The Catholic Devotional for Confederate Soldiers was written by Bishop McGill for the Confederate soldiers to carry with them into battle, and for their encampments. The work was published and registered by Bp. McGill in the Confederate States of America in 1861. The Devotional contains many Catholic prayers, novenas, selections from the Mass, etc., which are appropriate to Catholics and other Christians, as well as soldiers, who wish to deepen their Faith.
How did Southern Catholics, under international religious authority and grounding unlike Southern Protestants, act with regard to political commitments in the recently formed Confederacy? How did they balance being both Catholic and Confederate? How is the Southern Catholic Civil War experience similar or dissimilar to the Southern Protestant Civil War experience? What new insights might this experience provide regarding Civil War religious history, the history of Catholicism in America, 19th-century America, and Southern history in general? For the majority of Southern Catholics, religion and politics were not a point of tension. Devout Catholics were also devoted Confederates, including nuns who served as nurses; their deep involvement in the Confederate cause as medics confirms the all-encompassing nature of Catholic involvement in the Confederacy, a fact greatly underplayed by scholars of Civil war religion and American Catholicism. Kraszewski argues against an "Americanization" of Catholics in the South and instead coins the term "Confederatization" to describe the process by which Catholics made themselves virtually indistinguishable from their Protestant neighbors. The religious history of the South has been primarily Protestant. Catholic Confederates simultaneously fills a gap in Civil War religious scholarship and in American Catholic literature by bringing to light the deep impact Catholicism has had on Southern society even in the very heart of the Bible Belt.
Darius Hubert (1823‒1893), a French-born Jesuit, made his home in Louisiana in the 1840s and served churches and schools in Grand Coteau, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans. In 1861, he pronounced a blessing at the Louisiana Secession Convention and became the first chaplain of any denomination appointed to Confederate service. Hubert served with the First Louisiana Infantry in Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia for the entirety of the war, afterward returning to New Orleans, where he continued his ministry among veterans as a trusted pastor and comrade. One of just three full-time Catholic chaplains in Lee’s army, only Hubert returned permanently to the South after surrender. In postwar New Orleans, he was unanimously elected chaplain of the veterans of the eastern campaign and became well-known for his eloquent public prayers at memorial events, funerals of prominent figures such as Jefferson Davis, and dedications of Confederate monuments. In this first-ever biography of Hubert, Katherine Bentley Jeffrey offers a far-reaching account of his extraordinary life. Born in revolutionary France, Hubert entered the Society of Jesus as a young man and left his homeland with fellow Jesuits to join the New Orleans mission. In antebellum Louisiana, he interacted with slaves and free people of color, felt the effects of anti-Catholic and anti-Jesuit propaganda, experienced disputes and dysfunction with the trustees of his Baton Rouge church, and survived a near-fatal encounter with Know-Nothing vigilantism. As a chaplain with the Army of Northern Virginia, Hubert witnessed harrowing battles and their equally traumatic aftermath in surgeons’ tents and hospitals. After the war, he was a spiritual director, friend, mentor, and intermediary in the fractious and politically divided Crescent City, where he both honored Confederate memory and promoted reconciliation and social harmony. Hubert’s complicated and tumultuous life is notable both for its connection to the most compelling events of the era and its illumination of the complex and unexpected ways religion intersected with politics, war, and war’s repercussions.
The Army Navy Prayer Book of the Confederate States is the Episcopal Prayer Book for the Armed Services of the Confederacy. It went through annual editions from 1861-1865, and was the official military prayer book of the Confederate States. As an Afterword, some additional prayers by Bp. Thomas Atkinson, bishop of North Carolina, have been included. Also added are national calls to prayer by President Jefferson Davis throughout the War, and a sermon by Bp. Stephen Elliot delivered upon the Day of National Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer in 1861. This work is printed for ease of carrying, and daily use by Christians who want a Prayer Book that connects us to our Southern ancestors and their cause of freedom.
The American Civil War not only pitted brother against brother but Christian against Christian. This is a study of soldiers' religious beliefs and how they influenced the course of that tragic conflict. It shows how Christian teaching and practice shaped the worldview of soldiers on both sides.
Here is the Civil War diary of Redemptorist priest Rev. James Sheeran, C. Ss. R., who was chaplain to the 14th Louisiana Regiment of the Confederacy. Irish-born Sheeran was one of only two Catholic chaplains commissioned for the Confederacy who kept a journal. From August 1, 1862 through April 24, 1865, the journal tells of all the major events of his life in abundant detail: on the battle field, in the hospitals, and among Catholics and Protestants whom he encountered in local towns, on the trains, and in the course of his ministrations. His ideological sympathies clearly rest with the Confederacy. The tone is forthright, even haughty, but captures in sure and steady fashion, both the personality of the man and the events to which he was a witness, especially the major battles. The journal is arguably the most unique narrative of the war written by a chaplain of any denomination and certainly is the most extensive.
Sermons of the Confederacy, edited by Dr. William G. Peters, is a collection of sermons by Southern ministers, bishops, priests, and a rabbi from 1861-1865. This volume covers the years 1861-1862. A second volume will cover the years 1863-1865. Several sermons are in response to calls by President Jefferson Davis for national days of prayer, and illustrates the South's commitment to Christian values, aligning one's life and nation with God's plan, and the need for divine aid and mercy. These men of God cover, in their sermons and discourses, a wide range of subjects, from the cause of the War, differences between Yankees and Southerners, Negroes and their purpose among Southerners, the life and death of Confederate heroes, service to God, military service and Christian Faith, etc. This is an excellent book for those who want to understand our Confederate ancestors, the C.S.A., and the South's Faith in God and victory in the face of implacable invasion by the United States. --
The Confederate States of America in Prophecy, by Rev. W.H. Seat, a Southern Methodist Minister. This work examines Daniel's prophecy of the Five Governments; with the United States as the Fifth Government and the Confederate States as the little stone cut from the mountain, as a revived Government of Judah. The Eschatology of the United States as Restored Israel, and the Confederate States as a Restored Judah, is a secular prophecy of the people of North America as God's special chosen people. In the heady days of Southern victories over Northern armies, Rev. Seat posits the future history of the Confederate States based upon the Prophet Daniel.
Bp. McGill examines claims of various groups to be the true Christian Church. He holds these claims up to scripture, history, tradition and reason to ascertain the truth of their claims. He then contrasts these claims against the claims of the Catholic Church to show why they fall short; and why the Catholic Church is the One, True Church of Jesus Christ.
This is a regimental history of a Confederate Battery in the American Civil War. Originally recruited by Smith P. Bankhead in Memphis in 1861 the book gives a breakdown of all of the members of the unit. This case study examines the reasons the men were joined the unit and their background. Although slavery is often a reason for the war, most of the men fought for other reasons as few of them owned any slaves. The book touches on the trials of training and the difficulties of army life. Why men deserted while others fought to the very end is discussed. After the battle of Shiloh, Bankhead was promoted and William L. Scott assumed command. The history of the battery explains the part the men played in the battles and campaigns in the Western theater. When the battery was overrun at Missionary Ridge many of the men continued to fight in other units while others went home. Every man that served in Bankhead/Scott's Battery is described with information about recruitment, occupation, wounded or killed in battle or died of illness or deserted. Four men were still serving when the Army of Tennessee of Tennessee surrendered in April 1865.
