Results of Fifteen Years
The work done by the Unitarian Association during the civil war and under the conditions it produced was not a large one, but it absorbed a considerable part of its energies for about five years. In all it printed over 3,000 copies of three books for the soldiers,21 distributed 750,000 tracts which it had prepared for them,22 sent to the soldiers 5,000 copies weekly of The Christian Register and The Christian Inquirer, 1,500 copies of the Monthly Journal, 1,000 of The Monthly Religious Magazine, and 1,000 of the Sunday-school Gazette. During the last year or two of the war its tracts went out at the rate of 50,000 monthly. The tracts and the periodicals therefore numbered a monthly distribution of about 75,000 copies. The seventy volunteer agents who brought these publications to the hands of the soldiers, together with the army chaplains, agents of the Sanitary Commission, and the many nurses in the hospitals, made a considerable force of Unitarian missionaries developed by the exigencies of the war, and the attempts to meliorate its hard conditions.
The period of fifteen years, from 1850 to 1865, which has been under consideration in this chapter, was one of the greatest trial and discouragement to the Association. Its funds reached their lowest ebb, a missionary secretary could not be maintained, a layman performed the necessary office duties, and no considerable aggressive work along missionary lines was undertaken. Writing in a most hopeful spirit of the situation, in November, 1863, the editor of The Christian Register showed that in 1848 the number of Unitarian churches was 201, while in 1863 it was 205, an increase of four only in fifteen years. During this period fifty parishes had gained pastors, but fifty had lost them. Several strong parishes, he said, had come into existence, and two in large places had died. Most of those that had been closed were in small country towns. Nevertheless, with truth it could be said of these fifteen years of discouragement and failure that every one of them was a seed-time for the harvest that was soon to be reaped.
Resolved, That we acknowledge with profound gratitude the success which has attended our labors in the cause of religious freedom, virtue, and piety, and are encouraged to persevere with renewed zeal and energy.
Resolved, That in the character and life of Rev. William E. Channing, just removed from us, we acknowledge one of the richest gifts of God, in intellectual endowments, pure aspiration, moral courage, and disinterested devotion to the cause of truth, freedom, and humanity, and that in view of this, we feel out increased obligation to Christian fidelity and heavenward progress.
Resolved, That viewing with anxiety prevailing fanaticism and growing disregard of public trusts and private relations, we should earnestly labor for a higher religious principle, and especially urge the paramount claims of moral duty.
Among the ministers who served as officers were: Hasbrouck Davis, who became a general; William B. Greene, colonel; Gerald Fitzgerald, who enlisted as a private, rose to the rank of first lieutenant, and was elected chaplain of his regiment; Edward I. Galvin, lieutenant, also elected chaplain; James K. Hosmer, who served through the war, at first as a private and then as a corporal, writing his experiences into The Color Guard and The Thinking Bayonet; George W. Shaw and Alvin Allen, privates. Thomas D. Howard and James H. Fowler were chaplains in colored regiments. After service as a chaplain of a Hew Hampshire regiment, Edwin M. Wheelock became a lieutenant in a colored regiment, as did Charles B. Webster. Thomas W. Higginson was colonel of a colored regiment, and in another Henry Stone was lieutenant colonel. It is doubtful if this list is complete, though an effort has been made to have it as nearly so as possible. Those who served in the army, and became ministers after leaving it, have not been included. So far as known, only ordained ministers are named.
Notes
1 Usually known as the Transcendental Club, sometimes as The Symposium. It was started in 1836 by Emerson, Ripley, and Hedge, and met at the houses of the members to discuss philosophical and literary subjects. It was called Hedge’s Club because it met when Rev. F.H. Hedge came to Boston from Bangor, where he was settled in 1835. It also included Clarke, Francis, Alcott, Dwight, W.H. Channing, Bartol, Very, Margaret Fuller, and Elizabeth P. Peabody.
2 Twenty-eighth Report of the American Unitarian Association, 22.
3 Ibid., 30. For other statements made at this time see pp. 22 and 26 of this report; Quarterly Journal, L 44, 228, 243, 275, 333; and O.B. Frothingham’s Transcendentalism in New England, 123. John Gorham Palfrey said (Twenty-eighth Report, 31) that “the evidence of Christianity is identical with the evidence of the miraculous character of Jesus,” and that “his miraculous powers were the highest evidence that he came from God.” Parker replied to this report of the Association in his Friendly Letter to the Executive Committee. Of this report John W. Chadwick has said that it is “the most curious, not to say amusing, document in our denominational archives.” See The Organization of our Liberty, Christian Register, July 19, 1900.
4 In 1854 the receipts from all sources for the year preceding, except from sales of books and interest on investments, was $4,267.32. For the next two years there was a rapid gain, the sum reported in 1856 being $11,615.90; but there was a slight decrease the next year, and the financial panic of 1857 brought the donations down to $4,602.38, the amount reported at the annual meeting of 1858. Then there was a steady gain until the civil war began, after which the contributions were small, the general donations being only $3,056.03 in 1863, which sum was brought up to $5,547.73 by contributions for special purposes, more than one-third of the whole being for the Army Fund.
5 The Christian Register, October 17, 1863.
6 The Monthly Journal, I. 350.
7 Mr. Fox entered the employ of the Association in 1855 as a clerk, and then he became the assistant of the secretary by the appointment of the directors. From 1864 to the present time he has served as the assistant secretary. His services have been invaluable to the Association in many ways, because of his diligence, fidelity, unfailing devotion to its interests, and loyalty to the Unitarian cause.
8 The beginning of a general fund seems to have been made in 1835, and was secured by special subscriptions for the purpose of paying the salary of a general secretary or missionary agent. The treasurer reported in 1836 that during the previous year $2,408.37 had been collected for this purpose.
9 Of the churches now in existence the first in Chicago was organized in 1836, that at Quincy in 1840, Milwaukee and Geneva in 1842, Detroit in 1850. After the conference began its work, they appear more frequently, Keokuk coming into existence in 1853, Marietta in 1855, Lawrence in 1856, Unity of Chicago, Kalamazoo, and Buda in 1858, Bloomington in 1859. Then comes a blank during the war period, and a more rapid growth after it, especially when the National Conference had given impetus to missionary activities. Janesville was organized in 1864; Ann Arbor, Kenosha, and Baraboo, in 1865; Tremont, in 1866; Cleveland and Mattoon, in 1867; Unity of St. Louis, Kansas City, St. Joseph, Shelbyville, Davenport, Geneseo, Third of Chicago, and Sheffield, in 1868; Omaha, in 1869.
10 Written by William G. Eliot, of St. Louis.
11 Joseph Allen, The Worcester Association and its Antecedents, 268.
12 Through the business committee the following resolutions were submitted for the consideration of the convention, and they were taken up in order:—
13 The places and dates of the Autumnal Conventions were as follows: Worcester, 1842; Provence, 1843; Albany, 1844; New York, 1845; Philadelphia, 1846; Salem, 1847; New Bedford, 1848; Portland, 1849; Springfield, 1850; Portsmouth, 1851; Baltimore, 1852; Worcester, 1853; Montreal, 1854; Providence, 1855; Bangor, 1856; Syracuse, 1857; Salem, 1858; Lowell, 1859; New Bedford, 1860; Boston, 1861; Brooklyn, 1862; Springfield, 1863.
14 The first regiments from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Kansas, had as their chaplains Warren H. Cudworth, Augustus Woodbury, and Ephraim Nute. Charles Babbidge was the chaplain of the sixth Massachusetts regiment, that which was fired upon in Baltimore. The first artillery company from Massachusetts had as its chaplain Stephen Barker. Others who served as army chaplains were John Pierpont, Edmund B. Willson, Francis C. Williams, Arthur B. Fuller, Sylvan S. Hunting, Charles T. Canfield, Edward H. Hall, George H. Hepworth, Joseph F. Lovering, Edwin M. Wheelock, George W. Bartlett, John C. Kimball, Augustus M. Haskell, Charles A. Humphreys, Milton J. Miller, George A. Ball, William G. Scandlin, E.B. Fairchild, Samuel W. McDaniel, Frederick R. Newell, George W. Woodward, Stephen H. Camp, William D. Haley, Leonard Whitney, Gilbert Cummings, Nahor A. Staples, Carlton A. Staples, Martin M. Willis, John F. Moors, L.B. Mason, Robert Hassall, Liberty Billings, Daniel Foster, J.G. Forman, and Augustus H. Conant. Robert Collyer was chaplain-at-large in the Army of the Potomac. Charles J. Bowen, William J. Potter, Charles Noyes, James Richardson, and William H. Channing served as hospital chaplains.
15 History of the United States Sanitary Commission, being the General Report of its Work during the War of the Rebellion.
16 J.H. Allen, Our Liberal Movement in Theology, 210.
17 Henry W. Bellows, article on the Sanitary Commission, in Johnson’s Cyclopedia, revised edition.
18 Ibid.
19 Henry W. Bellows, article on the Sanitary Commission, in Johnson’s Cyclopedia, revised edition.
20 History of the Sanitary Commission.
21 Thoughts selected from Channing’s Works, Ware’s The Silent Pastor, and Eliot’s Discipline of Sorrow. The Association also issued one number of the Monthly Journal as an Army Companion, which contained fifty hymns of a patriotic and religions character, with appropriate tunes, selections from the Bible, directions for preserving health in the army, and selections from addresses on the injustice of the rebellion and the spirit in which it should be put down.
22 Twenty tracts were published. The first was written by Dr. George Putnam; and was on The Man and the Soldier. The second was The Soldier of the Good Cause, by Prof. C.E. Norton. Others were A Letter to a Sick Soldier, by Rev. Robert Collyer; An Enemy within the Lines, by Rev. S.H. Winkley. Rev. John F.W. Ware wrote fourteen of these tracts, the following being some of the subjects: The Home to the Camp, The Home to the Hospital, Wounded and in the Hands of the Enemy, Traitors in Camp, A Change of Base, On Picket, The Rebel, The Recruit, A Few Words with the Convalescent, Mustered Out, A Few Words with the Rank and File at Parting.