The Civil War Letters of Joseph Hopkins Twichell: A Chaplain's Story

by Joseph Hopkins Twichell, Peter Messent (Editor), Steve Courtney (Editor)

In 1861 young Joseph Twichell cut short his seminary studies to become a Union Army chaplain in New York's Excelsior Brigade. A middle-class New England Protestant, Twichell served for three years in a regiment manned mostly by poor Irish American Catholics. This selection of Twichell's letters to his Connecticut family will rank him alongside the Civil War's most literate and insightful firsthand chroniclers of life on the road, in battle, and in camp. As a noncombatant, he at once observed and participated in the momentous events of the Peninsula and Wilderness Campaigns and at the Second Bull Run, as well as at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Spotsylvania.Twichell writes about politics and slavery and the theological and cultural divide between him and his men. Most movingly, he tells of tending the helpless, burying the dead, and counseling the despondent. Alongside accounts of a run-in with slave hunters, a massive withdrawal of wounded soldiers from Richmond, and other extraordinary events, Twichell offers close-up views of his commanding officer, the "political general" Daniel Sickles, surely one of the most colorful and controversial leaders on either side.

Civil War scholars and enthusiasts will welcome this fresh voice from an underrepresented class of soldier, the army chaplain. Readers who know of Twichell's later life as a prominent minister and reformer or as Mark Twain's closest friend will appreciate these insights into his early, transforming experiences.

Genres: Civil War

333 pages, Hardcover

First published April 15, 2006

Reviews

[Art · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable read from both the history and faith side of the ball. A congregational preacher, Twichell was a little out of comfort with many of his charges, many of his men were Catholic and his commander (gasp) a Episcopalian. He writes well and on subjects from faith to military matters to politics and daily life. Worth reading.

[John Harney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Circumstances can inspire people to accomplish extraordinary feats. Although Joseph Hopkins Twichell was intelligent, well-educated and a dedicated abolitionist, his background did not, at least on the surface, suggest that this remarkable, sweeping account of the Army of the Potomac would be one of his accomplishments, and one completed when he was 26 years old. After Yale and the Union Theological Seminary in New York, his career path seemed well marked, that of a fairly ordinary New England clergyman, and for much of his adult life he was just that. But the war elevated him. As bloody as it became and as endless as it often seemed, the war also strengthened his faith. Although he was just one man in a vast conflict his letters home constitute a surprisingly broad canvas that includes many of the great battles and the generals and other officers who led them, and well as the petty feuds and bickering that took up a great deal of their time off the battlefield. His sharp, unsparing reportage also delves into the points of view that led to the war, continued all through it and resonate to this day. In the Afterward, we learn that Twichell touched off an angry national debate when he spoke out against a decision by the Yale class of 1896 to plant ivy from the tomb of Robert E. Lee on the campus. And to think that these letters are being published in their entirety for the first time.