Catholics fought on both sides during Civil War

By John F. Fink

The movie The Conspirator was released in theaters to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War on April 12, 1861.

It accurately tells the story of the trial of Mary Surratt, who ran a boarding house in Washington where John Wilkes Booth and others conspired to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward.

Surratt is depicted in the movie as a devout Catholic, as indeed she was. She was a southerner who believed in the cause of the Confederacy, although most historians today believe that she probably was innocent of being among those who plotted the assassinations.

The movie clearly shows that Catholics fought on both sides of the Civil War. Besides Surratt, two other Catholics were implicated in the assassination: her son, John, who was tried by a civilian court—instead of a military commission in his mother’s case—and freed in 1868; and Dr. Samuel Mudd, a Maryland physician who treated Wilkes’ broken leg after Lincoln’s assassination.

Mudd was sentenced to life in prison. However, when a yellow fever epidemic broke out, he risked his life to treat the guards and fellow prisoners. Because of his heroism, President Andrew Johnson ordered him to be released in 1869.

When the Civil War began, there were 3.1 million Catholics in the United States—10 percent of the population. Most of them, though, lived in the north rather than the south.

Ever since the Irish Potato Famine that began in 1845, the Catholic population had soared. Most of them lived in the northeast. They were crowded in squalid slums, uneducated and took the jobs that native-born Americans didn’t want.

It seemed uncertain that Catholics would fight for the Union. While most Catholics were opposed to slavery, they were not abolitionists. They feared that liberated slaves might take their menial jobs.

There was also the anti-Catholic bigotry during that era, which was fueled by the immigration of all those Irish. The Native American Party was still strong. In 1844, in Philadelphia, members of the party burned two churches, two rectories and two convents, killed 40 Catholics and severely injured another 60-plus, and destroyed 81 homes.

In New York, a mob of 1,200 Nativists headed for St. Patrick’s Cathedral, but they stopped because Archbishop John Hughes had 2,000 members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians waiting for them. The Nativists were at least smart enough to disperse. But this, too, later cast doubts about whether Catholics would fight in the war.

Once it started, though, Catholics did fight—in much larger numbers than their percentage of the population. One reason for that was the unfairness of the draft. The law stipulated that a man could buy himself a substitute for $300 and free himself of the obligation to serve in the army. The poor, including Catholics, couldn’t raise $300 and they were usually the substitutes who were bought.

The most famous unit in the war was New York’s Fighting 69th all-Irish infantry brigade. Commanded by Gen. Thomas Meagher and Col. Michael Corcoran, it fought in every major battle of the Eastern theater. By the end of the war, the Irish Brigade suffered 4,000 casualties, believed to be the highest of any Union brigade.

The Fighting 69th’s chaplain was Holy Cross Father William Corby, who later became the president of the University of Notre Dame. Before the Battle of Gettysburg, he climbed on a large rock, gave a patriotic speech reminding the soldiers of their duty to God and country, and gave general absolution. A bronze statue of Father Corby was erected at Gettysburg in 1910. A duplicate of the statue is in front of Corby Hall at Notre Dame.

During World War I, the Fighting 69th was known for its commander, Col. William “Wild Bill” Donovan, and its chaplain, Father Francis P. Duffy.

There were numerous other Catholic chaplains during the Civil War. Father John Ireland, later the Archbishop of St. Paul, received the Medal of Honor for his heroism during the Battle of Corinth. During the battle, when ammunition was running low, he ignored the bullets flying around him and carried ammunition to the men.

Then there were the nuns. A monument in Washington, D.C., called “Nuns of the Battlefield” is dedicated to the more than 600 nuns who volunteered to serve as nurses for the North during the war. There were few doctors, no nurses corps had been established, and there was no Red Cross yet. It was the Catholic religious orders that provided women to care for the wounded.

The Catholic hierarchy was also on both sides during the Civil War. President Lincoln sent Archbishop Hughes on a diplomatic mission to France on behalf of the North. It was known that England was inclined to look favorably on the South because it needed cotton for its factory looms, so it was important to the North that France and the rest of Europe be kept neutral. The mission to Emperor Napoleon III was successful.

While Archbishop Hughes was doing that for the North, Bishop Patrick Lynch of Charleston was visiting European countries to try to obtain support for the South. After the war was over, President Johnson pardoned Bishop Lynch for doing so.

During the war, 50 of the Union generals and 20 Confederate generals were Catholics. Perhaps the most famous was Philip Sheridan, but others were Meagher, Ambrose Burnside and James Shields. Among the Confederate Catholic generals were Pierre Beauregard and James Longstreet.

Then there was Major Gen. William Starke Rosecrans, whose brother became the first bishop of Columbus, Ohio. He was the commander of the regiment for which Father Ireland served as chaplain.

During the Civil War, New York publisher Horace Greeley became disenchanted with President Lincoln and decided to try to replace him as the Republican candidate during the 1864 convention in Baltimore. He contacted Gen. Rosecrans, and tried to get him to run against Lincoln. Rosecrans refused and reported Greeley’s plot to Lincoln.

After Lincoln won the Republican nomination for a second term despite Greeley’s plans, he thought it would strengthen the ticket if he chose Rosecrans as his running mate. Lincoln sent Rosecrans a telegram offering him the second place on the ticket. Rosecrans immediately wired back his acceptance, but Lincoln didn’t receive the telegram.

Secretary of War Edwin Stanton—who also figures prominently in the movie The Conspirator—intercepted it. He had left orders that all telegrams from generals were to be brought to his attention. He didn’t like Rosecrans, and he certainly didn’t want him to be vice president.

When Lincoln didn’t receive a reply, he chose Andrew Johnson as his running mate. Had Lincoln received that telegram, Rosecrans would have been the first Catholic president after Lincoln was assassinated—96 years before it happened to John F. Kennedy. Wouldn’t that have been a catastrophe for the Nativists?

(John F. Fink is editor emeritus of The Criterion.) †