“I'd like to know how they expect us to diligently attend divine worship when they keep us harnessed up all day after this fashion?”
“Keep still, Giles; if the sergeant hears you he'll tie you up by the thumbs.”
Yet Taylor's inquiry was to the point. The articles of war had been read to us only the day before that inspection. Here is what we were given along the line referred to by Taylor:
“Article 2.—It is earnestly recommended to all officers and soldiers, diligently to attend divine service; and all officers who shall behave indecently or irreverently at any place of divine worship, shall, if commissioned officers, be brought before a general court-martial, there to be publicly and severely reprimanded by the President; if non-commissioned officers or soldiers, every person so offending shall, for his first offense, forfeit one sixth of a dollar, to be deducted out of his next pay; for the second offense he shall not only forfeit a like sum, but be confined twenty-four hours; and for every like offense, shall suffer and pay in like manner; which money, so forfeited, shall be applied by the captain or senior officer of the troop or company, to the use of the sick soldiers of the company or troop to which the offender belongs.”
The boys called the regulations the army Bible. Of course, many of the articles were intended for troops in garrison.
When in active service, on the march and on the battle field, divine services were impracticable until there was at least a temporary cessation of hostilities. Regimental chaplains exhibited remarkable fortitude, courage and self-sacrifice in administering spiritual consolation to the wounded and dying at the front, even under heavy fire from the enemy. There were services in camp in such organizations as had ministers of the gospel with them, but many regiments were without chaplains, and had to forage for religious food, if they had any.
I do not remember attending divine service in the army, except once in the Wilderness campaign. It was at night, and the congregation stood around a blazing camp-fire. The good old chaplain exhorted the boys to prepare the way, and buckle on the whole armor. It was a striking scene. Some of the boys wept as the minister alluded to the loved ones at home, who were looking to the Army of the Potomac for a victory that would crush out the rebellion. There were few dry eyes when the benediction was pronounced, after the chaplain had urged his hearers to “be prepared to stand an inspection before the King of kings.”
It was the last religious service that many who were present that night ever attended. The next day rebel bullets mowed them down by scores. They died in defense of the right—that the Union might be preserved. Of those who fell as they fell a poet has written:
“No more the bugle calls the weary one,
Rest, noble spirit, in your grave unknown;
We will find you and know you,
Among the good and true,
When the robe of white is given
For the faded coat of blue.”
I may have had many opportunities to hear the Gospel preached during the war, but I do not recall the circumstances now. Yet I am sure that if I had diligently reconnoitered the camps, I could have found faithful disciples preaching the Word of Life to such as had ears to hear. And I believe that when the general roll shall be called on the shores of eternity, the noble Christian soldiers who held aloft the banner of their Master on the battle fields of the great Civil War, will not only hear the welcome, “Well done,” but they will be crowned with diadems bedecked with many stars.