro voices, back 
 of the tent, repeating words as from an elementary 
 school reader, " The hen is in the yard. The dog 
 barks at the hen." " Puss sits by the fire. She is 
 warm." " This boy is James. He drives a hoop." 
 " Now is the best time to do well ;" and so on. 
 Hearing these sounds night after night, I was led 
 to go out and look up their meaning. I found that 
 back of the field and staff tents there was built a 
 blazing fire of pine branches, under the moss-hung 
 live oaks, before which some of these boys were 
 poring over their treasured books, learning their 
 lesson for the night. The flickering light in the 
 
384 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 deep shadows gave a weird look to the strange 
 scene, but it was a vivid reality. And this, I found, 
 was continued all through the night, week after 
 week. It evidenced and illustrated the earnestness 
 among the freed slave boys in their determination 
 to learn how to read, in order to fill their sphere in 
 freedom. 
 
 Those who were too old, when they were freed, to 
 learn to read, or to gain the advantages of an edu 
 cation, were all the more desirous that their children 
 should attain the prize of knowledge which they 
 had missed. This secured a full attendance at all 
 the many schools for freed slaves, started along the 
 coast within our lines by the various missionary 
 associations and freedmen s aid societies at the 
 North that undertook this work. The first school 
 of this sort that I saw in operation was on St. 
 Helena Island, in March, 1863, although I later 
 saw many others. 
 
 With my friend and tent-mate, Adjutant Camp, 
 I rode the length of the long island to opposite 
 Beaufort, on a pleasant spring day. The scenery 
 of the island was typically Southern. There was a 
 tropical luxuriance of forest and foliage and all vege 
 tation. Live oaks of massive growth, from which 
 the long gray moss swung toward the ground, and 
 among the branches of which the parasitic mistle 
 toe showed itself with deep-green leaves and ber 
 ries like glistening pearls, were as the ribbed arches 
 of an immense cathedral. Mammoth magnolias, 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 385 
 
 just bursting into bloom, were to be seen on every 
 side. The bay-tree in its freshness and symmetry, 
 the feathery cypress in its graceful delicacy, the 
 flowering dogwood, the wild hawthorn, and the 
 towering Spanish bayonet with its sword-shaped 
 leaves and its snow-white blossoms crowning 
 the long stem that looked like Aaron s rod that 
 budded, stood here and there along our wooded 
 way. Covering over, in places, the rich-green 
 masses of abounding shrubbery, were the golden 
 flowers of the fragrant yellow jessamine vines, 
 while among the foliage the wild honeysuckle in 
 its crimson beauty, the scarlet yapon-berries, and 
 the purple clusters of the wild plum, peered out, 
 and birds of bright plumage and sweet song flitted 
 from branch to branch, giving life and variety to 
 the gorgeous scene. 
 
 In the open space beyond the first stretch of 
 woods there was an immense sea-island cotton- 
 field, where black men and women by the score 
 were at work, under government superintendents, 
 in the hope of a summer s crop. Yet nearer the 
 shore, stately palmetto and palm trees stood out 
 against the horizon, and the prickly-pear jealously 
 guarded its tempting fruit by its nettle covering 
 and its thorny encircling leaves. Plantation fences 
 with gates divided the different fields. The old- 
 time planter s mansion was there, and the negro 
 cabins were back of it. There was a pretty Epis 
 copal church with a painted clock-face in its gable 
 
386 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 end, and about it was a graveyard with stones 
 marking the resting-place of successive generations 
 in an order of things now passing away. 
 
 At last we reached a little Baptist church, where 
 we found a negro-school of between one and two 
 hundred "contrabands," as they were called in that 
 day, under the care of cultivated and devoted Ne\v 
 England women teachers. We were surprised and 
 delighted at the brightness and proficiency of these 
 children, as shown in their various recitations. The 
 children themselves were the blackest of Africans, 
 with no intermixture of white blood. At the close 
 of the session they sang together, and their singing 
 was a treat. 
 
 First they sang a hymn written expressly for 
 them, for the Christmas before, by John G. Whittier, 
 including the verses : 
 
 " Oh, none in all the world before 
 
 Were ever glad as we ! 
 We re free on Carolina s shore, 
 We re all at home, and free. 
 
 "We hear no more the driver s horn, 
 
 No more the whip we fear, 
 This holy day that saw Thee born 
 Was never half so dear. 
 
 " Come once again, O blessed Lord ! 
 
 Come walking on the sea ! 
 And let the main-lands hear the word 
 That sets the islands free." 
 
 Then they sang some of their native words in their 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 387 
 
 own way, and that singing seemed to suit better 
 their tastes and feelings : 
 
 " Death is a little man, 
 
 Good Lord, remember me ! 
 
 " And he goes from door to door, 
 Good Lord, remember me ! 
 
 " I prays de Lord, when de year rolls round, 
 Good Lord, remember me ! 
 
 " Oh ! I wants to die like Jesus died, 
 Good Lord, remember me ! 
 
 " To die, and be laid in the grave, 
 
 Good Lord, remember me ! " 
 
 And so the lines went on, describing the resur 
 rection and the ascension, and being repeated 
 indefinitely. Accompanying the singing the little 
 singers beat time with their feet and clapped their 
 hands, weaving their bodies back and forward, 
 until they were aroused to a high state of excite 
 ment. This they would keep up, at times, by the 
 hour, we were told. Indeed, there seemed to be no 
 end to the singing, except in physical exhaustion. 
 
 While the young negroes could learn to read 
 more easily than the older ones, they could not 
 sing with the touching pathos of those who had 
 suffered long in slavery with no clear hope of free 
 dom. It was while crossing the salt-water ferry 
 from Ladies Island, just above St. Helena, to Beau 
 fort, on this occasion, that I first heard this genuine 
 slave-singing. It was a ferry-boat, propelled by 
 
388 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 half a dozen stalwart negroes. As they rowed, they 
 sang. The bow oarsman sang the words, and all 
 joined in the chorus. The strain was plaintive, 
 subdued, pathetic, such as could have come only 
 from an oppressed, down-trodden, suffering people, 
 disconsolate as to this life, and with hope only 
 above and beyond. The words were few and 
 simple, but they breathed a loving, longing, trust 
 ful spirit: 
 
 " My Jesus made the blind to see, 
 No man can hinder me. 
 
 " My Jesus made the dumb to speak, 
 No man can hinder me. 
 
 " My Jesus made the lame to walk, 
 No man can hinder me." 
 
 Thus they sang on of the work of Jesus, and as 
 they sang they would, at regular intervals, strike 
 one another s oars as if to mark time and secure 
 harmony. The touching, tender allusion to "my 
 Jesus," as if the plaint of an innermost crushed 
 soul, was inexpressibly pathetic. It beggars de 
 scription. It brought tears to my eyes, and made 
 me thank God for the preciousness of that Name 
 which is above every name, and which brings hope 
 and comfort to those in every condition. 
 
 The religious nature of the negro showed itself 
 in his songs of work and of worship, in his prayers, 
 and in his exhortations and responses in sacred 
 assemblings. Because of his Oriental origin he 
 was necessarily emotional and mercurial ; and be- 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 389 
 
 cause of his peculiar training in slavery he had his 
 own ideas of morals as apart from his religious 
 spirit and thoughts. Taught, by those who ought 
 to know the right, that he was a mere chattel and 
 not a responsible personality, and trained to the 
 necessity of concealing his real hopes and desires 
 from those who had more power over him than 
 sympathy with him, it was not strange that he had 
 confused ideas as to the limits of truth and honesty. 
 Brought up to look at marriage as a convenience 
 for the increase of his master s property posses 
 sions, he could hardly comprehend the highest 
 teachings as to chastity and a pure and permanent 
 family life. 
 
 Yet it was not true, as was often asserted, that 
 the negro slave wholly divorced morals from re 
 ligion, conduct from character, works from faith. 
 I saw this in the first negro sermon which I heard 
 at New Berne. The preacher was a well-known 
 itinerant negro evangelist, who had come on his 
 round to visit that city. He said he would, by 
 urgent request, " preach a funeral " that morning. 
 Then I learned that where the slaves could not have 
 the services of a preacher regularly, they were 
 glad to have now and then a sermon preached as 
 if in memory of those who had died since the last 
 occasion of the sort. This they called "preaching 
 a funeral," and it was such a discourse to which I 
 listened at that time. 
 
 It was evident that the preacher could not read 
 
390 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 the Bible, and that he had misunderstood some of 
 its words by the sound ; but he had manifestly im 
 bibed the spirit of its teachings in spite of all his 
 disadvantages. He announced his text for the 
 morning, as in the " fifth varse of Mark : " " Low I 
 come." 
 
 " Hear dat, bred ren! Low I come; not high 
 I come. De Lord Jesus comes to de poor and de 
 lowly. Dat s a comfort." 
 
 This was bad exegesis, but it was good gospel ; 
 and so in other parts of his discourse. 
 
 It treated of life, death, and the hereafter, and of 
 Jesus as sufficient for help, hope, and salvation, in 
 all. Practical and timely truths were put in homely 
 and forceful phrases, so that all could comprehend 
 them. Although intended as a sermon of comfort 
 to mourners, and of cheer to the oppressed, it made 
 no suggestion that mere suffering in this life secured 
 happiness and glory in the next. Jesus had taken 
 to himself every follower of his, "brudder or sister, 
 as de case might be," who had showed loving trust 
 in him by doing as he commanded. And so it 
 would be with all who were still here. Their 
 future would surely conform to the service of their 
 well-used present. 
 
 "De Lord will put yer in jus de place yer be 
 done fit for," he said. " He wants to give yer a 
 good place, an he will if yer done fit for it. Yer 
 know how t is yerself. Some ob yer make shoes. 
 When yer gits a piece o leather, yer wants to use 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 39 1 
 
 it all if yer can. Yer looks it ober. Yer say, 
 1 Daf\\ do for de quarters. Daf\\ do for de vamps. 
 Daf\\ do for de fillin . When yer zamine it ober, 
 and pick out what yer can use, den yer say ob de 
 rest, Dar ain t no more good dere; dat goes to 
 de trash pile. 
 
 " Bred ren, de Lord ll look yer all ober, and he ll 
 put yer whar* yer b long. If yer b long in a good 
 place, he ll put yer dar. But if yer ain t done fit 
 for no good place, yer got to go to de trash pile. 
 Yerhab, shur!" 
 
 That was as explicit as to the need of works as 
 evidencing faith as the teaching of St. James or St. 
 Paul. And such preaching I heard many times re 
 peated, by negro preachers, in various places along 
 the coast. 
 
 With his imaginative and religious nature as it 
 was, and with his peculiar training and experiences 
 in bondage as they had been, necessitated to con 
 ceal his feelings and his knowledge, for his own 
 safety, the negro freedman was inevitably "a bun 
 dle of contradictions," sure to be misunderstood 
 by many. In one aspect he seemed the veriest 
 coward, afraid of his shadow; in another he seemed 
 almost indifferent to danger, and at times truly 
 courageous, braving punishment or death fear 
 lessly. To some he seemed simple and unsus 
 pecting as a child ; to others he showed himself 
 cautious, suspicious, shrewd; to yet others he ap 
 peared merely stupid, devoid of intelligent purpose^ 
 
392 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 thought, or feeling. There was reason, however, 
 for all this, and the seeming inconsistencies were 
 not so great as they seemed. 
 
 To the negro mind the unseen world was more 
 real than the seen. The negro feared God rever 
 ently, and he was afraid of the Devil and his minions 
 almost abjectly. In his ignorance he knew no more 
 about the precise limits of the spiritual realm than 
 his more intelligent white fellows knew; but he had 
 a far more abiding sense than many, who ought 
 to be better informed, of the sure nearness to this 
 life of the spiritual sphere beyond it ; and he was, 
 in consequence, more open, even though supersti- 
 tiously so, to every influence or suggestion, actual 
 or fancied, from the unseen realm about him. 
 
 In accordance with the universal primitive belief 
 that to utter the name of a being in the spiritual 
 world is to summon that being to manifest himself, 
 the negroes deemed it wicked to speak the name 
 of the devil, as such an utterance indicated either 
 a league with the devil or a desire for him. My 
 first negro army servant spoke at one time of one 
 of the excellent captains of our regiment, saying : 
 
 " That cap n s dredful wick d man, Misser Chap 
 lin." 
 
 "Wicked man?" I replied. "What makes you 
 think that, Dick?" 
 
 " I heer d him, sah, say right out, dat anuder man 
 acted like de debbil, I did, sah, shuah." 
 
 He seemed to feel that this was proof that the 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 393 
 
 fair-appearing, and seemingly well disposed, young 
 officer was given over to the arch-enemy of man 
 kind, and I tried in vain to convince him that the 
 good captain was not totally depraved. 
 
 A belief in " hants," or " ghostses," or " spooks," 
 or " sprites," seemed universal and positive among 
 " contrabands." It was not that they thought that 
 there might be such things ; they had never a doubt 
 on the subject. A lawyer friend of mine attempted 
 to bring a negro army servant whom I well knew 
 to the limits of positive proof, when this subject 
 came under discussion. 
 
 "Do you believe in ghosts, Henry?" 
 
 "B lieve in em, sah? What d ye mean, sah ? " 
 as if he could not understand such an absurd and 
 unmeaning question. 
 
 "Do you believe that there are such things?" 
 
 "B lieve it, sah? I know thar be, sah," he re 
 plied, with a pitying smile at the questioner s 
 skepticism. 
 
 "Did you ever see a ghost yourself, Henry?" 
 
 " See em, sah ? Yes, sah, many a time." 
 
 "When did you see one last?" 
 
 " Las night, sah." 
 
 " How did you see it?" 
 
 " I jes look out in the night, and see em, sah." 
 
 "What did they look like?" 
 
 " Can t tell you, sah. Dey was ghostses." 
 
 " Did they look like dead men ?" 
 
 " No, sah ; dey was ghostses." 
 
394 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 This negro was a simple-hearted trusting believer 
 in Jesus as his personal friend and Saviour. He 
 had no special fear of ghosts, nor of any evil powers 
 in the world of spirits, for he rested on God s pro 
 tection at all times. Yet he had no more doubt 
 as to the reality of ghosts than he had as to the 
 reality of dead men or living men, or of God, or of 
 the devil. The fact that he could not describe or 
 explain their appearance was no more perplexing 
 to him than the inability of a "lineman" on an 
 electric road to describe or explain electricity as a 
 force in the universe. And he was so far a repre 
 sentative negro, in slavery or out of it, as I saw 
 that race in war time. 
 
 With this imaginative and superstitious nature 
 the negro showed surprising credulity as to many a 
 simple matter beyond his sphere of actual sight or 
 experience; yet, again, he showed courage and 
 character. In our last year of army service in Vir 
 ginia, my tent-mate and I had two " contraband " 
 servants in common, the one a stalwart young 
 negro named Creed, very black, very quiet, say 
 ing little, showing little emotion, but very efficient 
 and faithful as a body-servant ; the other, an older 
 man, named Columbus, who had been trained as 
 a "jockey" on the racecourse, who took care of 
 our horses. 
 
 Creed proved so valuable a body-servant and 
 was evidently so warmly attached to us, that one 
 day I suggested to him that if we lived through 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 395 
 
 the war he might go North with us and be our 
 servant there. At this he showed signs of shrink 
 ing terror which I could not account for, but I 
 saw plainly that he did not relish the thought of 
 being at the North, where his friends, the Union 
 soldiers, came from. Therefore I questioned him 
 on the subject. 
 
 " Why don t you want to go North, Creed ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 " Fraid o Yanks, sah." 
 
 "Why are you afraid of Yanks?" 
 
 " Yanks up Norf kill colored men, sah ; hang em, 
 burn em, cut em up, sah." 
 
 Such stones had been told him as a slave, in order 
 to make him fear the North and Northerners, and 
 he, with others, supposed that there must be some 
 truth as their basis. He implicitly trusted the 
 Union soldiers as God-sent deliverers, but he was 
 afraid of the negro-hating Yankee ghouls, whom 
 he had come to believe abounded in the North. 
 He did not for a moment seem to associate Union 
 soldiers with " Yanks." 
 
 Old Columbus, a gray-haired, limping negro, 
 was well known as a jockey in the vicinity of Rich 
 mond, and he fully understood horses. When he 
 escaped through the lines to our camp, the Rich 
 mond Examiner reported that he had been ill- 
 treated and hanged by us. As we read to him this 
 story, from a paper we had secured at the picket 
 lines, a sly smile came over his face as if he knew 
 
396 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 more about the Yankees now than his old masters; 
 and he said that " fore long" he would have his 
 wife and son on our side of the lines, "by a little 
 designinV 
 
 In facing actual danger Creed showed that he 
 was no coward. He never shirked or wavered 
 under fire. One day, in the Petersburg trenches, 
 our regiment occupied the extreme picket front. 
 The enemy s lines were not more than a stone s 
 throw from ours at that point. Sharp firing was 
 going on at noonday. We who were in the 
 trenches kept close under cover just then. To 
 show a head above the works was sure to bring a 
 shot from the enemy. Creed came in sight from 
 the camp at the rear, bringing our dinner. As we 
 saw him in a traverse beyond, we called out to him 
 not to mount the bank above it, as he would surely 
 be fired at, and we would wait for our dinner until 
 its bringing was safer. 
 
 Undaunted, Creed showed himself on the crest 
 of the hill, a conspicuous mark for the sharp 
 shooters. Bullets flew about him, and a spherical 
 case shot bowled past him. With measured strides 
 he kept on, swinging his dinner-pail, as if he had 
 no consciousness of impending danger, until the 
 shower of bullets was passed, and he had reached 
 the trench where we sat under cover. 
 
 "We called to you to stop back out of the fire, 
 Creed," we said. 
 
 " Might as well come on, sah, unless a bullet stop 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 397 
 
 me. Fse bringin yer dinnah, sah. If I go down, 
 sah, now s good time s ever." 
 
 He had the soldier sense of duty, and he would 
 not shrink. He was afraid to face unreal Yankee 
 ghouls, of whom he had been told ; he was not 
 afraid to face real sharp-shooters, whom he could 
 see, in his path of duty. Was that man a craven 
 coward ? or was he a brave soldier ? 
 
 He was, indeed, so well known throughout the 
 regiment for his courage and willing helpfulness, 
 that my tent-mate said facetiously that the chap 
 lain was "known by his creed " in that regi 
 ment. 
 
 Old Columbus I noticed one evening in the 
 group gathered at our regimental prayer-meeting. 
 After the meeting I spoke to him, and was pleased 
 at the hearty way in which he expressed his trust 
 in Jesus as his Saviour. I asked him if he had 
 understood what I said in the meeting. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " he replied, " I know yer chat. I 
 earn read nor write, but I know yer chat." 
 
 I had been speaking of Joseph, in the house of 
 Potiphar, in the Egyptian prison, and in the palace 
 of Pharaoh, protected and cared for everywhere 
 because he trusted the Lord, and the Lord was 
 with him. It was evident that Columbus had un 
 derstood my "chat." 
 
 "It s jes so what you tell bout Joseph. Yer 
 earn* go nowhar whar Jesus earn* fin yer. Yer 
 go down to the bottom ob de sea, an he fin* yer 
 
98 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 dar. He fin Jonah dar. He fin Dan l in de lions 
 den. Whareber yer is, dar s jus de place for Jesus 
 to fin* yer." 
 
 Thus he went on in his child-like faith. Al 
 though he could not read nor write, he evidently 
 got more comfort out of the Bible truths learned 
 from others " chat " than many have gained from 
 their study of books. 
 
 When, finally, my tent-mate, Major Camp, was 
 killed, and I went North with his body, Creed 
 accompanied me in spite of imaginary dangers. 
 The North, as he found it, was so different from 
 what he had imagined, that it was like a revelation 
 to him. My wife and daughters showed an interest 
 in him as a man, not as a chattel, because of what 
 they had known of his fidelity to their loved one. 
 It was a new and unexpected experience for him. 
 After we were again in camp together, that home 
 in the North was another place to him. His mind 
 was full anew. 
 
 Creed came in, one cold autumn day, to pile 
 wood on our cabin fire. 
 
 "Misser Trum le [no longer Misser Chaplin; 
 but Misser Trum le ]," he said, without looking 
 up, " when you gwine write home gen ? " 
 
 " I m writing to-day," I said. 
 
 " Jus gi my spec s to Missa Trum le, and to Miss 
 Sofa and to Miss May. Tell em I wish I could 
 see em gen. I dream bout em ebry night." 
 
 "You dream about them nights?" I said. 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 399 
 
 "Yes, sah, ebry night. I s pose dar is n an hour 
 o cle day dat I is n study n bout em. I wish I 
 could see em gen." 
 
 That was the longest speech I had ever heard 
 from Creed, and it showed more of his inner feel 
 ings. My answer was : 
 
 "Well, Creed, I hope we shall go back there 
 together by and by." 
 
 " Yes, sah," he said, as he passed out of the 
 cabin, and I saw that he realized that the dwellers 
 at the North were not all Yankee ghouls. This 
 world was another world to him. Heaven was not 
 all beyond. "The bundle of contradictions" was 
 being unraveled in his case. 
 
 That many of the slaves were treated kindly 
 by their "owners," and that they were warmly 
 attached to those who controlled them, was a fact 
 beyond question. Many Southern masters were 
 even more considerate of the slaves than the North 
 erners, in the army and out of it. I had occasion 
 to know of some outrageous ill-treatment of ne 
 groes, in their property and their persons, by riotous 
 Union soldiers on St. Helena Island while I was 
 there; and, on the other hand, I knew negroes in 
 most of the states of the Atlantic coast who were 
 considered tenderly by their " owners," and who in 
 return sincerely loved those who gave them this 
 treatment. 
 
 Yet the slaves as a class were in sympathy 
 with the Union army in the progress of the war, 
 
400 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 and were opposed to the efforts of the Confed 
 erate army, not because they loved Southerners 
 less, or Northerners more, but because they really 
 believed that God was working by means of the 
 Northern army for the carrying out of his plans for 
 the freeing of an oppressed people in his own good 
 time and way. In this great issue, as they saw it, 
 the negroes were on God s side, even though they 
 had to work against masters to whom they were 
 attached, and to befriend Union soldiers who were 
 not personally kind or fair toward them. It was 
 with them not a question of mere feeling, but one 
 of positive duty. 
 
 There was in this a certain likeness to the posi 
 tion of the white leaders on the two sides in the 
 great war. It was not a plain question of loyalty 
 and disloyalty, of allegiance and treason, that 
 marked the line of separation ; it was a question as 
 to the proper object of loyalty and allegiance, as to 
 where true loyalty rested. General Grant and Gen 
 eral Lee were alike in their spirit and purpose of 
 loyalty, as they understood the issue ; but General 
 Grant felt that loyalty was due to the Federal gov 
 ernment, and General Lee that it was due to his 
 native state. Each loved his state and his nation ; 
 but the one deemed the nation paramount, the 
 other the state. On this issue the war was fought 
 out. So with the negro. He may have loved his 
 earthly master, but he loved his heavenly Master 
 more. If his earthly master fought against God 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 40} 
 
 in this conflict, the negro gave his sympathy and 
 help to those whom he deemed on God s side, even 
 though it brought him against those to whom he 
 was personally attached. That was the way the 
 negro looked at it. With all the exceptions to it, 
 this was the rule. 
 
 This putting of religion as above mere personal 
 interests was more prominent with the negro than 
 was commonly understood. It often showed itself 
 in other things besides the question of emancipa 
 tion. For instance, in St. Augustine there was a 
 little negro girl about eight or ten years old, who 
 had been brought out of slavery, and was in the 
 care of Northerners where she was affectionately 
 treated and ministered to. But she had been 
 brought up a Roman Catholic, and was now being 
 trained as a Protestant. One day when the " freed- 
 men " about her were rejoicing over the thought 
 of emancipation, some one asked this child, with 
 out a doubt as to what the answer would be : 
 
 " Rebecca, would you like to go back into slavery 
 again?" 
 
 " If I could have my own religion again, I would," 
 was the unexpected reply. 
 
 Slavery with all its privations was to that little 
 negro but a small matter in comparison with the 
 being deprived, as now, of the privilege of wor 
 shiping God as she thought he would have her 
 worship. This may seem to some strange and 
 unreasonable, but it must be recognized as in 
 
4O2 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 accordance with the nature of many a Southern 
 negro ; nor is it really to be wondered at, with the 
 strength of the religious sentiment in human nature 
 as it is. 
 
 It is said by many Southerners that a great ma 
 jority of the slaves were faithful to their masters, 
 working for them in the army, or while they were 
 absent from home in the war ; and it is known that 
 in many instances they helped to provide for their 
 impoverished masters after the war was over and 
 they were free. Yet it is unmistakably true that 
 the slaves were as a class always ready to be 
 friend a Union soldier in prison at great personal 
 risk, or to conceal one who had escaped, and to 
 assist him to regain the Union lines. These things 
 may seem to be inconsistent, but they were a not 
 unnatural part of the negro " bundle of contradic 
 tions," and they can be understood by one who 
 studies them in the light of these leading facts and 
 principles. 
 
 After President Lincoln s Proclamation of Eman 
 cipation was made known among the slaves, they 
 seemed to have no doubt of its sure realization, 
 even though it was yet but a declaration on paper, 
 and its value was dependent on the issue of the 
 war. On the ist of January, 1864, I was in St. 
 Augustine. The "freedmen" in that quaint old 
 town had a joyous celebration of this first anniver 
 sary of the Proclamation of Emancipation. The 
 idea was wholly their own, and they had charge 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 403 
 
 of all the details of the plan, including the prepara 
 tion of the entertainment, although the military 
 authorities gave them help as they requested it. 
 
 The blacks, old and young, were out in full 
 force, and bedecked in all the finery they could 
 command. They gathered on the old Spanish 
 plaza in the center of the town, and had exercises 
 appropriate to the occasion. Then they invited 
 their white guests, military and civic, to a collation 
 spread in the upper room of the old Government 
 Building, just west of the plaza. It was astonish 
 ing what a generous display of fine cakes and con 
 fections those pastry-cooks and other blacks had 
 provided for the occasion, and what delight they 
 had in serving it in their best style, out of their 
 overflowing joy and gratitude. 
 
 One old "Uncle Tom," white-haired, smiling- 
 faced, and tearful-eyed, after passing from group to 
 group of the merry throng, with a fuller apprecia 
 tion of the import of the whole affair in contrast 
 with his past, and in earnest of the future of his 
 long-enslaved and now emancipated people, said to 
 me, out of the depths of his brimming heart: 
 
 " I jus tank de Lord I eber libed to member dis 
 day. BressdeLord! Bress de Lord!" 
 
 Like Simeon of old, welcoming the coming of 
 the Holy Babe, he was sure that God s promised 
 Deliverer had come "to proclaim liberty to the 
 captives, and the opening of the prison to them 
 that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of 
 
404 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 the Lord." From that day to this his trembling 
 voice has sounded in my ears, as if he were saying, 
 in rejoicing over fulfilled prophecy: 
 
 " Now lettest thou thy servant depart, O Lord, 
 According to thy word, in peace ; 
 For mine eyes have seen thy salvation." 
 
 The Emancipation Proclamation bore date of 
 January I, 1863; it was "sealed and delivered" at 
 Appomattox Court House, April 9, 1865. What 
 had before been a glad promise, then became an 
 accomplished fact. Only those who witnessed the 
 scenes following that event can have any appre 
 hension of the mighty outburst of rejoicing that 
 went up from a race of four millions of slaves en 
 franchised in a moment. 
 
 My regiment was in the victorious column of 
 the Twenty-fourth Army Corps, that turned back 
 from the scene of Lee s surrender to find rest and 
 quarters in evacuated Richmond. At every point 
 along the route the negroes swarmed out to wel 
 come and honor the army which had won them 
 freedom. They shouted their thanks to them ; 
 they called down blessings on their heads; they 
 threw themselves on the ground before them, as 
 the column passed along, hailing them as their 
 deliverers. Yet, under and back of all this out 
 burst of rejoicing and of welcome and thanks to 
 the Union soldiers, there was manifest the feeling, 
 on the part of the enfranchised race, that it was 
 God s work, and that to him was the praise due. 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 405 
 
 They had long prayed, as they waited, for this 
 day, and at last it had come in response to their 
 prayers. Of this they had no doubt. 
 
 As a comrade told me, at one point an old negro 
 mammy, waving her bony arms, shouted to the 
 passing soldiers, above the welcoming cry of the 
 younger blacks : 
 
 " Dun yer t ink yer did it. De Lord dun t all. 
 He jus use yer, dat s all. Bress de Lord, ebery one 
 o yer!" 
 
 And that it ivas God s work, who can doubt ? 
 
 In Richmond for a time the negro seemed su 
 preme, and he evidently felt that he was. It could 
 hardly be supposed that a race just out of bondage 
 would be at once in a state of equilibrium and of 
 entire self-restraint, saying and doing just and only 
 the right thing. But I am describing what I saw 
 and heard, without attempting a defense of it The 
 blacks on all sides were telling of their joy in their 
 new-found liberty, which they did not always dis 
 tinguish from unrestrained license. 
 
 "I wer jus so happy w en I know d it, dat I 
 could n do nuffin but jus lay down n laf, n laf, 
 n laf," said one. " I could jus roll up and laf. I 
 declar I jus felt s happy s a man s got r ligion n s 
 soul." 
 
 Another chimed in with, "Folks say man earn 
 tote a bar l flour ; but I c d tote a bar l flour dat 
 day, or a bar l sugar." 
 
 Said another, with evident appreciation of the 
 
406 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 privileges of a freedman, "I seed a rebel gwine 
 down de street dat mornin wid a big ham, and I 
 jus tuk dat ham, and run d right down de street 
 He holler me t stop ; but I jus keep dat ham." 
 
 Many of the negroes wanted to tell of the con 
 trast between the old days and these. 
 
 "We hab more liberty in n hour, when you 
 Yankees come, dan n all our lives fore." 
 
 Some of them would burst out with recitals of 
 their sufferings as slaves. 
 
 "Dey part us all. Dey send off our families. 
 Dey send us whar dey please. Dey han cuff us. 
 Dey put us in jail. Dey gib us lashes. Dey starb 
 us. Dey do eb ryt ing to us." 
 
 The colored Union soldiers, of the Twenty- 
 fifth Army Corps, who were with us in Rich 
 mond, were moving about among their released 
 brethren, telling of their military exploits, and they 
 were, of course, lions among the freedmen. De 
 scribing their advange over the Confederate works 
 across the New Market Road, as they were the 
 first to enter Richmond, on Monday morning, 
 April 3, one said : 
 
 "We wait for de daylight, cause ob tarpeeders, 
 and den we hab rebel so jers show us de way. 
 Whew ! De tarpeeders jus as thick as de wool on 
 top o my head." 
 
 Of the reception of the colored troops by their 
 Richmond brethren, he added : 
 
 " De people jus t ink all de worl* ob we Nordern 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 407 
 
 so jers. Dey jus hang bout us, and comperlent 
 us. I seed some o our boys goin down der 
 streets wid der Richmon ladies on der arm. Oh, 
 my ! Yer d ha think* d twas a extra !" 
 
 And it was. 
 
 Of course the freed slaves were unable to com 
 prehend at once all that emancipation brought of 
 new obligations to service, and of added respon 
 sibility of toil for their own support. That had to 
 come gradually. They did, indeed, at the start, 
 enjoy making money by trade in the line of the 
 wants of the Union soldiers, or of the needs of the 
 community and their own personal skill. The 
 camps about Richmond were soon beset with 
 black women and children offering sweets and 
 "snacks" of their own cookery. Small tables 
 were set along the streets and roads with milk, 
 and ice-cream, and lemonade, and cakes, for sale, 
 to tempt the passing soldiers. And rude signs 
 were scrawled over cabins and small shops, as if in 
 the hope of bringing in extra pennies for service 
 for old customers or new. The announcement, in 
 one case, of "Ice-Cream and Children s Hair Cut," 
 showed a commendable readiness to cut or cater 
 for whoever would pay for it. They were ready to 
 provide for themselves, if they did not have to work 
 too hard. 
 
 A friend of mine coming from the North just 
 then with enthusiastic ideas of the negro s ability 
 to grapple with eveiy duty of life, told me of his 
 
408 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 observation among freedmen on the seacoast He 
 saw a group of able-bodied black men who had 
 apparently come down from the country to enjoy 
 their liberty. As he asked them what they were 
 doing for their own support, they said they were 
 doing nothing. When he asked why not, they 
 said there was no one to employ them. Just then 
 a man came up from a lumber schooner lying at 
 the dock near by, and wanted a number of men to 
 work at unloading the cargo. Not one of those 
 freedmen could be hired. 
 
 " I thought you wanted work," said my friend. 
 "Now s your chance to take hold." 
 
 " O massa ! we wants work, but we don want no 
 lab rin work." 
 
 Their idea of a desirable job was, as yet, that 
 which keeps many a white man from doing what 
 he ought to do for his own support. But sooner 
 or later the freedmen learned that emancipation 
 brought the privilege and duty of doing "lab rin 
 work" in order to live. 
 
 During the early days of the confused " recon 
 struction " period, side-lights on slavery and eman 
 cipation as related to the whites were to be seen in 
 Richmond that are well worth remembering. My 
 old commander, General Alfred H. Terry, was in 
 charge of the Department of Virginia, and his 
 chief of staff in that position was my long-time 
 friend, General Joseph R. Hawley. As Richmond 
 was still a center of interest to Confederate leaders 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 409 
 
 generally, and was the prominent point of the quon 
 dam Confederacy nearest to the national capital, it 
 was the scene of many an interesting interview and 
 cliscussion between those who had faced each other 
 as enemies, but now met as friends. I was fre 
 quently in the office at department headquarters. 
 
 The United States government had promised 
 transportation from Richmond to all officers and 
 men of the Confederate army desiring to return to 
 their homes. One day, a gentleman in civilian 
 dress came in and applied for such transportation. 
 When asked his name, he answered modestly, 
 
 "J. E. Johnston." 
 
 General Hawley, hearing the name, started up, 
 and asked : 
 
 "Is this General Joseph E. Johnston?" 
 
 "That s what they called me," was the reply. 
 
 At this General Hawley said that he was sure 
 that General Terry would be glad to meet General 
 Johnston personally ; and the three officers were 
 soon together, talking over war memories earnestly 
 and in excellent spirit. 
 
 On one occasion, General Henry A. Wise, gov 
 ernor of Virginia at the time of the John Brown 
 raid, came into the office to apply for the interven 
 tion of General Terry to repossess him of a build 
 ing on his lands in the eastern part of the state. 
 In the course of the conversation, it came out that 
 that building was now occupied as a school for little 
 negroes, taught by a daughter of old John Brown, 
 
4io War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 whom he had had hanged. The disclosure of this 
 fact caused a friend of General Wise, who was 
 present, to comment on the strange turn of affairs 
 by which, within six years from the execution of 
 John Brown, the governor who hanged him was im 
 ploring the help of the United States government 
 to drive one of John Brown s daughters out of the 
 governor s house, where she was teaching little 
 negroes. To the surprise of all, General Wise 
 responded earnestly: 
 
 "John Brown ! John Brown was a great man, 
 sir. John Brown was a great man !" 
 
 Henry A. Wise was man enough to realize that 
 God s ways of working seem different when looked 
 back upon in accomplished history, and when seen 
 distortedly coming toward us through the mists of 
 personal prejudices and fears. 
 
 General Hawley told me of having a long per 
 sonal talk with Governor Wise, at one time, about 
 that same John Brown. "The Governor spoke of 
 Brown with great respect He saw him at the 
 time of Brown s capture, and was much impressed. 
 Among other remarks of the Governor about 
 Brown were these : He was a very remarkable 
 man. There he lay on the floor of the engine- 
 house, leaning upon one elbow, smutty, dusty, 
 and bloody, reasoning with me with great earn 
 estness upon the exceeding sinfulness of slavery, 
 trying to make an abolitionist of me ! He forgot 
 that he was certainly about to be hanged, and that 
 
Seeing Slavery and Emancipation 4 1 1 
 
 I was the chief executive, in whose hands was his 
 life. " 
 
 Harriet Beecher Stowe s graphic delineation of 
 slavery as it was, in the story of " Uncle Tom s 
 Cabin," was at the time of its writing much dis 
 cussed and bitterly denounced both North and 
 South. But when slavery had become the occa 
 sion of a war which united all the North, that 
 story was dramatized and became popular in the 
 theaters of New York. The "stage," which never 
 attempts to lead public sentiment in an unpopular 
 direction, can always be depended on to follow at 
 a paying distance behind the average public senti 
 ment in a question of morals ; and so that story 
 became familiar to many who now wanted to be 
 lieve the worst that it told of a representative 
 institution of the South. 
 
 After the war many Southerners who came 
 North went to see that play of " Uncle Tom s 
 Cabin," although they had never read the book. 
 Two of my acquaintances, the one from Missouri 
 and the other from South Carolina, went together, 
 in this way, to see it performed in a popular New 
 York theater. As they left the theater at the close 
 of the evening, as my Missouri friend informed me, 
 the South-Carolinian walked along for some time 
 without saying a word, and then laconically ex 
 pressed himself: 
 
 "Will, that s what licked us." 
 
 And it was not strange that he thought so. 
 
412 War Memories of a Chaplain 
 
 The North, it must be remembered, had a full 
 share of responsibility for slavery with its evils at 
 the South. The South has a full share of the 
 blessings of emancipation brought about by the 
 outpouring of the best blood of both North and 
 South. President Rutherford B. Hayes, when ad 
 dressing his military companions, on one occasion, 
 with reference to the conflicts of our Civil War, said 
 that never before in the history of the world did 
 the victors in a great conflict gain as much as was 
 won in this instance by the vanquished ; and this 
 in addition to what was gained by the victors. It 
 is, therefore, well for us to consider now these plain 
 truths about slavery as it was, and about emancipa 
 tion as it came to pass : 
 
 " Lest we forget lest we forget" 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 ABSOLUTION under fire, given by 
 
 Chaplain Corby, 6. 
 Academy of Music, General Grant s 
 
 welcome in, 326. 
 Agnew, Rev. Dr. B. H., as army 
 
 chaplain, 13. 
 Albany, flag of Thirtieth New York 
 
 Regiment in military museum at, 
 
 158. 
 Ambrose, Rev. Thomas L., as army 
 
 chaplain, 10. 
 American flag: to be honored, 172; 
 
 lowered at Fort Sumter, 173 ; 
 
 raised again over Fort Sumter, 
 
 I 73- 
 American Revolution, veterans of, 
 
 IO2. 
 
 Anderson, General Robert, at Fort 
 
 Sumter, 173, 246. 
 Anderson s Zouaves, reference to, 
 
 I 7S- 
 
 Andrews, Governor, accepting old 
 
 flags in front of Connecticut 
 
 Statehouse, 170. 
 Appomattox Court House, surrender 
 
 of General Lee at, 91, 200. 
 Army chapels and religious services, 
 
 15-38. 
 Arthur, Ex-President, at General 
 
 Grant s funeral, 332. 
 Articles of War, reference to, i. 
 Assassination of President Lincoln, 
 
 924. 
 Augur, General, instructions from 
 
 President Grant to, 321 f. 
 " Auld Lang Syne " in St. Paul s 
 
 Cathedral, 156. 
 
 BABBIDGE, Rev. Dr. Charles, as army 
 chaplain, 13. 
 
 Bacon, Rev. Dr. Leonard: his memory 
 of Revolutionary soldiers, 103. 
 
 Bartlett, Captain, of Plymouth, testi 
 mony of, 131. 
 
 Bartlett, Victor, as prisoner of war, 
 3 
 
 " Battle Flag Day " in Connecticut, 
 168, 171. 
 
 Beauregard, General : sending staff 
 officer to Columbia Jail, 59 ; ap 
 peal from, about Florida, 84 ; 
 
 summons from, through aide of, 
 261 ; order from, for service rn 
 " Yankee Hospital," 263 ; Chap 
 lain Trumbull taken in charge by 
 file of soldiers, under aide of, 
 267 ; in solitary confinement by 
 order of, 268 ; taken to headquar 
 ters of, 270 ; cause of order from, 
 271 ; directed to send Chaplain 
 Irumbull to Richmond, 301. 
 
 Beecher, Rev. Henry Ward : his ad 
 dress at Fort Sumter, 173. 
 
 Benham, General, co-operation of, 
 with navy, 336. 
 
 Benton, Rev. Orlando N., as army 
 chaplain, 10. 
 
 Berlin, Imperial Arsenal at, standards 
 in, *54- 
 
 Bermuda Hundreds, army service at, 
 33> 54, *5*> 2*9 f -, 37- 
 
 Blackford, Lord, letter from Dean 
 Church to, 155. 
 
 Bragg, General, reinforcements at 
 Chicamauga for, 281. 
 
 Branchville, night scene at, 272 f. 
 
 Breese, Fleet Captain, report from, 
 354. 
 
 British army, flags of, 155. 
 
 Brooklyn, reunion of soldiers and 
 sailors at, 174. 
 
 " Brown, John, of Osawatomie," 370, 
 410. 
 
 Bryan, Major, Chaplain Trumbull 
 received at Kinston by, 246. 
 
 Buckner, General Simon B., at Gene 
 ral Grant s funeral, 331. 
 
 Bull Run, Rev. Hiram Eddy taken 
 prisoner in battle of, 255, 
 
 Burnside, General : executes Con- 
 federate spies, 59 ; Army of the 
 Potomac in its advance on 
 Fredericksburg, Va., under, 70; 
 attack of, on Fredericksburg, 241 ; 
 soldiers enthusiasm for, 306 ; 
 coast division of, to co-operate 
 with Commodore Goldsborough, 
 336. 
 
 Burnside expedition, reference to, 81. 
 
 Bushnell, Rev. Dr. Horace : his in 
 terest in influence of army life, 
 
 100. 
 
 415 
 
416 
 
 Index 
 
 Butler, Chaplain Frank, killed in 
 battle, 10. 
 
 Butler, General B. F. : troops or 
 dered to New York City under, 
 90; his command "bottled up" 
 at Bermuda Hundreds, 307 ; or 
 dered to Lowell by General 
 Grant, 313; in co-operation with 
 navy, 336. 
 
 CALDWELL, General, at Gettys 
 burg, 5. 
 
 Cameron, Secretary of War, with 
 General Grant in Philadelphia, 
 321 f. 
 
 Camp, Adjutant Henry W. : with 
 chaplain on field at Morris Is 
 land, 256 ; sent to Columbia, 267 ; 
 in Columbia, 272, 275, 278, 288 ; 
 playing chess in prison, 282 ; 
 parting with, in prison, 289. 
 
 Catholic chapel of Fort Marion, 31. 
 
 Catholic officers, reference to, 23. 
 
 Catholic soldier, objection of, 22. 
 
 Catskill, monitor, 25, 337, 361, 364, 
 
 Chalfant, Rev. Dr. George Wilson, 
 as army chaplain, 13. 
 
 Chaplain, army : place and work of, 
 1-14 ; rank of, 2 ; moral influence 
 of, 5 ; soldiers estimate of, 8 ; 
 sermons of, 65-104 ; pastoral work 
 of, 105-132. 
 
 " Chaplains Aid Commission " in 
 Connecticut. 16. 
 
 Chaplains, Confederate, reference to, 
 14. 
 
 Chase, Chief Justice, reference to, 311. 
 
 Charleston : operations before, 24, 
 174; prison hospital at, 25 ; siege 
 of, 58, 73, 77, 80, 237 f.; in jail at, 
 77, 259 ; prisoner in, 124. 
 
 Charleston Courier : reference to, 
 211 ; cited, 212, 271. 
 
 Christian Commission : hospital tent 
 fly given by, 35 ; peaches given 
 by, 116 ; burial parties from, 
 228 f. ; supplies for prisoners 
 from, 296. 
 
 Church, Dean, quotation from, 155. 
 
 City Point, General Grant s head 
 quarters at, 34. 
 
 Cleveland, President, at Grant s 
 funeral, 332. 
 
 Cold Harbor, burial parties sent to, 
 by Christian Commission, 228. 
 
 Collier, Rev. Dr. G. W., as army 
 chaplain, 13. 
 
 Color-sergeant : in South Carolina, 
 157 ; of Pennsylvania regiment 
 killed, 157. 
 
 Columbia, in jail at, 25, 58 f., 77. 
 
 " Columbus," a freedman army ser 
 vant, 394-398. 
 
 Communion service in New Berne 
 Presbyterian Church, 17. 
 
 Confederate : dead, reference to, n ; 
 chaplains in Northern war 
 prisons, 14 ; attempt to blow up 
 New Ironsides, 58 f. ; spies exe 
 cuted, 59 ; flag on steamboat, 162 ; 
 capital, home guard of, 162. 
 
 Confederate Testament, given to sol 
 dier in Columbia, 131. 
 
 Connecticut : flag first on Fort Gregg, 
 165 f. ; flag made of preserved 
 fragments, 167 ; regimental colors 
 in Hartford Arsenal, 168. 
 
 Corby, Chaplain Very Rev. William, 
 as regimental chaplain, giving 
 absolution at Gettysburg, 5 f.; 
 performing absolution, 12. 
 
 Coronation of a Tsar, presentation 
 
 of the national flag at, 155. 
 Coronation " sung by soldiers at 
 
 Deep Bottom, 88. 
 " Creed," a freedman 
 
 army servant, 
 
 394-399- 
 ells f 
 
 Cromwell s soldiers, reference to, 102. 
 Cummings Point, reference to, 257 f. 
 
 DADE, Major, monument of, in St. 
 
 Augustine, 217. 
 
 Darbytown road, scene on, 226. 
 Davis, Jefferson, proclamation of, 
 
 262. 
 Davis, John, gunner on " Valley 
 
 City," 343. 
 Death of: General Grant, 328 f. ; 
 
 Commander G. W. Rodgers, 364. 
 Deep Bottom : Sunday service at,87 f.; 
 
 army service at, 46, 151, 161, 179. 
 Deep Run, army service at, 47. 
 De Fontaine, Dr., at Kinston, 246 f. 
 De Forest, President H. S., as army 
 
 chaplain, 12. 
 Denison, Rev. Dr. Frederic, as army 
 
 chaplain, 13. 
 Department of the South, references 
 
 to, 23, 28. 
 
 Deserters and desertions, 177-202. 
 " Desirableness of Active Service," 86 
 Devotion to flag, 153-176. 
 Disclosures of soldier heart, 39-64. 
 Donelson, Fort, Admiral Foote dis 
 abled at, 206. 
 Dow, General Neal, ranking officer 
 
 in Libby, 293. 
 
 Doyle, Mayor, of Providence, pre 
 senting greetings to General 
 
 Grant, 315. 
 
 Draft riots in New York City, 55. 
 Drewry s Bluff, Confederate soldier 
 
 dying near, 141. 
 
Index 
 
 417 
 
 Dupont, Admiral, in co-operation 
 with army commanders, 335 f. 
 
 Dutton, Corporal, flag of Connecticut 
 carried by, 165. 
 
 EATON, General John, as army chap 
 lain, ii f. 
 
 Eddy : Rev. Dr. Hiram, as army 
 chaplain, 13 ; taken prisoner, 255. 
 
 Edinburgh Review, quotation from, 
 340. 
 
 Edwards, Rev. Dr. Arthur, as army 
 chaplain, 12. 
 
 Eighty-eighth New York Regiment, 
 reference to, 5. 
 
 Election of 1864, reference to, 89 f. 
 
 Eleventh Maine, references to, 38, 50, 
 
 "5- 
 
 Ellsworth, Colonel, death of, 204. 
 
 Emancipation Proclamation : refer 
 ence to, no; date of, 404. 
 
 Emancipation, slavery and, 367-412. 
 
 Evans, General, in command at 
 Kinston, 242-244. 
 
 FAIR GROUNDS at New Berne, refer 
 ence to, 133. 
 
 Fair Oaks, old battle ground at, 227. 
 
 Farragut, Admiral, in co-operation 
 with army officers, 335. 
 
 Fasting, national day of, 93. 
 
 " Father Leo," as army chaplain, 13. 
 
 Federal chaplains in Libby Prison, 14. 
 
 Federal exchange boat, 162. 
 
 Federal officers selected from Libby 
 Prison for execution, 59 f. 
 
 Fifty-first New York Regiment, refer 
 ence to, 10. 
 
 Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regi 
 ment, references to, 212, 338. 
 
 Fifty-sixth NewYork Regiment, refer 
 ence to, 24. 
 
 First Connecticut Regiment, reference 
 to, 255. 
 
 " First Louisiana Corps d Afrique," 
 reference to, 263. 
 
 Fish, Hamilton, Secretary of State, 
 with General Grant, 321 f. 
 
 Flag: hauled down at Fort Sumter, 
 65; devotion to, 153-177. 
 
 Flag of truce : mail by, 144 ; letter by, 
 146 ; under a, 233-252. 
 
 Flag-of-truce boat, Stars and Stripes 
 on, 162. 
 
 Flags, tattered, in St. Paul s, 155 f. 
 
 Florida, Tenth Regiment ordered to, 
 80. 
 
 Foote, Admiral : at home disabled by 
 wound, 206 ; co-operating with 
 General Grant, 335. 
 
 Fort Delaware, prisoner of war in, 
 
 Fort Donelson, Admiral Foote dis 
 abled at, 206. 
 
 Fort Gregg : brigade assigned to as 
 sault, 164 ; one of detached works 
 before Petersburg, 200 
 
 Fort Harrison General Gram at, 306. 
 
 Fort Marion, Catholic chapel in, 31 
 
 Fort Sumter : Commander Rodgers 
 killed by a shot from, 25 ; flag 
 lowering and raising at, 65, 173 f., 
 246 ; stopping at sally-port of, 
 * 5 8. 
 
 Fort Wagner : Union soldiers brought 
 up from before, 124 f. ; after attack 
 on, 210 f. ; battle of, 257-264. 
 
 Fortress Monroe, steamer to, 150. 
 
 Fortress San Marco, services in, 31. 
 
 Foster, General John G. : his hearty 
 approval of chaplain s work, 23 ; 
 his command, 70 ; on steamer 
 Pilot Boy, 135 f. ; his move into 
 interior of North Carolina, 241 ; 
 enthusiasm of his soldiers, 306. 
 
 Foster General Hospital, death of 
 Christian officer in, 23. 
 
 Fox, Professor Norman, as army 
 chaplain, 12 
 
 Fox, Colonel William F., cited, 9, 11. 
 
 Freedmen (see " Slavery and Emanci 
 pation," 367-412). 
 
 French national colors, preserved in 
 Berlin, 154. 
 
 Frisbie, Rev. Dr. B. L., as army 
 chaplain, 13. 
 
 Fuller, Chaplain Arthur B., dying at 
 Fredericksburg, 10. 
 
 Funeral service at New Berne, 39 f. 
 
 GAINES S MILL, battle-field of, 228. 
 
 Gay, the Rev. Dr. Albert Zabriskie, 
 as army chaplain, 12. 
 
 German socialist, cited, 171. 
 
 Gettysburg, battle of, absolution 
 given to regiment at, 5. 
 
 Gibbon, Major-General John : ready 
 to give aid to the chaplain, 23 ; 
 cited, 201. 
 
 Gibson, Rev. Dr. J. T., as army chap 
 lain, 12. 
 
 Gillmore, Major-General : ready to 
 give aid to chaplain, 23; his as 
 sault on Fort Wagner, 256 ; flag 
 of truce from, 271 ; enthusiasm of 
 soldiers for, 306 ; in co-operation 
 with navy, 336. 
 
 Gilmore, James R., sent to Rich 
 mond by flag of truce, 308. 
 
 Glimpses of General Grant, 305-334. 
 
 Goldsboro , railroad bridge destroyed 
 at, 209, 241. 
 
 Goldsborough, Commodore, General 
 Burnside co-operating with, 336 
 
Index 
 
 Goodyear, General, seeking to stop 
 desertions, 107. 
 
 Gordon, General George, sent by 
 Grant to make investigation, 313. 
 
 Gordon, General John B., at General 
 Grant s funeral, 331. 
 
 Graham s phonography in jail, 282. 
 
 Granger, Hon. Francis, leader of 
 "Silver Gray Whigs," 369. 
 
 Grant, General : headquarters at City 
 Point, 34 ; preparations for his 
 fresh campaign in Virginia, 81 ; 
 forward movement of armies 
 under, 87, 200 ; operations in Vir 
 ginia under, 149 ; assault under 
 eye of, 202 ; policy of, in intermit 
 ting exchange of prisoners, 255; 
 glimpses of, 305-334 ; first sight 
 of, 307 ; first call on, 310 ; Cen 
 tennial message to Sunday-school 
 children from, 319 ; message to 
 General Sherman from, 321 ; trip 
 around the world of, 325 ; wel 
 come home of, 325 ; death of, 328. 
 
 Gregg, Fort, assault of, 164, 200. 
 
 "Grover House," oeyond Deep Bot 
 tom, 308, 310. 
 
 HAGOOD, General, on Morris Island, 
 
 257. 
 Hall, Rev. Dr. Edward H., as army 
 
 chaplain, 13. 
 Hancock, General : at Gettysburg, 
 
 5, 8 ; at General Grant s funeral, 
 
 332- 
 
 Hanna, Lieutenant, under flag of 
 truce, 242. 
 
 Hardy, Commodore, British fleet 
 under, 234, 236. 
 
 Harris, Captain, held as hostage for 
 Confederate prisoner, 349. 
 
 Hartford Arsenal, regimental colors 
 of troops of Connecticut in, 168. 
 
 Hartz, Lieutenant, seeking to save 
 regimental colors, 166. 
 
 Hatch, Captain, Confederate agent 
 of exchange, 301. 
 
 Hatteras,Cape : Sunday service near, 
 16 ; memories of, 81. 
 
 Hawley, General Joseph R.: in com 
 mand of ceremonies on " Battle- 
 Flag Day," 168 f. ; chairman of 
 Republican convention, 300 f.; 
 president of Centennial Exhibi 
 tion, 320 ; chief of staff, 408 f. 
 
 Hayes, Ex-President : at General 
 Grant s funeral, 332 ; estimate of 
 results of the Civil War, 412. 
 
 Heart of soldier, disclosures of, 
 
 Hepworth, the Rev. Dr. George H., as 
 army chaplain, 13. 
 
 mental 
 
 Hesse, Corporal John C., regi 
 
 colors concealed by, 166. 
 Hines, Lieutenant, of North Carolina, 
 
 commanding flag-of-truce escort, 
 
 245, 248. 
 Hollywood Cemetery, Memorial Day 
 
 in, 229. 
 
 Home mail, influence of, 133-152. 
 Hopkins, the Rev. Dr. Henry, as 
 
 army chaplain, 13. 
 Howard, General O. O., telling of 
 
 West Point Chapel, 319 f. 
 Hoyt, Governor Henry M., welcom 
 ing General Grant, 325. 
 Hughes, Archbishop, army chaplain 
 
 deputed by, 27. 
 Hunter, General, regiment under, in 
 
 operations against Charleston, 
 
 336. 
 
 IMPERIAL ARSENAL at Berlin, stan 
 dards in, 154. 
 
 Influence of home mail, 133-152. 
 
 Ireland, Archbishop John, as army 
 chaplain, 11. 
 
 Irish Brigade at Gettysburg, 5. 
 
 JAMES, the Rev. Dr. Horace, as 
 army chaplain, 13. 
 
 Janeway, Chaplain, taking part in 
 dedication of army chapel, 36. 
 
 Jaquess, Colonel, sent to Richmond 
 by flag of truce, 308. 
 
 Johnston, General Joseph E. : at 
 General Grant s funeral, 331 ; at 
 Richmond after war, 409. 
 
 Jordan. General Thomas : as chief-of- 
 staff to General Beauregard, 270 ; 
 protests against release of Chap 
 lain Trumbull, 302. 
 
 KEOUOH, William, regimental post 
 master, 133. 
 
 Kimball, Rev. J. C., as army chap 
 lain, 13. 
 
 Kinston, battle of, 18, 23, 45, 209, 
 212, 241. 
 
 " Kirke, Edmund," sent to Richmond 
 under flag of truce, 308. 
 
 Knaggs, Adjutant, sorting mail in 
 Libby, 144. 
 
 LEE, General Robert E. : references 
 to, 91, 200, 201, 241 ; reinforce 
 ments at Chickamauga on their 
 way from, 281. 
 
 " Leo, Father," as army chaplain, 13. 
 
 Letters from home, influence of, 133- 
 152. 
 
 Libby Prison : Federal chaplains in, 
 
 14 ; Federal officers selected for 
 
 execution from, 59 f.; inmate of, 
 
 f., 255 ; home mail in, 144 f.; 
 
Index 
 
 419 
 
 American flag, " union down," 
 on wall, 162 ; national colors 
 concealed by prisoners in, 167 ; 
 life in, 290-300. 
 
 Lincoln, President : picture of, in 
 rustic chapel, 35 f.; Thanksgiving 
 Day proclamation of, 68; second 
 election of, 89 ; assassination of, 
 92 f.; proclamation of emancipa 
 tion of, no, 251, 380; grief over 
 Colonel Ellsworth s death, 204 f. 
 
 Linkings with the navy, 335-366. 
 
 Little Washington, North Carolina, 
 242. 
 
 Longstreet, General James, quotation 
 from, 319. 
 
 Luck, Dr. J. T., naval surgeon, 289. 
 
 Lundman, Swedish deserter, 62. 
 
 Lynch, Bishop : his interest in sol 
 diers, 25, 27, 265. 
 
 Lynch, Colonel, advancing with 
 color sergeant, 161. 
 
 MAIL from home, influence of, on sol 
 diers, 133-152. 
 
 Man overboard in Port Royal har 
 bor, 42-45. 
 
 Manning, Rev. Dr. J. M., as army 
 chaplain, 13. 
 
 McCabe, Bishop C. C., as army chap 
 lain, 12. 
 
 McClellan, General, references to, 61, 
 89, 157, 227. 
 
 McCfennahan, Captain, at Kinston, 
 247. 
 
 McCook, Rev. Dr. Henry C., as army 
 chaplain, 13. 
 
 McGruder, General, reference to, 247. 
 
 McMahon, Bishop Lawrence, as army 
 chaplain, 12. 
 
 McNeill, Major, at Kinston, 246. 
 
 Meagher, General Thomas, at battle 
 of Gettysburg, 6. 
 
 Mechanicsville, dead soldiers at field 
 of, 228. 
 
 Memorial Day in Hollywood Ceme 
 tery, 229. 
 
 Memorial Day services in Richmond, 
 220. 
 
 Meredith, General, Commissioner of 
 Exchange, 302. 
 
 Military Academy at West Point, 
 reference to, 171 f. 
 
 " Missouri Compromise," repeal of, 
 
 Mitchell, General, in co-operation 
 
 with navy, 336. 
 Monitor Catskill, in South Carolina 
 
 waters, 25. 
 Moore, Colonel, messenger between 
 
 South Carolina and Fort Sumter, 
 
 246. 
 
 Moors, Rev. Dr. John H., as army 
 chaplain, 13. 
 
 Morris Island : battle on, 25 ; cap 
 tured on, 77 ; wounded prisoners 
 from, 125-263 f. ; dead soldier on, 
 141; disposition of dead on, 215 f.; 
 naval surgeon captured on, 260; 
 Union officers from, 272. 
 
 " Muggins," killed before Petersburg, 
 223. 
 
 Mulford, Major, Union agent of ex 
 change, 301. 
 
 Mulholland, General St. Clair, at 
 Gettysburg, 6. 
 
 NAPOLEON: standards of, 154; old 
 soldier s estimate of, 304 f. 
 
 Navy, linkings with, 335-366. 
 
 Negroes (see "Slavery and Eman 
 cipation"), 367-412. 
 
 Nelson, Lord : tomb of, at St. Paul s 
 Cathedral, 155; death of, 236. 
 
 Neuse River, mail steamer coming up, 
 133. 
 
 New Berne Presbyterian Church, 
 communion service in, 17. 
 
 New Berne : hospitals at, 23, 30, 39 f. ; 
 battle of, 48. 
 
 New England Thanksgiving Day, 
 68 f. 
 
 New Hampshire boy dying in hos 
 pital, 126. 
 
 New Ironsides before Charleston, 58 f. 
 
 New York City, draft riots in, 55, 90. 
 
 New York Engineers, rustic chapel 
 of, 34- 
 
 New York Fire Zouaves, 204. 
 
 New York papers, news by, 87. 
 
 Nicolls, Rev. Dr. Samuel J., as army 
 chaplain, 12. 
 
 North Edisto Inlet, near Charleston, 
 19, 24. 
 
 Northwestern Christian Advocate, 
 reference to, 12. 
 
 Northern prisons, Confederate chap 
 lains in, 14. 
 
 Northrop, Corporal, of the color- 
 guard, 164 f. 
 
 OGLETHORPH, General, bombarding 
 Spanish fort, 31. 
 
 " Old Maggie," a typical Southern 
 mammy, 276. 
 
 Ord, General, application to Presi 
 dent Lincoln by, 198, 202. 
 
 Ord, Mrs., presenting medals to color- 
 bearers, 202. 
 
 Ould, Judge, Confederate Commis 
 sioner of Exchange, 301. 
 
 PARMALHE, Corporal, of the color- 
 guard, 165 f. 
 
420 
 
 Index 
 
 Petersburg : trenches at, 10 ; siege of, 
 34, 52, 99 222, 224, 237 f. ; final 
 attack on, 164. 
 
 Phillips, Corporal, bearing colors, 165. 
 
 Picket duty on Seabrook Island, 77. 
 
 Pilot Boy, regiment on steamer, 135 f. 
 
 Pitman s phonography discussed in 
 jail, 282. 
 
 Place and work of regimental chap 
 lain, 1-14. 
 
 Port Hudson, Maine soldier killed at, 
 
 So- 
 Port Royal harbor, man overboard 
 
 in, 42-45. 
 
 Port Royal, South Carolina, 19. 
 Porter, Admiral, in co-operation with 
 
 army officers, 336, 342. 
 Porter, Lieutenant Benjamin H., 
 
 sketch of, 344-350. 
 
 Porter, Colonel Horace, tells of Gene 
 ral Grant s popularity, 306. 
 Presbyterian church in St. Augustine, 
 
 29, 80. 
 Preston, Colonel, in command at 
 
 Columbia, 273. 
 Preston, Lieutenant S. W., sketch of, 
 
 350-3S5- 
 
 Prison hospital at Charleston, 25, 264. 
 Prisoner of war, experiences as, 253- 
 
 34- 
 
 Pryor, General Roger A., at Peters 
 burg, 240 f. 
 
 Putnam, Colonel, killed at Fort Wag 
 ner, 212. 
 
 QUEEN Street, Charleston, prison 
 
 hospital on, 264. 
 Quint, Rev. Dr. A. H., as army 
 
 chaplain, 13. 
 
 RAMILIES, English flagship, 236. 
 Regiment ordered to Florida, 80. 
 Regimental chaplain, place and work 
 
 of, 1-14. 
 
 Regimental postmaster, 133. 
 " Regimental losses in the Civil 
 
 War," 9. 
 Reno, General, testifies to chaplain s 
 
 fidelity, 10. 
 
 Richland jail, Columbia, 26 f., 272-288. 
 Richmond: siege of, 34, 237 f.; fall 
 
 of, 91 ; demonstration against, 
 
 162 ; Memorial Day in, 229-231. 
 Richmond jail, prisoner of war in, 255. 
 Riddle, Professor M. B., as army 
 
 chaplain, 12. 
 Ripley, General, in command at 
 
 Charleston, 257. 
 Riverside Park, funeral of Grant at, 
 
 Roanoke Island, soldier in battle at, 
 48. 
 
 Rodgers, Commander G. W., refer 
 ence to and sketch of, 25, 359-366. 
 
 Rollins, Hon. E. A., Commissioner 
 of Internal Revenue, 316. 
 
 Ruger, General, instructions from 
 President Grant to, 321 f. 
 
 Russell, Colonel Charles L., funeral 
 ceremonies of, 205 f. 
 
 ST. AUGUSTINE, army service in, 31, 
 
 80, 100, in, 159, 216. 
 St. Helena Island, service on, 19, 24, 
 
 73. "o. 
 St. Paul s Cathedral, tattered flags in, 
 
 155 f- 
 
 Salisbury, prison at, 132, 281. 
 San Antonio, officers and men taken 
 
 prisoners at, 166. 
 
 San Marco, fort at St. Augustine, in. 
 Sanitary Commission, boxes from, 
 
 296. 
 
 Screven House, incident in, 288 f. 
 Seabrook Island, army service on, 19, 
 
 25, 77- 
 
 Sermons, chaplain s, 65-104. 
 Seven Pines, battle-field of, 227. 
 Seventh Connecticut Regiment, old 
 
 flag of, 170. 
 
 Seventh Michigan Cavalry officer,i44. 
 Seventh New Hampshire at Fort 
 
 Wagner, 212. 
 Seventy-seventh British Regiment, 
 
 old colors of, 156. 
 Seymour, General Truman W., in 
 
 co-operation with navy, 336. 
 Shaw, Captain, party conducted to, 
 
 while under flag of truce, 242. 
 Shaw, Colonel Robert G., killed at 
 
 Fort Wagner, 212, 338. 
 Sheridan, General Philip H.. at Gene 
 ral Grant s funeral, 331 f. 
 Sherman, General William T, : his 
 
 reverence for the old flag, 172 ; 
 
 message sending directions to, 
 
 321 ; at Grant s funeral, 331. 
 " Silent Comforter," wall roll, 29 f. 
 " Silver Gray Whigs," origin of the 
 
 term, 369. 
 
 Simons, Captain Thomas Y., Con 
 federate officer met on Morris 
 
 Island and later, 257, 322-324. 
 Sisters of Mercy in prison hospital at 
 
 Charleston, 25. 
 Sixteenth Connecticut Regiment, 
 
 colors of, 167. 
 
 Sixth Massachusetts, chaplain of, 13. 
 Sixty-third North Carolina escort on 
 
 flag of truce, 245. 
 
 Slavery and emancipation, 367-412. 
 Smith, Rev. Dr. Moses, as army 
 
 chaplain, 13. 
 Soldier graves and burials. 203-232. 
 
Index 
 
 421 
 
 Soldier heart, disclosures of, 39-64. 
 
 " Soldiers Grumbling : What Causes 
 and What Comes of It," 98. 
 
 South Carolina, army service in, i8f., 
 2 4-27. 73-77. M, 157- 
 
 Stars and Bars on Confederate 
 steamer, 162. 
 
 Stevenson, General "Tom," our bri 
 gade commander, 363. 
 
 Stevenson, Major, of Boston, in com 
 mand of flag of truce, 241. 
 
 Stone, Rev. Dr. A. L., as army chap 
 lain, 13. 
 
 Stonington, attack on, 213,234. 
 
 Stowe, Harriet Beecher : her work, 
 411. 
 
 Sunday School Times, The, President 
 Grant s message to, 318 f. 
 
 Surrender of General Lee, 91, 200. 
 
 Swede as a deserter, 63. 
 
 Swinton, William, testimony as to 
 Commander G. W. Rodgers, 365. 
 
 TAYLOR, General, reference to, 312. 
 
 Tenth Connecticut Regiment, refer 
 ences to, passim. 
 
 Terry, General Alfred H.: our de 
 partment commander, 96, 408 ; 
 note on Christmas night from, 
 188, 199 ; Chaplain TrumbulPs 
 release demanded at request of, 
 271 ; co-operating with navy, 336 ; 
 ordered to James Island under, 
 338. 
 
 Thanksgiving Day proclamation 
 from President Lincoln, 68 f. 
 
 Thayer, Professor John Henry, as 
 army chaplain, 12. 
 
 Thirtieth New York Regiment, tat 
 tered flag of, at Albany, 158. 
 
 Tiffany, Archdeacon C. C., as army 
 chaplain, 12. 
 
 " Tobacco Warehouse Prison," Rev. 
 Hiram Eddy confined in, 255. 
 
 Towel used as flag of truce, 236. 
 
 Tremont Temple, anniversary occa 
 sion in, 131. 
 
 Trumbull, Lieutenant-Colonel, fune 
 ral of, 100 ; at Malvern Hill, 
 247. 
 
 Trumbull, Colonel John, aide to 
 General Washington, 304. 
 
 Tsar of the Russias, coronation 0^,155. 
 
 Turner, " Dick," of Libby Prison, 
 examined by, 299. 
 
 Turner, Major, commandant of Libby 
 Prison, 292. 
 
 Twelfth New Hampshire, reference 
 to, 10. 
 
 Twenty-fourth Massachusetts: colors 
 of, 159 f. ; Major Stevenson of, 
 241. 
 
 Twichell, Rev. Joseph H., reference 
 to, 13. 
 
 " UNCLE TOM S CABIN," influence of, 
 
 411. 
 Under a flag of truce, 233-252. 
 
 VAN DOKN, Colonel, command of, 
 
 166. 
 Virginia, campaigning in, 32-38, 81-97, 
 
 107-109, 115 f., 159-202, 215 i., 
 
 218-227, 306-309, 339 f., 394-399. 
 
 404-410. 
 
 WARE, Lieutenant E. W., his heroism 
 in prison, 60. 
 
 Washington, General George : his es 
 timate of forces keeping soldiers 
 up to duty, 177; old soldier s 
 view of, 303 f. 
 
 Washington s Birthday, sermon on, 
 
 Wayland, President H. L., as array 
 chaplain, 12. 
 
 Welles, Hon. Gideon, Secretary of 
 Navy, 200. 
 
 Wellington, tomb of, at St. Paul s 
 Cathedral, 155. 
 
 Westminster Abbey, memorial ser 
 vice in honor of Grant in, 328 f. 
 
 West Point Military Academy, rever 
 ence for flag at, 171 f. 
 
 Whitehall, North Carolina, field hos 
 pital at, 46. 
 
 Whittier, John G., Christinas hymn 
 by, 386. 
 
 Williams, Commander E. P., sketch 
 f> 355-359- 
 
 Willson, the Rev. Dr. Edward B., as 
 army chaplain. 13. 
 
 Wilson, Sergeant-Major Joseph K., 
 concealed regimental colors 
 while prisoner, 166. 
 
 Winder, General J. H., Confederate 
 Provost-Marshal General, 290. 
 
 Wines, Rev. Dr. Frederick H., as 
 army chaplain, 12. 
 
 Wise, General Henry A., and old 
 John Brown, 409 f. 
 
 Woodbury, the Rev. Dr. Augustus, 
 as army chaplain, 13. 
 
 Woodford, General Stewart L., at 
 gathering in Brooklyn, 174. 
 
 Worden, Rev. Dr. J. A., as army 
 chaplain, 12. 
 
 YANKFR hospital, ministering to sol 
 diers in, 124, 263 f. 
 
 ZOUAVES, Anderson s, reference to. 
 J 75- 
 
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