Site Visit Saturday: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Ashwood, TN

 

Patrick Cleburne 

  Churches occupy important places in our society. Many of them, and the grounds that surround them, are packed full of history. (You can check out a previous post on churches in the crossfire of the war here). One of those churches full of history is St. John’s Episcopal Church, just outside of Columbia, Tennessee.

   St. John’s was consecrated in 1842 by the Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Tennessee, James Hervey Otey. It was built by Leonidas Polk, the Missionary Bishop of the Southwest. The land was donated by the Polk family, a part of a land grant awarded to William Polk of North Carolina. The church was constructed by the slaves from the various Polk plantations in the area, and served not only as a church, but as a school as well.

 During the war, Federal soldiers under the command of General Buell, on their way to reinforce Grant at Shiloh, forced their way into the church, wrecking the organ and removing some of the pipes. In 1864, as the Confederate army advanced towards Columbia, General Cleburne, on passing the church, reportedly told his staff “So this is the church built by General Leonidas Polk and members of his family? If I am killed in the impending battle, I request that my body be laid to rest in this, the most beautiful spot I ever beheld.” (Yeatman, “St. John’s-A Plantation of the Old South.” Tennessee Historically Quarterly, Vol. 10, No 4 (December 1951): 340) 

   Following the battle of Franklin, in which six Confederate generals were killed, three of them, Patrick Cleburne, Hiram Granbury, and Otho Strahl, along with two staff officers --Col. R. B. Young, Granbury’s chief of staff and Lt. John H. Marsh, who served with Strahl--were buried in the “potter’s field” section of Rose Hill Cemetery in Columbia, Tennessee. Hearing of this, Brig. Gen. Lucius E. Polk, with the help of Confederate chaplain Charles Quintard, had the five exhumed and reburied at St. John’s Episcopal Church. Many decades after the war, the three generals were again exhumed and reburied in other cemeteries. Cleburne was reburied in Helena, Arkansas; Strahl was reburied in Dyersburg, Tennessee; and Granbury was reinterred in Granbury, Texas.  Young and Marsh are still interred at St. Johns.

   There are other Confederate graves here as well, including Col. Robert F. Beckham, chief of artillery for Stephen D. Lee’s Corps. He was mortally wounded at Columbia, Tennessee on November 29, 1864. Brigadier General Lucius E. Polk, who was a nephew of Leonidas Polk, is interred at St. John’s, as is George Campbell Brown, who served on the staff of Richard Ewell in the Army of Northern Virginia, and James H. Thomas, a Tennessee delegate to the Confederate Provisional Congress. Mary Martin Pillow, the wife of General Gideon J. Pillow, is also buried at St. John’s. The form for the Ashwood Rural Historic District, for the National Register of Historic Places, states that there is a Confederate section with the dead from the battle of Ashwood behind the church.

   Carroll Van West, in her book Tennessee’s Historic Landscapes, considers St. John’s a “magnificent achievement in rural Gothic Revival architecture.” (368)  The church is no longer in use, save for one Sunday a year. But the building itself and the surrounding grounds are kept in immaculate condition. St. John’s is the oldest surviving church building in Maury County.

   My first and only visit came in May 2021.

Women as Clerics in the Southern Confederacy

   It is an often-repeated phrase: women left behind in various Southern states had to adapt, often performing a wide range of tasks beyond the normal status quo of taking care of the home and children. But the idea of 1860s women adopting the role of the clergy may seem farfetched to today’s readers.

   Historically, in most cultures, women were intrinsically involved with the processes of birth, life, and death. This concept is clear from the mythical triptych depiction of the female: maiden, mother and crone. In a practical sense, nearly every activity connected to being born, nurturing life, and caring for the dead was conducted and supervised by women. Only in more “modern” times have men become the primary figures in these practices, with the advent of medical and funeral practices conducted by professionals, men trained in facilities that often did not even permit the training of women. However, in the past, particularly in rural areas, women delivered babies, cared for children, treated the sick, and, when a person died, it was women who often cleaned and dressed the body, while also making a shroud. Men typically built the coffin and dug the grave. After the family sat up with the body overnight (embalming was not really in practice, except for the rich), the deceased was transported to the cemetery and a few words were spoken. Then the grave was filled. High churches, like Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, etc., had a proscribed liturgy that was to be read over the deceased. Exclusively male clergymen conducted these funeral rites and services

   There are many stories of women burying dead soldiers, both North and South. The pregnant Elizabeth Thorn at Gettysburg is one of the best known. But some women went further, and due to the absence of men, assumed the role of a cleric, performing the service for the dead, and challenging traditional gender roles as they took on one more aspect of caring for human beings departing this life.

   Francis Kirby Palmer was the wife of Col. John B. Palmer (58^th North Carolina Troops). In 1858, they moved from Detroit, Michigan, to western North Carolina, building a home on the banks of the Linville River. (Francis’s brother was Capt. Edmond Kirby, US Army, promoted to brigadier general on his deathbed.) With Colonel Palmer away in the army, Episcopal missionary and teacher William West Skiles came and stayed with Mrs. Palmer, her young son, and niece. Skiles was already ill at the time, and his health continued to deteriorate. After being confined to his room at the Palmer house for three months, Skiles died on December 8, 1862. A rough box was constructed, and Skiles was buried in Mrs. Palmer’s rose garden. According to a biography of Skiles, “Mrs. Palmer herself put on his surplice, unwilling that a hireling should perform that service for him.” A surplice is a type of liturgical vestment, usually a white tunic maybe reaching to the knees. It is to be worn at all times while the minister is performing his ministration. Mrs. Palmer put on the surplice and read the burial service over his body.[1]

   The ritual itself largely contains Scripture readings, many from the book of Psalms, and several from the New Testament as well.

   There is a second reference to a woman performing the Funeral Liturgy. This one occurred a few months earlier. In May 1862, the Texas brigade had its first taste of battle at Eltham’s Landing in Virginia. Among the mortally wounded was Lt. Col. Harvey H. Black, 1^st Texas Infantry, dying on May 7. According to a couple of different accounts, Lieutenant Colonel Black, and another soldier, Private Bush, were buried at Cedar Hill, New Kent County, Virginia, on the property of Dr. John Mayo. One Texas soldier wrote that Black was buried “in a private graveyard on the hill, and the burial service of the Episcopal church was read at the grave by a lady to whom the premises belonged.”[2]

The 1864 painting of The Burial of Latané depicts a similar scene of a burial being conducted by women, but the painting is an artistic interpretation, since the service was actually conducted by a Methodist minister who arrived shortly before the service and burial were conducted.

   These two stories, and there are undoubtedly more waiting to be discovered, provide illustrations for several different important points. Women were willing to ensure that men were to have proper burials in a time of increasing hardship. These women were willing to provide the last stages of that “Good Death” so often discussed in historical literature of the past twenty plus years. Women were willing to assume roles not typically perceived by society as being roles for women. While women were often involved in the burial process, these women were willing to go beyond tradition. For Mrs. Palmer, William West Skiles was a family friend who had lived with them for a short amount of time. For those in New Kent County, Lieutenant Colonel Black was a stranger from Texas. Yet the norms of the era dictated that he also deserved a proper burial. With no ordained minister at hand, these women were willing to see that the prescribed customs of the time were followed. Were there repercussions for their actions? Were they criticized or praised? It is hard to say.

   While there was discussion of starting an Episcopal church close to the Palmer home, the closest church was more than twenty miles away over poor mountain roads, so Mrs. Palmer’s decision seems to have been influenced by both geography and by circumstances. There was a church, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, in New Kent County, but it is unknown if the woman who buried Colonel Black and Private Bush was a member. In any case, what we do know is that these women understood the importance of proper rituals and burial practices, and they were willing to take on unexpected roles to ensure those practices were completed for friends and strangers.

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[1] Cooper, William West Skiles: A Sketch of Missionary Life at Valle Crucis in Western North Carolina, 136.

[2] Todd, First Texas Regiment, 4-5.

Federal Prisoners and Southern Ministers and Chaplains

   Earlier this year, I started a series on prisoner of war camps in the South. One post was an overview of prisons (here), and another post looked at the different types of prisoners held at Salisbury (here). This post will examine the clergy who worked with the prisoners.

   The Confederate government apparently never appointed chaplains to prison camps. Instead, the work of the church, ministering to the spiritual needs of the prisoners, was undertaken by concerned clergy.

   At Salisbury, in 1864, Dr. A.W. Mangum began preaching to the prisoners inside the prison pen. Mangum tells us in his short history of the Salisbury Prison that some preaching had taken place in the post hospital by Dr. Richard O. Kurrie, and then by Dr. Wilson and a Dr. Rumple. Wilson recruited Mangum to preach in the hospital, but was discouraged by Major John Gee, the prison’s commanding officer, from preaching to the general prison population. Gee found the prisoners “generally foreign and Catholic” and did not believe that the Methodist Mangum would find a “kindly reception.” But at some point, Gee obviously softened his stance, for when Mangum entered the prison yard, he found a Baptist minister preaching to a large group of men. Mangum selected his own spot and began to sing. A crowd gathered, which Mangum found “respectful, earnest and solemn.” While Mangum goes on to talk about working on establishing a prison library, he does not go into much further detail of his preaching at Salisbury Prison.[1] 

Bishop John McGill

   It is interesting to note that Major Gee thought most of the prisoners were “foreigners and Catholics”; it was apparently the Catholics who ministered to prisoners at Camp Sumter in Andersonville.  There are a couple of mentions of Protestant ministers at Andersonville, including the Methodists Robert James Hodges and E.B. Duncan. There could be more whom history has forgotten. Andersonville was not Salisbury. It was in the middle of nowhere, served by a railroad not tied to a large city further south. When the Reverend William John Hamilton visited Andersonville in May 1864, he found a large number of Catholic prisoners. Hamilton lived in Macon, and southwestern Georgia was a part of his charge. He contacted the Bishop in Savannah who sent Father Peter Whelan to minister to the prisoners. Finding more men to minister to than he could handle, he asked for help, and Father H. Claveril was sent. The two lived in a shack not far from the prison. According to Peggy Sheppard, the pair “soon won the admiration and respect of most prisoners—Catholic, Protestants, Jews, and atheists alike.” They could often be seen crawling into dugouts to hear confessions or to administer extreme unction to dying men. Claveril was replaced by Father John Kirby, who was replaced by Father Hosannah, a Jesuit priest from Mobile who could speak several different languages.[2]

   Libby Prison, located in the Confederate capital, had the benefit of several religious gatherings each week. Chaplain Henry C. Trumball, 10^th Connecticut Infantry, was captured during the assault on Battery Wagner near Charleston, South Carolina, in July 1863. He was held in several prisoner of war camps before being exchanged in November 1863. Trumball noted that there were prayer meetings held three evenings a week, and when chaplains were present, “sermons, twice each Sunday.” It seems in the case of Libby Prison, there was often some Federal chaplain incarcerated within who was able to provide religious meetings, i.e., Charles C. McCabe, 122^nd Ohio, Louis N. Beaudry, 5^th New York Cavalry, Joseph T. Brown, 6^th Maryland Volunteers. There were some outside chaplains.[3] One prisoner at Libby noted that the Catholic Bishop of Richmond visited the prison. The Right Rev. John McGill was noted as “frequently” attending the Northern soldiers confined in Libby prison,” although McGill, Northern born, was “decidedly southern in his sympathies.” If McGill could not attend in person, he sent others, including Revs. Father Scully and Mahone, and the Jesuit Fathers O’Hagan, McAtee, and Tissot.[4]

   However, not all of these measures were appreciated. Historian George Rable noted that the Federal officers at Libby Prison debated, but did not pass, a series of resolutions against “Rebel ministers” conducting services. One Pennsylvania officer noted that the local pastors “had better teach humanity to their own people before attempting to preach Christianity” to the prisoners.[5] However, if the writings of Northern chaplain Henry S. White are to be believed, this worked both ways. White was appointed chaplain of a Rhode Island regiment in 1863 and was captured in eastern North Carolina on May 4, 1864. For a brief amount of time, White was quartered in a church in Andersonville. His request to preach to the prisoners was met with mixed support and was eventually denied. White was soon moved to the officer’s prison in Macon.[6]

   The work on Southern clergy among Federal prisoner of war camps is a neglected topic of study. Outside of a few brief mentions in Rable’s God’s Almost Chosen Peoples (2010) and Miller’s In God’s Presence: Chaplains, Missionaries, and Religious Space During the American Civil War (2019), the topic does not seem to merit any scholarly coverage. The role of local churches and prisons could be explored, as well as the attitudes of various denominations, like the Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists. (Or, if you know of a source that deals with this subject, please drop me a line.)

   

 

  

  

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[1] Poteat, Confederate States Military Prison at Salisbury, NC, 27-32.

[2] Sheppard, Andersonville, Georgia, U.S.A, 33-37. See also Marvel, Andersonville: The Last Depot, 140-144, 163-164.

[3] Trumball, War Memories of an Army Chaplain, 297.

[4] Magri, “Catholicity in Virginia during the Episcopate of Bishop McGill, 1850-1872,” The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 2, No. 4 (January 1917): 422-423.

[5] Rable, God’s Almost Chosen Peoples, 367.

[6] White, Prison Life Among The Rebels, 42.

Churches in the Crossfire

    Battles fought during the 1860s often encompassed great swaths of ground. Gettysburg alone comes in at almost 18 square miles. As these battles rolled back and forth, they passed by people’s homes, their farms, and their community structures, like railroad depots, schools, and churches. Churches were community spaces. Besides religious services, they often held schools during the week, and could be the place where political oratory was presented as elections drew near. As the soldiers squared off to fight, many churches could become hospitals. The following list is nowhere complete, but just an introduction to some of these historic sites and structures.

Dunker Church, Sharpsburg, MD

   Dunker Church, on the Antietam National battlefield, is probably the most recognized church of the war. One of the bloodiest battles of the war was fought around the church in September 1862, and a photograph taken by Alexander Gardner right after the battle, showing the church, has become a staple of images in many war-time histories. The Dunkers were a part of the German Baptist Brethren, and the church near Sharpsburg was built in 1852 on land given by local farmer Samuel Mumma. During the battle, Confederate artillery and infantry were posted in and around the Dunker Church. While modest in structure, the church was a focal point during the early morning fighting on September 17. During the battle, the church was struck with small arms and artillery projectiles, and then went on to serve as a makeshift hospital. The building was used as a church after the battle, but in the early 1900s, the congregation moved to town, and the building fell into disrepair. What was left of the original building was dismantled. After passing through several hands, the property was acquired by the Federal government; in the 1960s, using many of the original materials, the structure was rebuilt and re-dedicated on September 2, 1962. (You can read a more in-depth history here.)

   The Shiloh Meeting House, on the Shiloh National Battlefield in Tennessee, was a one-room log structure built by the Methodists in 1853. In April 1862, Brig. Gen. William T. Sherman posted his division on either side of the church. They considered Shiloh Church a “rude structure in which…the voices of the ‘poor white trash’ of Tennessee mingle in praise to God.” The Confederates attacked on April 6, and two hours later, succeeded in driving Sherman’s Federals from their position. Confederate general Albert Sidney Johnston’s body was carried into the church after his death, and later, Confederate Lieutenant General P.G.T. Beauregard established his headquarters at the building the next day. After the battle, the Federals reportedly tore down the structure, using the logs to build breastworks. Ironically, Shiloh means “place of peace.” A log chapel was reconstructed in 2001. (You can read more here)

Salem Church was a focal pointing of the fighting of the second battle of Fredericksburg, a part of the Chancellorsville Campaign of May 1863. Sometimes, this fighting is actually called the battle of Salem Church. The church was originally constructed in 1844 by local Baptists. The main part of the battle was a Federal flanking maneuver to the west, an action that bogged down at Chancellorsville. The second part of the action featured a Federal advance from Fredericksburg. The thin line of Confederates left behind in the trenches were unable to hold and fell back toward the west. Brigadier General Cadmus Wilcox’s Confederate brigade was reinforced by Confederates from McLaws and Anderson’s divisions, concentrated on a line around the Salem Church. Federals were able to break the line around the church, capturing Confederates from Alabama firing out of the windows of the church. A counterattack by Wilcox drove the Federals back and recaptured the area around the church. Salem Church, now a National Park Service site, is an original structure. You can learn more about the battle by following this link

Fredericksburg Baptist Church 

Fredericksburg Baptist Church likewise saw its share of the war. Built in 1855 of brick and standing two stories tall, the building was one of the most elaborate examples of the Gothic Revival architecture in the area.  There were a dozen holes in the building that had to be patched following the end of the war. The building served as a hospital during both battles of Fredericksburg. The building survives, although it has been heavily expanded over the past 150 years.

Old Bluff Presbyterian Church was host to Federal soldiers during Sherman’s march to the sea. Old Bluff Church is in Cumberland County, North Carolina. Scottish immigrants founded the church in 1758 and constructed the present building in 1853. While there was a skirmish nearby, no large battle was fought near the church. Instead, the church served as a headquarters to Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman on the night of March 15, 1865. The original church building survives. You can learn more about this church
here

Mt. Zion Christian Church in Madison County, Kentucky, was constructed in 1852. During the battle of Richmond, Kentucky, in August 1862, the building was struck by artillery fire. It was used as a Federal field hospital in one of the most overwhelming Confederate victories of the war.

There are countless churches that doubled as hospitals during the war. A sample listing would include St. Mark’s Episcopal in Raymond, Mississippi; Bethesda Presbyterian Church in Morristown, Tennessee; Blanford Church in Petersburg, Virginia; Old Stone Church in Ringgold, GA; and Old Christ Church in Pensacola, Florida, just to name a few.

There is also much research left to do on this topic, church history, and the war in general.

"Almost" Christians: Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee

   Recently, I finished reading A Frenchman, A Chaplain, A Rebel: The War Letters of Pere Louis-Hippolyle Gache, S. J. (1981). Goche was born in France and later became a Jesuit priest. He immigrated to the United States in 1847, leaving behind a region smoldering in anti-Jesuit sentiment. Gache was recruited to work at Spring Hill College near Mobile, Alabama. However, he also served in various parishes in Louisiana. When the war came, Gache was assigned as a chaplain in the 10th Louisiana Infantry, and soon found himself on the Peninsula below Richmond. After a year of service, Gache was reassigned as a hospital chaplain in Lynchburg, Virginia. (His compiled service record, listing his last name as Guache, stated he was assigned to a hospital in Danville on August 29, 1862. However, all of his subsequent letters come from Lynchburg.)

   Without going into centuries' worth of religious history, it will suffice to say that Gache had no use for Protestants. Writing in January 1862 from a camp near Yorktown, Gache described to those back at Spring Hill College his encounter with a local pastor: "The Baptist minister visits me every time I stay at the Ewells. He tries to get me to come and visit him, offering me the use of his library and, if it had not been converted into a hospital, his church. He truly treats me as a brother, but I'm not going to give him any encouragement. I take advantage of every occasion to tell him and the others of his ilk that I don't see them under any other aspect than as gentlemen, but that certainly I don't consider them as ministers of the Gospel." (95)

   In another exchange between himself and Father Philip de Carriere, Gache chides Carriere for using the term "Catholic chaplain." "And what do you mean by 'the Catholic chaplain?' Are there any other chaplains than Catholic chaplains? Is it your intention to acknowledge an ecclesiastic character on the souls of the so-called Protestant ministers? If you do, you are simply a heretic..." (155)

   The death of Stonewall Jackson obviously presented a challenge to Gache. He had recently bemoaned the death of "Four or five" young men who had died "without making any express profession of Catholicism." (162) Jackson was a member of the Presbyterian church. Gache wrote that Jackson, "in his own way... was a very good Christian. The face of this austere Presbyterian expressed all the characteristics of a devout member of that sect; yet, he was not a bigot--at least so far as I have heard. He often remarked publically that it was in God that he put his confidence, and after each victory he always ordered the chaplains under his command to offer prayers of thanksgiving." Jackson, after his wounding, and being told that he would die, "expressed sorrow for his sins. Since he was probably in good faith, one can hope that his pious sentiments must have led him to an act of perfect contrition. Surely, He who so loves to bestow mercy, must have bestowed it abundantly on this man."

    Likewise, Gache took time to write about Robert E. Lee: "General Lee is also very religious, not in an ostentatious and wordy manner, but sincerely and genuinely... The general is an Episcopalian, but at the same time he is, as are almost all of the men of his class, very favorable toward Catholics and he has the greatest esteem for them." Gache goes on to talk about the Catholic leanings of Joseph E. Johnston, former secretary of War George W. Randolph, and Varina Davis. (176-180)

   Gache's disdain for Protestants never seems to fade after the mercy he almost shows for Jackson and Lee. He talks of "dethroning a Presbyterian minister" in June 1863, a man trying to work with wounded soldiers in Lynchburg hospitals.  (190) In December 1864 he makes mention of the two Catholic and four Protestant chaplains at work in the Lynchburg hospitals. The Protestant chaplains "have filled the hospital with an assortment of sectarian books and newspapers which are used by the sisters and myself for lighting our fires..." (210) In this same December 1864 letter, he speaks of a Protestant minister who invited himself to preach to the wounded and sick men. It was apparently against post regulations to preach in the wards. The post commander, a man Gache believed was "far from being a Catholic, but who is nevertheless a man who despises all Protestant ministers," agreed to allow the Protestant chaplain the use of the courtyard at 4:40 pm on Wednesday. After starting the service at 4:45, he was interrupted by the dinner bell at 5:00 pm. All "of the congregation was at the table and the preacher was left alone, his arms outstretched and his mouth gaping, still standing on the grassy mound. You ought to have seen the dismay and astonishment of that disciple of Calvin as he picked up his books, put on his hat and walked away." (211-212)

   It is not my purpose to reignite in this post the great schisms that have taken place over the centuries between the Catholics and Protestants. For generations, Catholics were treated with a great degree of skepticism in this country, and it was not really until the election of John F. Kennedy in 1961 that some of that skepticism began to fade. To be honest, save for the work of the Sisters of Charity, I'm really not very familiar with much of the role of the Catholic church in the South during the war. This is the first set of war-time letters that I have read from a Catholic priest. Are there others? (Yes, there are a few.) I am much more familiar with the works of Protestant chaplains such as Alexander Betts, Basil Manly, J. William Jones, and W. W. Bennett. It is interesting to note that Gache never makes mention the great revivals that swept through the Army of Northern Virginia in the winter encampments of 1862-1863 and 1863-1864. But then again, Jones, in Christ in the Camp, never makes mention of Gache or Catholic chaplains.

   Gache survived the war. He served in a number Jesuit colleges and parishes until 1904, but he never returned to the South. He died in 1907, at the age of 91, in the hospital of Saint Jean-de-Dieu, Montreal, and is buried at St. Andrew-on-Hudson near Hyde Park, New York.

Quakers and Salt

   No discussion about salt and the War is complete without some mentions of the Quakers, Moravians, and Wesleyan Methodists in central North Carolina.

   All of these were religious sects that were pacifist in their beliefs. They believed that war and violence were wrong, and refused to serve in the Confederate army when the war came. This of course, created a problem when the Confederate government passed the Conscription Act in early 1862. The Convention Committee adopted a resolution early in May 1862 that exempted the Quakers. It read: "That members in good standing in the Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers, who shall produce a regular certificate of membership, shall be exempt from performing militia duty and military service: Provided, That as an equivalent for such exemption from military service, when called for by the proper authorities, they shall pay sums of one hundred dollars, to be collected by the Sheriffs of the several counties, as the other State taxes are collected, to be for paid into the State Treasury for the general purposes thereof, and in case they shall be unable to pay the same, the governor shall have power to detain them to assist in the manufacture of salt or to attend in the hospitals in the State." (The Raleigh Register May 31, 1862)

   In October of that year, the government enacted a $500 exemption fee. If a Quaker paid this fee, he was exempt from military service. Some Quakers paid, some did not. Some refused to pay the exemption tax, believing it was "the price exacted of us for religious liberty." By the end of the war, the superintendent of the Bureau of Conscription reported that 342 men from North Carolina had been exempted as conscientious objectors. The aforementioned John M. Worth, state salt agent, allowed Quakers to work at the state salt works near Wilmington, according to William A. Auman.

   Quakers were originally told that there was little danger while working at the salt works, and that the sea breezes were healthy. Anyone who has spent time in the Wilmington area in the summer knows that it can actually be very stifling hot, and at dark, the mosquitoes and sand fleas are unbearable.

   Records of individual Quakers are scattered. Calvin G. Perkins of Kinston made salt in New Bern until he was captured. J. M. Prevo worked at the state salt works in Wilmington. James Newlin, Abner Lamb, and Nathan Pearson reportedly worked in the salt works. Michael Cox, Thomas Hinshaw, Amos Hinshaw, and Clarkson Allen were also assigned to salt-making duty. Each chose instead to pay someone else fifteen dollars to take his place. Clarkson Allen and Amos Hinshaw then escaped to the west.

   There were many opposed to the Quakers and their not being in the army. General William Whiting, in charge of the defenses around Wilmington, complained in July 1864 to the Confederacy’s  Secretary of War:

   I have at length positive information that at least two thirds of the Conscripts at the State Salt works, belong to the treasonable organization called "H. O. A." [Heroes of America] Their mode of communicating with the Enemy has been ascertained... I recommend strongly that the whole force be turned over to the Conscript Camp for distribution in the Army and their places be supplied by free negro or slave labor. (Salt, That Necessary Article, 143)

   The State salt works in Wilmington employed somewhere around 250 men in 1864.

   There is undoubtedly more to learn about this subject. I feel that this short piece has just scratched the surface. (Or maybe I've exhausted it, who knows?) For sources, I examined:
William, Isabel M. and Leora H. McEachern Salt: That Necessary Article (1973)

Auman, William T. Civil War in the North Carolina Quaker Belt (2014)

Zuber, Richard L. "Conscientious Objectors in the Confederacy: The Quakers of North Carolina." Quaker History, vol. 67, Issue 1 (1978)

Cartland, Fernando G. Southern Heroes or, the Friends in War Time. (1895)

North Carolina churches.

You would think, after so many years of doing this, I would still not be dumbfounded at the lack of material in some aspects of our history. Yet once again, here I am, doing a heap of background research.

For some time, I've wanted to work on a paper about the role of churches in western North Carolina and how they viewed the war, or what role they played, locally or nationally, in the war effort.  

A few months back, I read Bruce Gourley's Diverging Loyalties: Baptists in Middle Georgia During the Civil War. In looking through Gourley's bibliography, there are several articles on the role of Georgia churches during the war. Yet, in looking at places like JSTOR and NCLive, I find nothing that deals with denomination, nor any geographical area, in North Carolina, during the "Late Unpleasantries."

Why is this? Is it because I'm really the only person interested in such topics? Or does it have more to do with North Carolina being a "Progressive" state, and Progressives really aren't all that interested in the past?

So, I've been working on this paper, looking at how the western (mountain) counties reacted to the War. Maybe one day it will appear in print.

"this company is the worst Co. to swear and gamble..."

Lately, I've been slowly reading through Rable's God's Almost Chosen Peoples: A Religious History of the American Civil War. I came across an interesting passage the other day. Rable writes on page 90: "During the first two years of the war, soldier attendance at often infrequent religious services remained shockingly low." As many of you know, I've studied two regiments in details (and read about others). The war was already over a year old when the 58th North Carolina Troops was mustered into service (July 29, 1862). They went the next year without a chaplain. In late 1862, while stationed at Cumberland Gap, William Horton (Company I) wrote to his sister that “this company is the worst Co to swear and gambel you ever seen in your life. They play Cards day and night…” Interestingly enough, their chaplain, John W. Rabey, was listed as a deserter of the 26th North Carolina Troops when he was appointed chaplain of the 58th North Carolina Troops.

In stark contrast to the 58th NCT, and to Rable's statement, is the 37th North Carolina Troops. Albert L. Stough was a Baptist minister and was appointed on November 20, 1861, the same day the regiment was organized. Stough was "zealously engaged in the cause, [and] his labors were greatly blessed." Stough reported in the Biblical Reporter in February 1862 that the "religious interest in the 37th regiment was " very strong and attentive."  Stough asked for more "religious reading matter…  " and praised the work being made to circulate "Bibles among…" the soldiers.  “ The enterprise is glorious in its orgins…" he wrote, and thought that "the interest of our country, the happiness of our families, the preservation of pure religion, requires alike our exertions in supplying the destitute with the Gospel of the Son of God."  He closed his letter with "Pray for us.  Pray for our unfortunate nation, that we may have a speedy and honorable peace."

The interest regarding religion in the 37th North Carolina Troops went unabated through much of the war, while the lack of interest maintained itself in the 58th North Carolina Troops.  This leads to a few questions that I can’t answer right now: Did this level of interest have something to do with when the regiments were formed? The 37th North Carolina was formed of men in the second wave of enlistment in late 1861, and the 58th North Carolina was largely made up of men forced to voluntarily enlist because of conscription in 1862. Did it have something to do with place? Probably not - since sixty percent of the 37th North Carolina came from the same counties as the 58th North Carolina. Did it have something to do with class? That would be hard to answer. Was the Army of Northern Virginia more religious than the Army of Tennessee?  Well, that's a good question. I look forward to working out these questions as I work on more regimental histories.