A retired pastor pens book about Civil War chaplains

Retired pastor Father Robert Miller has a passion for Civil War history. Author of six books, Miller has given talks across the country, many in period dress, about the era, often through a religious lens.

As pastor of St. Dorothy Parish, 450 E. 78th St., Miller frequently shared his love of this time period with the school students by holding living history days to go beyond what they read in books. He is a member and past president of the Civil War Round Table of Chicago, and helped coordinate several battlefield tours as part the group.

Miller’s longstanding passion has resulted in his latest book, “Faith of the Fathers: The Comprehensive History of Catholic Chaplains in the Civil War” (Notre Dame Press, $27.49). The book is a culmination of 20 years of research learning about Catholic priests who served in various capacities during the still-early days of the church in the United States. July 17 is the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army Chaplains Corps.

Editor Joyce Duriga spoke with Miller about his new project. The interview has been edited for length.

Chicago Catholic: This book is the result of 20 years of research, you said.

Father Robert Miller: As I was reading and stuff, I would run across these chaplains’ names and obviously I began running across some priest-chaplains. And I thought, “Oh, that’s interesting. I never thought about that.”

When my book “Both Prayed to the Same God” came out in 2007, I had already accumulated a lot of names and I wondered how many more there were. So basically, from then until now I’ve been trying to figure out how many there were. I came up with 126 Catholic priests who served and those are the subject of this book.

I don’t pretend to be comprehensive because there are a lot of guys who I call “unofficial” who were full-time priests in a parish, but when the Civil War troops were in their parish, they would go out and minister to them and when the troops would move on, they would go back to their work.    

Chicago Catholic: What was the Catholic Church in America like during this time?

Miller: The big thing was immigration. That was the peak of Irish immigration due to the potato famine. They came over very poor and very Catholic. America is a very Protestant country at its roots. That was the dominant factor at the time, but the church was growing incredibly.

There are some different opinions, but a lot of scholars would say Catholics were the majority at the time. But they had absolutely no social power at all because they were just poor immigrants.

Bishops were overwhelmed because they had all of these people flocking into the country and they were moving around. They’ve got to build churches for them. One of things I was surprised by when I started doing research was how many of the dioceses at the time, especially in the South, were literally the entire state.

The other thing going on in the church at that day, which is just a good thing to remember, this was pre-Vatican II, in fact, this was pre-Vatican I. To sum it up, Rome did not understand America. The traditional Roman divine-rite leadership didn’t understand a democratic, patriotic, equal-rights America.

The bishops were always trying to make Rome understand that, that freedom of speech is actually good. I know it sounds crazy, but Rome didn’t understand that. Freedom of the press, we take that for granted. Rome didn’t have that. They didn’t understand those things.

Chicago Catholic: You write about the role of priests from religious communities.

Miller: People ask how many chaplains served and I say about 3,300 in all. And for Catholics being 126, that’s a pretty small group of those, like 3%.

Religious communities in some ways were more able and it was easier for them to help in some ways because the communities were not tied into, generally speaking, being administrators of parishes.

The Jesuits were the biggest group to send chaplains. They sent 21 priests all together. Notre Dame [Congregation of the Holy Cross] sent seven. A lot of these priests were teachers. They got requests to serve.

For Father Edward Sorin at Notre Dame it was easier to let go of some teachers than it was for bishops to release pastors who had to be at their parish every week to say Mass. But there were more diocesan chaplains than religious chaplains.

Chicago Catholic: What did the life of a military chaplain look like?

Miller: There had been chaplains for about 80 years at this time, but they had to find their way during the Civil War. The characteristics that made a good chaplain were faithfulness, flexibility and courage.

Faithfulness — they did their job faithfully, preaching with the troops, prayed well, celebrated Mass well. Secondly, they were flexible. They were willing to be with the soldiers themselves or they could be with the officers. They could do both of those. Lastly, courage.

Probably the one chaplain everybody would know is Father William Corby of Notre Dame from the famous statue at the university and the battle at Gettysburg. By the way, the only statue to a chaplain from the Civil War anywhere is Father Corby at Gettysburg. Father Corby wrote, “Courage is the currency with which men’s support is won.” So, chaplains that were courageous got the support of the soldiers.

Chaplains, no matter whether they were Protestant or Catholic, served in three places: the regiments with the troops, hospitals or at a post. A post would be like a fort. The majority of chaplains were regimental.

Of the 126 Catholic priests, 80% of them were foreign born. Irish were the predominant ones, but then it was French, German in there, Canadian. American-born were about 19.5%. That made sense because the American church wasn’t developed yet.

The other factor that made priests important in the military at the time was Catholics, more than any other religion, absolutely need a priest. Why? Who says Mass? Only a priest. Who hears confessions? Only a priest. Who can anoint people on a battlefield? They didn’t have deacons back then. Only priests. Who can baptize? Only priests.

That’s why for Catholics it was absolutely crucial that they had priests. But unfortunately a lot of the Catholic regiments didn’t. 

Chicago Catholic: What do you hope readers take away from your book?

Miller: I hope people will begin to read this and say, “Wow, I didn’t realize there were chaplains, spiritual people that were involved in all of these wars.” They were extremely brave people and courageous people. I like to say in my talks, “Remember, chaplains are veterans too.” There was one chaplain, a Catholic priest, killed by bullets during the Civil War. That was a Confederate, Benedictine Father Emmeran Bliemel, he was hit by a cannonball in 1864 at the Battle of Jonesborough.

Then six priests died of sickness during the war. It was parallel to the troops. A lot of people don’t realize that they went through struggles. It wasn’t easy for them either, just like the troops.

The second thing I would say is I hope people believe in belief. Today, America is kind of a postmodern place. A lot of people are cynical. Church attendance is down. People are skeptical and don’t think church is important.

They think that today, and they read that back into the last century, thinking that if belief in God isn’t important today, it has never been important. Oh no, you could not be more wrong. You do not know history if you believe that.

Belief has been extremely important in informing world history and American history.