Spirituality And Union Soldiers
Sick or wounded Union soldiers largely clung to spiritual solace when they were hospitalized . Reverend Samuel Adair served in the Union Army as a chaplain, and was stationed at Fort Scott, Kansas in October of 1862.
He reported in a letter to Bro. Brown on the conditions in the Army hospital at Fort Scott and wrote, “I t is now one week since my return here from home. In that time we have seven deaths in the hospital.
On two days we had two funerals each. And two days- last Tuesday & today we had none. To day it has been clear and pleasant, & most of our sick seem to h sympathize with nature, and look brighter and better. I spent last Tuesday at [sic]. It rained in the afternoon & was quite chilly.
There were no stoves to warm the building, except the cooking stove, and its influence could be felt by but few. I think the building occupied there a miserable excuse for a Hospital. I need say no more. You doubtless sense what it was when you was there. – the roof is a miserable excuse, and the building but a shell. One of the men buried yesterday was walking around last Sabbath, took cold & died of sinking chills, or collapse. Both were of the Ninth Wisconsin Reg. vol. One aged 45 & the other 56 years. And both had been kept her a long time waiting for their discharges to go home; & I think out to have had them long ago.”
Reverend Adair pointed out the suffering of Union troops at the Army hospital at Fort Scott, but found that when he brought the soldiers bibles and gospel tracts, morale improved. Reverend Adair wrote “Many countenances brighten up when I appear among them with a bundle of tracts & papers. Indeed I think great good must result from the distribution of religious reading among them. My supply will not last many days longer unless additions are made to it.”
Reverend Adair noted that hospitalized soldiers, facing their own mortality, became deeply spiritual and wrote, “I am becoming more and more satisfied of the importance of religious effort in our Hospitals. Multitudes will listen to religious conversation, & read religious tracts & books when unwell & sick, who seem to find no use [for] them but roll up tobacco & light pipes with them when they are well. It is a rare thing to find infidelity, or Universalism advocated by a sick man. My experience teaches me that such a work is left almost entirely for men in health to do.”
Reverend Samuel Adair counseled Union soldiers during the Civil War when they were willing to listen and seek spiritual solace in Army hospitals. Adair was a dedicated man of God, and cared for Union Soldiers when they needed spiritual strength to face their mortality.
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Posted by admin
on May 18 2011. Filed under News and Updates.
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