Soldiers of the Cross, the Authoritative Text

David Power Conyngham

Description

Shortly after the Civil War ended, David Power Conyngham, an Irish Catholic journalist and war veteran, began compiling the stories of Catholic chaplains and nuns who served during the war. His manuscript, Soldiers of the Cross, is the fullest record written during the nineteenth century of the Catholic Church's involvement in the war, as it documents the service of fourteen chaplains and six female religious communities, representing both North and South. Many of Coyngham's chapters contain new insights into the clergy during the war that are unavailable elsewhere, either during his time or ours, making the work invaluable to Catholic and Civil War historians. The introduction contains over a dozen letters written between 1868 and 1870 from high-ranking Confederate and Union officials, such as Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Union Surgeon General William Hammond, and Union General George B. McClellan, who praise the church's services during the war. Chapters on Fathers William Corby and Peter P. Cooney, as well as the Sisters of the Holy Cross, cover subjects relatively well known to Catholic scholars, yet other chapters are based on personal letters and other important primary sources that have not been published prior to this book.

Unpublished due to Conyngham's untimely death, Soldiers of the Cross remained hidden away in an archive for more than a century. Now annotated and edited so as to be readable and useful to scholars and modern readers, this long-awaited publication of Soldiers of the Cross is a fitting presentation of Conyngham's last great work.

The service of priest chaplains, on both sides of the conflict, began with the war’s commencement. During the four years of conflict, about fifty priests, often called “Holy Joes” by the soldiers, ministered to the Union’s Catholic soldiers. Another thirty priests ministered to Confederate regiments, providing the sacraments to Catholic soldiers from the South. Other chaplains stationed near places of battle or in proximity to hospitals served in an unofficial capacity, sometimes providing spiritual care indiscriminately to federal and Confederate soldiers. The Catholic clergy faced most of the same hardships as their Protestant and Jewish counterparts, not the least of which was the lack of standard regulations for chaplains in the Union and Confederate armies at the conflict’s beginning. Clergymen working in Union hospitals, for example, were not officially considered military chaplains until May 1862. Union regimental chaplains received two rations a day and were paid the same as captains of the cavalry while their Confederate counterparts received only $80 a month. In both cases, chaplains were generally nominated by their regiment’s troops or commander, pending an official commission by the Union or Confederate government. While better paid than enlisted men and treated as officers without an official command, chaplains on both sides shared the tedium of camp life, the difficulty of long muddy or dusty marches, and, occasionally, the possibility of violent death at the front with the men of their regiments. Even hospital chaplains far from the front suffered and even died from diseases they contracted from hospital patients. Chaplains on both sides were generally expected to look after the morale of their men, provide spiritual instruction and preaching, and help take care of the sick and dying. According to one recent study, 3,694 men served as chaplains on both sides of which the approximately eighty Catholic priests were only a very small part. The role of Catholic women religious as nurses was more numerically significant than that of the Catholic clergy who served as chaplains. Perhaps twenty percent of all American nuns served as nurses in the war, totaling nearly 700 from at least twenty different religious communities. One historian estimated that one in six female nurses during the war was a Catholic sister. The sisters, invariably called “Sisters of Charity” or “Sisters of Mercy” no matter their membership in a particular religious congregation, served in proportionally higher numbers than any other group of American women, irrespective of region of origin or denomination. In addition to the Daughters of Charity and Sisters of Charity who comprised more than half of all female religious nurses, significant numbers of Sisters of the Holy Cross, Sisters of St. Joseph, Mercy Sisters, Dominicans, and Franciscans also served. Many of these sister nurses remain unknown, omitted even from the historical record out of a sense of modesty. In some cases, especially when abbreviations were used in records, further research has determined their identities. While many Catholic sisters were better trained in nursing than Protestant lay women in the mid-nineteenth century, the sister nurses shared many of the duties and experiences as other women nurses in the Union and Confederacy. When compensated at all, female nurses or hospital workers were poorly paid. To obtain work they required letters of reference from local politicians, prominent civilians, or military officials, and to keep their places they needed to win the trust of the male surgeons and doctors in charge of most Civil War-era hospitals. Many male doctors on both sides initially opposed the appointment of female nurses, preferring instead to employ convalescing male soldiers as helpers around hospital wards. Nonetheless, the famous examples of the English nurse Florence Nightingale and the Sisters of Mercy in the Crimean War (1854-1856) paved the way for Civil War female nurses like Kate Cumming in the South and Clara Barton in the North. Nurses cared for the sick, washed clothes, cleaned hospital wards, assisted at surgeries, wrote letters to loved ones, distributed rations and care packages, and did whatever was necessary to comfort their patients. In addition to their filthy and exhausting work, many women contracted diseases from their patients with some dying as a result. Despite such dangers, the good service Catholic sisters and Protestant lay women rendered during the war helped pave the way for women’s greater participation in nursing and health care to the present day. In the later decades of the nineteenth century, Catholic historians and leaders began to herald publicly the service of Catholic chaplains during the war. Among chaplains on both sides, the most famous is Father William Corby, C.S.C., two-time president of the University of Notre Dame and long-serving chaplain of the North’s famous Irish Brigade. A member of several veterans’ groups including the Grand Army of the Republic, Corby wrote a memoir of his service in 1893 that was well-received by his fellow veterans and the Catholic community. Corby is memorialized with a bronze statue on the Gettysburg battlefield at the spot where he famously gave absolution “under fire.” A copy of the statue and a large painting depicting the event can be found on prominent display on the University of Notre Dame’s campus. James B. Sheeran, C.Ss.R., among the best-known Confederate chaplains, served the many Irishmen of the 14th Louisiana Infantry. The Irish-born father of three was an unusual candidate for the chaplaincy, entering the priesthood after his wife died. During the war the self-assured Sheeran famously informed his general, Stonewall Jackson: “As a priest of God I outrank every officer in your command. I even outrank you.” Sheeran’s extensive war-time journal, first published in excerpted form in 1960, has been recently published in its entirety, helping to assure that Sheeran will continue to be remembered. Despite the fame of a few of the chaplains, the experiences of the rest of the approximately 80 government-recognized priest chaplains and many of the 700 sister nurses who served are relatively little well-known to Civil War scholars or students of American history. Several recent works detail the contributions of individual chaplains or communities of nuns, but many of their contributions remain obscured because of a lack of published sources. (from introduction)

Introduction

1.By Rev. J. F. Trecy

2.By Rev. J. F. Trecy

3.By Rev. J. F. Trecy

4.By Rev. Joseph C. Carrier, C.S.C

5.By Rev. Joseph C. Carrier

6.By Rev. Joseph C. Carrier

7.By Rev. Joseph C. Carrier

8.By Rev. R.C. Christy

9.By Rev. Thomas Scully

10.By Rev. Thomas Scully

11.By Rev. Peter Tissot, S.J.

12.By Rev Thomas Willet, S.J.

13.By Rev. C. L. Egan, O.P.

14.By Rev. Paul E. Gillen, C.S.C.

15.By Rev. Innocent A. Bergrath

16.By Rev. Peter P. Cooney, C.S.C

17.By Rev. Thomas Brady

18.By Rev. William Corby, C.S.C.

19.By Rev. Henry Gache, S.J.

20.By Rev. Charles P. Heuze

21.By Rev. James Sheeran

22.By Rev. James Sheeran

23.By Rev. James Sheeran

24.By Rev. James Sheeran

25.By Rev. James Sheeran

26.The Sisters in the Army

27.The Sisters of Mercy, Charleston

28.The Sisters of Mount St. Vincent, Cincinnati 29.Mount St. Vincent

30.The Sisters of Mercy, St. Louis

31.The Sisters of Mercy, New York

32.The Sisters of Mercy, New York

33.The Sisters of the Holy Cross

34.Sisters of the Holy Cross

Sujets

• Civil War Period
• Religious
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Confederación de Sistemas Independientes
• Dólar
• Confederacy
• Military
• History of the United States
• United States
• Union
• US

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 30 mai 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268105327
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

SOLDIERS OF THE CROSS, THE AUTHORITATIVE TEXT
Atlanta Campaign. Army of the Cumberland. Divine Service by Rev. P. P. Cooney, C.S.C. Chaplain Gen. of Ind. Troops in the field (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, DC)
SOLDIERS of the CROSS, the Authoritative Text
The Heroism of Catholic Chaplains and Sisters in the American Civil War

DAVID POWER CONYNGHAM
Edited by
David J. Endres and William B. Kurtz
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS
NOTRE DAME, INDIANA
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
undpress.nd.edu
Copyright © 2019 by the University of Notre Dame
All Rights Reserved
Published in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Conyngham, David Power, 1840–1883, author. | Endres, David Jeffrey, 1979– editor. | Kurtz, William B. (William Burton), editor.
Title: Soldiers of the cross, the authoritative text : the heroism of    Catholic chaplains and sisters in the American Civil War / David Power Conyngham ; edited by David J. Endres and William B. Kurtz.
Other titles: Heroism of Catholic chaplains and sisters in the American Civil War
Description: Notre Dame, Indiana : University of Notre Dame Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2019012694 (print) | LCCN 2019012873 (ebook) | ISBN 9780268105310 (pdf) | ISBN 9780268105327 (epub) | ISBN 9780268105297 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 0268105294 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH : United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Participation, Catholic. | United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Religious aspects. | Military chaplains—Catholic Church—History—19th century. | Nuns—United States—History—19th century. | United States. Army—Chaplains—History—19th century. | United States. Army—Chaplains—Biography.
Classification: LCC E 540. C 3 (ebook) | LCC E 540. C 3 C 66 2019 (print) | DDC 973.7/78—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019012694
∞This book is printed on acid-free paper.
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail]
Contents
Acknowledgments
Editors’ Introduction
SOLDIERS OF THE CROSS
Introduction
THE FEDERAL CHAPLAINS
Chapter I. Rev. J. F. Trecy: Chaplain 4th U. S. Cavalry
Chapter II. Rev. J. F. Trecy, Continued
Chapter III. Rev. J. F. Trecy, Continued
Chapter IV. Rev. Joseph C. Carrier, C.S.C.: Chaplain 6th Missouri Cavalry
Chapter V. Rev. Joseph C. Carrier, C.S.C., Continued
Chapter VI. Rev. Joseph C. Carrier, C.S.C., Continued
Chapter VII. Rev. Joseph C. Carrier, C.S.C., Continued
Chapter VIII. Rev. R. C. Christy: Chaplain 78th Pennsylvania Volunteers
Chapter IX. Rev. Thomas Scully: Chaplain 9th Massachusetts Veteran Volunteers

Chapter X. Rev. Thomas Scully, Continued
Chapter XI. Rev. Peter Tissot, S.J.: Chaplain 37th New York Volunteers
Chapter XII. Rev. Thomas Willett, S.J.: Chaplain 69th New York Volunteers
Chapter XIII. Rev. C. L. Egan, O.P.: Chaplain 9th Massachusetts Volunteers
Chapter XIV. Rev. Paul E. Gillen, C.S.C.: Chaplain 170th New York Volunteers
Chapter XV. Rev. Innocent A. Bergrath
Chapter XVI. Rev. Peter P. Cooney, C.S.C.: Chaplain 35th Indiana Volunteers
Chapter XVII. Rev. Thomas Brady: Chaplain 15th Michigan Volunteers
Chapter XVIII. Rev. William Corby, C.S.C.: Chaplain 88th New York Volunteers
THE CONFEDERATE CHAPLAINS
Chapter XIX. Rev. Louis-Hippolyte Gache, S.J.: Chaplain 10th Louisiana Volunteers
Chapter XX. Rev. Charles P. Heuzé
Chapter XXI. Rev. James Sheeran, C.Ss.R.: Chaplain 14th Louisiana Volunteers
Chapter XXII. Rev. James Sheeran, C.Ss.R., Continued
Chapter XXIII. Rev. James Sheeran, C.Ss.R., Continued
Chapter XXIV. Rev. James Sheeran, C.Ss.R., Continued
Chapter XXV. Rev. James Sheeran, C.Ss.R., Continued

THE SISTERS
Chapter XXVI. The Sisters in the Army
Chapter XXVII. The Sisters of Mercy, Charleston
Chapter XXVIII. The Sisters of Mount St. Vincent, Cincinnati
Chapter XXIX. Mount St. Vincent, St. Joseph’s Military Hospital, Central Park Grounds
Chapter XXX. The Sisters of Mercy, St. Louis
Chapter XXXI. The Sisters of Mercy, New York
Chapter XXXII. The Sisters of Mercy, New York, Continued
Chapter XXXIII. The Sisters of the Holy Cross
Chapter XXXIV. The Sisters of the Holy Cross, Continued
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
A century and a half ago, David Power Conyngham began writing Soldiers of the Cross . His untimely death placed the not-quite-finished manuscript in limbo, and despite attempts to have it published, it remained among the archival collections of the University of Notre Dame, waiting for its first printing. In 2012, we first discussed undertaking the project of transcribing and editing the work, convinced of its great worth for scholars of the Civil War and American Catholic history.
This long-awaited publication of Soldiers of the Cross has been the work of many. The University of Notre Dame Press, especially Eli Bortz, acquisitions editor, was instrumental in bringing this work to publication. Our thanks are also due to Elizabeth Sain at the press who did a tremendous job in copyediting the book, frequently checking our transcription against the original manuscript. She made many helpful suggestions that greatly improved the quality of our finished work. We are also grateful for the assistance of the staff of the University of Notre Dame Archives, especially Peter Lysy, William Kevin Cawley, and Charles Lamb, for providing permission to publish the manuscript, for digitizing it for our use, and making available images to complement the text. Dr. Cawley helped us acquire correspondence at the archives that explained how Conyngham’s manuscript came to reside at Notre Dame, and he went above and beyond to help our work throughout the editorial process. We would also like to thank Kathleen S. Cummings, director of Notre Dame’s Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, for her support and endorsement of the project.
Many archivists, librarians, and historians provided assistance or consultation, including Gary W. Gallagher, John L. Nau III Professor Emeritus in the History of the American Civil War at the University of Virginia. Dr. Gallagher provided useful advice on editing an unpublished manuscript. His Fighting for the Confederacy: The Personal Recollections of General Edward Porter Alexander (University of North Carolina Press, 1989), served as a model for our own work. Patrick Hayes of the Redemptorist Archives in Philadelphia also offered helpful suggestions and his The Civil War Diary of Father James Sheeran: Confederate Chaplain and Redemptorist (Catholic University of America Press, 2016) proved invaluable in editing the chapters on Father Sheeran. Susan H. Perdue, former director of Documents Compass and veteran documentary editor, also gave advice and training in the field of documentary editing to Dr. Kurtz. Alex T.  Dugas of Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Cincinnati served as a research assistant, uncovering the biographies of sometimes-obscure chaplains. Dr. Jeffrey Zvengrowski, current editor at the Papers of George Washington, provided an extra set of eyes during our initial proofreading and helped to transcribe some of the more difficult portions of the text.
Each of us is thankful for the support of our own respective communities of fellow scholars, friends, and family. Father Endres is grateful to the priests, seminarians, and faculty at the Athenaeum of Ohio/Mount St. Mary’s Seminary of the West in Cincinnati. Dr. Kurtz wishes to acknowledge the professors and staff of the University of Virginia and the John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History. Finally, he is grateful to his wife, Erin, for her support and patience through the years it took to finish this project.
Editors’ Introduction
The story of Catholic chaplains and sister nurses during the Civil War (1861–1865) is generally underappreciated, known mainly to historians of Catholic America. Yet as soon as the war ended, efforts were made to record their wartime contributions and make known their service to historians and the wider public. Their wartime roles were seen as among the most important contributions of Catholics to American society in the nineteenth century, a testimony to selfless service that often transcended regional and religious differences. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Catholics remembered the accomplishments of both priest chaplains and sister nurses in celebratory books and speeches, by erecting a statue of chaplain William Corby in Gettysburg in 1910, and by building a monument to the “nuns of the battlefield” in Washington, DC, in 1924. American Catholic historians have analyzed, detailed, and celebrated their contributions in a number of articles and a few scholarly books. 1
Yet historians’ efforts remain incomplete. The role of chaplains and sister nurses is still underappreciated in the academic world outside of the subfield of American Catholic history. With very few exceptions, they are largely ignored by historians of the conflict and those specializing in gender and social history are often unfamiliar with t