THE ARMY CHAPLAIN OF 1863.

READ BEFORE THE NEW YORK COMMANDERY, DECEMBER 13, 1911, BY COMPANION CHAPLAIN, WILLIAM R. EASTMAN.

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HE army chaplain is recognized the world over as having a place in any well-ordered military establishment. This is not because the soldier is, by reason of his trade, any more devout than another man or more desirous of spiritual counsel or given to observances. It is rather the church holding out a hand to the army. The nation accepts it and the soldier, whatever his religious attitude, finds certain emergencies in his career, such as sickness, wounds, and death, in view of which a friend is not only tolerated but desired.

One Sunday afternoon in May, 1861, I was at a recruiting station in this city at the Assembly Rooms, so called, on Broadway near Grand Street. Men were being enrolled for the first two regiments of the Excelsior Brigade and some five hundred were paraded by companies. Their commander, General Sickles, said to them, "Men, I have called you up to present your chaplains who now stand before you, the Rev. Dr. Buckley of the first regiment and the Rev. Dr. Twichell of the second. They represent," he said, "the great Commander. Respect them. They are good men and they will do you good. You will do well to heed their teachings." Each chaplain, thus introduced, spoke in a few short ringing sentences holding up the fear of God as presenting a soldierly ideal which, when attained, would make it quite unnecessary to fear either man or devil.

The name chaplain is significant. He is the chapel man. He does not need a church. Gothic arches, pulpits, robes, high altars, choirs, responses are without meaning in his work. He is a man who can take with him a great consciousness of the divine presence and speak and act in view of that in any place and in any emergency. It is of the essence of his service that he is always there and always ready. Moving with the column, exposed to heat and storm, sharing every privation, not very far from the battle line, whereever a man, with hurt or pain, may chance to need his help, that spot is his chapel and there he must minister.

In the first order issued by the Adjutant-General of New York, April 18, 1861, naming the officers of volunteers, chaplains are not mentioned. An order of May 1st says that a chaplain shall be appointed for each regiment by the Commander-in-Chief, that is, by the governor, on nomination by the field-officers. An order of the United States War Department, May 4, 1861, gives the full plan for organizing the volunteer force. The chaplain is not named among the regimental officers, but in a memorandum dealing with miscellaneous matters such as musicians and a sutler, etc., the order adds, "There shall be allowed to each regiment one chaplain appointed by the regimental commander on vote of the field-officers and company commanders . who shall be a regularly ordained minister of some Christian denomination." This language, for substance, was copied afterwards in state orders. It fixes the standing of the chaplain as an "allowance.' The War Department, July 13, 1861, ordered that "Chaplains of volunteers be duly mustered into the service in the same manner as prescribed for commissioned officers." This implies that they were not officers and might not be commissioned; although they certainly were commissioned afterward.

An Act of Congress, approved July 22, 1861, repeats the above provisions for appointment, provides that a chaplain's pay shall be that of a captain of cavalry, bringing then about $1400 a year, and adds this as to his duties. "He shall be required to report to the Colonel commanding, at the end

of each quarter, the moral and religious condition of the regiment" (a truly serious task) "and such suggestions as may conduce to the social happiness and moral improvement of the troops. This provision of the law explains, with reasonable clearness, the popular impression of the purpose of a chaplain to promote "social happiness and moral improvement.'

The chaplain's uniform of plain black "without ornament" was prescribed by an order of November 25, 1861. The appointment of hospital chaplains by the President was authorized by Act of May 20, 1862. After July 17, 1862, a chaplain could not be mustered without credentials and recommendation from an ecclesiastical body or from five ministers in good standing. In an order of July 26, 1862, we read this: "The principle being recognized that chaplains should not be held as prisoners of war, it is hereby ordered that all chaplains so held be immediately and unconditionally discharged. This defines the character of a chaplain as a non-combatant, entitled to the privileges and subject to the obligations of such a position.

It was not strange that in the general confusion of the first few months of recruiting, some regiments were accompanied to the field by theological students not yet ordained or even by nominal chaplains, friends of the colonel, who did not even profess to be religious men. But, with duties undefined it was left to each to make the most of his opportunity. And what more could any man ask?

Colonel Higginson, in writing a memorial of Chaplain Fuller, says that the position of chaplain is one in which "the majority of clergymen fail," and he adds, "In a little world of the most accurate order, where every man's duties and position are absolutely prescribed the chaplain alone has no definite position and no prescribed duties. In a sphere where everything is concentrated on one sole end, he alone finds himself of no direct use towards that end and apparently superfluous." He cannot succeed without both "moral energy and tact." And he puts it even more strongly in saying that "nine out of ten are useless.”

Without regard to the regulations, there were certain qualifications for the chaplaincy of a most vital sort. It called for a man,-of a manly sort; of a kindly sympathetic spirit but not weak, of all things not weak, for that would be failure from the beginning; an intelligent man, but with an eye to read men as well as books, able to know a man when he saw him, whatever his clothes or his rank; a shrewd, discriminating, fair man; one to be trusted; having positive convictions but broad-minded, a man of faith with an enthusiasm for people in this world, laying more emphasis on life than doctrine; not lazy, but energetic and, withal, a man of an adventurous spirit, buoyant, cheerful, careless of hardship, a true comrade ready to stand by and to serve to the uttermost. For this is a place where personality alone will count.

The men who offered themselves for this service differed greatly in age, temperament, and power of adaptation as well as in church connections. Some were pastors expecting a short campaign; some I suppose were men out of a place seeking employment; some were students and some were assigned by their ecclesiastical superiors. Before many months had passed chaplains began to resign. The life was rough. The older men found it too hard. The tangible results were slight. In January, 1863, when I first knew the Army of the Potomac, half of the regiments had no chaplains and it was also true that nobody was very much concerned about it. As campaign followed campaign the regiments grew still smaller and one or two chaplains to a brigade were enough.

Now it was obviously impossible for any man to organize in any regiment a religious body who would look to him as their leader. A regiment with three fourths Roman Catholics was not unlikely to have a Protestant chaplain. A Methodist or a Baptist or an Episcopalian would be in camp with men who were decidedly not of his way of thinking. He might recite a collect on dress parade, but compulsory public worship was out of the question. He might invite the men to a Sunday service but who cared to come?

He

might bring around him a handful of men for Bible study and occasional worship, but they were few. So he was obliged to fall back upon a common humanity broader than denomination and look about to do kindnesses to individual men. It was his business, as it was his pleasure, to be on terms of cordial sympathy with them all. Received among officers as an equal, he was no less a friend of the humblest private. Any one had the right to claim his attention. Sometimes they would try to take advantage of him. I remember one fellow of a rather hard reputation who took occasion for a week or two to visit my tent daily and there bewail his many sins, falling upon his knees and praying the Lord to forgive him, and, of course, I kept hoping that this was real until he finally revealed his true purpose by saying that he needed a furlough and he thought that I could help him-if properly approached.

The chaplain would frequent the hospital, talk with the sick and write letters for them and get them delicacies from the Sanitary or Christian Commissions. When the paymaster came, the chaplain had express envelopes in which to send money home for the men. Any such office of kindness naturally fell to him.

At the same time preaching and prayer were not forgotten. On Sunday mornings a few men, twenty or thirty sometimes, would come to the Cook tent for service. On Sunday evenings a crowd would gather around a fire to sing hymns.

In the winter of '63 to '64, the Christian Commission lent a large canvas to cover any log chapel that might be built and there were several brigade chapels that winter near Brandy Station, each seating more than a hundred men. The men of the New York Engineer regiment built an elaborate and artistic log church in the works before Petersburgh. These chapels were occupied night after night not only for religious services, but also for lectures and entertainments. Visiting clergymen from the North often found sympathetic and deeply interested audiences.

The men who learned the church-going habit under camp conditions showed an uncommon earnestness. A church