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Doctor Quintard, Chaplain C.S.A. And Second Bishop Of Tennessee
Doctor Quintard
Chaplain C.S.A.
And
Second Bishop Of Tennessee
Being His Story Of The War
(1861-1865)
Edited And Extended
By The
Rev. Arthur Howard Noll
_Historiographer of the Diocese of Tennessee,
Author of "History of the Church
in the Diocese of Tennessee," etc._
The University Press
of Sewanee Tennessee
1905
To
The Friends And Comrades Of
Doctor Quintard
In The Army Of The Confederacy
And In The Church Militant
These Memoirs Of His Life In War Times--
Extended To Include An Account Of His Work
For The Upbuilding Of The Church In Tennessee
And For The Advancement Of Christian Education In
The South--Are Most Affectionately
Dedicated
[Illustration: Charles Quintard.]
PREFACE
The chapters of this volume containing the Memoirs of the war were
written by Bishop Quintard about the year 1896 and are to be read with
that date in mind. The work of the editor thereon has been devoted to
bringing them into conformity with a plan agreed upon in personal
interviews with Bishop Quintard about that time.
In the first and in the last two chapters of the book the editor has
drawn freely, even to the extent of transcribing entire sentences and
paragraphs, upon the Bishop's own addresses in the Diocesan Journals of
Tennessee; upon Memorial Addresses by his successor, the Rt. Rev. Dr.
Gailor; upon material used in some of the chapters of the Editor's
"History of the Church in the Diocese of Tennessee;" and upon documents
preserved in the archives of The University of the South.
Thanks are due to the Rev. Bartow B. Ramage, the Rev. Rowland Hale and
Mr. George E. Purvis, among others, for valuable assistance in the
original preparation of the Memoirs.
A. H. N.
_Sewanee, Tennessee,_
_May, 1905._
CONTENTS
I. Introduction 1
II. Personal Narrative--The Beginning of the War
and Valley Mountain 10
III. Personal Narrative--Big Sewell Mountain,
Winchester and Romney 31
IV. Personal Narrative--Norfolk 43
V. Personal Narrative--Perryville 50
VI. Personal Narrative--Murfreesboro 64
VII. Personal Narrative--Shelbyville 69
VIII. Personal Narrative--A Dramatic Episode 83
IX. Personal Narrative--Chickamauga 87
X. Personal Narrative--Atlanta 95
XI. Personal Narrative--Columbus (Georgia) and the
Journey into Tennessee 102
XII. Personal Narrative--Franklin 112
XIII. Personal Narrative--The Crumbling of the
Confederacy 125
XIV. Personal Narrative--The Close of the War 143
XV. A Long Episcopate 149
XVI. Bishop Quintard and Sewanee 164
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Writers upon the late Civil War have never done full justice to the high
religious character of the majority of those who composed the
Confederate government and its army, and the high religious principles
which inspired them. Not only was the conviction of conscience clear in
the Southern soldiers, that they were right in waging war against the
Federal government, but the people of the South looked upon their cause
as a holy one, and their conduct of affairs, civil and military, was
wholly in accord with such a view. The Confederacy, as it came into
existence, committed its civil affairs, by deliberate choice, to men,
not only of approved morality, but of approved religious character as
well. It was not merely by accident, that, in the organization of its
army, choice was made of such men as Robert E. Lee and Thomas J.
Jackson,--not to mention a large number of other Christian soldiers,--as
leaders. And it seemed in no way incongruous in the conduct of a war of
such a character, that commissions were offered to and accepted by the
Rev. William Nelson Pendleton, Rector of Grace Church, Lexington,
Virginia, and the Rt. Rev. Leonidas Polk, D. D., Bishop of Louisiana.
A religious tone pervades the state papers pertaining to the
Confederacy,--its proclamations, and its legislation. The same religious
tone is conspicuous in a majority of the military leaders. It is found
upon investigation to have impressed itself upon the officers of
regiments and companies and upon the private soldiers in the ranks
throughout the whole army. So that there is more than an ordinary basis
for the statement, surprising as such a statement may appear at first,
that the armies of the Confederate States had in them a larger
proportion than any other in history since those of Cromwell's nicknamed
"Roundheads," of true and active Christian men.
The provision made for the spiritual needs of the men in the field was
quite remarkable. In the great haste with which the Army of the
Confederacy was organized, equipped and sent to the field, there might
have been found abundant apology for the omission of chaplains from the
official staffs. Yet there was no need for seeking such an apology, for
the chaplains were not overlooked. Even imputing a love of excitement
and adventure to the young men who composed in such large measure the
fighting forces of the Confederacy at the first, they did not neglect to
secure the services of a chaplain for each regiment which went to the
seat of war. It was naturally thought that work might be found for
chaplains in the hospitals, but it was early discovered that a chaplain
had opportunities for efficient work at all times,--in the midst of
active campaigns and when the army was in winter quarters.
Nor was their work in vain. Few religious services in times of peace
equalled in attendance, in fervor or results, those held at, or in the
immediate vicinity of, encampments of the Confederate army. The camps of
regiments which had been sent forth with prayer and benediction, were
often the seats of earnest religious life. It is estimated that 15,000
men in the Army of Virginia alone, made some open and public profession
of their allegiance to Christ during the war, and were affected in their
subsequent lives by religious experiences gained in the war. And the
number is especially remarkable of men in the Southern army who after
the close of the war entered the sacred ministry and won distinction in
their holy calling.
A study of what might be called "the religious phases" of this war
history should be approached through a consideration of the chaplains of
the Confederacy. They were a regimental institution, and their number
might be determined by the number of regiments engaged in the war. They
were, for the most part, men of brains, of a keen sense of humor, and of
fidelity to what they regarded as their duty; sticking to their posts;
maintaining the most friendly and intimate relations with "the boys;"
ever on the look-out for opportunities to do good in any way; ready to
give up their horses to some poor fellows with bare and blistered feet
and to march in the column as it hurried forward; going on picket duty
with their men and bivouacking with them in the pelting storm; sharing
with them at all times their hardships and their dangers, gaining a
remarkably wide experience during four years of army life, and probably
with it all acquiring the pleasing art of the _raconteur_.
If an individual were desired for a more particular illustration of the
religious phases of Confederate war history, he might be found in the
Rev. Charles Todd Quintard, M. D., of the First Tennessee Regiment, and
after the war, Second Bishop of Tennessee. He not only fully conformed
to the type above indicated but in some respects he surpassed it, for
his knowledge of the healing art and his surgical skill were ever at the
demands of his fellow soldiers. He was one of the earliest to enter the
service of the Confederate army, and was probably the most widely known
and the best beloved of all the chaplains.
Dr. Quintard was born in Stamford, Connecticut, on the 22nd of December,
1824. His ancestors were Huguenots who left France after the revocation
of the Edict of Nantes and settled the country north of Manhattan
Island, between Long Island Sound and the Hudson River. Those who knew
Dr. Quintard at any period of his life had no difficulty in detecting
his French ancestry in his personal appearance, as well as in his
manner,--his vivacity and demonstrativeness. Though not a few who failed
to get well acquainted with him fell into the error of supposing that
some of his mannerisms were an affectation acquired in some of his
visits to England subsequent to the war.
His father was Isaac Quintard, a man of wealth and education, a
prominent citizen of Stamford, having been born in the same house in
which he gave his son a birthplace, and in which he died in 1883 in the
ninetieth year of his age. The Doctor was a pupil at Trinity School, New
York City, and took his Master's degree at Columbia College. He studied
medicine with Dr. James R. Wood and Dr. Valentine Mott, and was
graduated, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine, at the University of
the City of New York, in 1847. After a year at Bellevue Hospital, he
removed to Georgia, and began the practice of medicine at Athens in that
state, where he was a parishioner of the Rev. William Bacon Stevens,
afterwards Bishop of Pennsylvania.
In 1851 he accepted the chair of Physiology and Pathological Anatomy in
the Medical College of Memphis, Tennessee, and became in that city
co-editor with Dr. Ayres P. Merrill, of the "Memphis Medical Recorder."
There also he formed a close friendship with Bishop Otey, and in
January, 1854, he was admitted a candidate for Holy Orders. That year he
appeared in the Twenty-sixth Annual Convention of the Church in the
Diocese of Tennessee, held in St. John's Church, Knoxville, as the lay
representative of St. Paul's Church, Randolph. St Paul's Church has
since passed out of existence, and the town of Randolph no longer
appears upon the map of the State of Tennessee.
Studying theology under the direction of his Bishop, he was ordered
deacon in Calvary Church, Memphis, in January, 1855, and a year later
was advanced to the priesthood. His diaconate was spent in missionary
work in Tipton County,--one of the Mississippi River counties of
Tennessee. Upon his advancement to the priesthood he became rector of
Calvary Church, Memphis.
In the latter part of 1856, he resigned the rectorship of his Memphis
parish, and at the urgent request of Bishop Otey, accepted the
rectorship of the Church of the Advent, Nashville. He had charge also of
the Church of the Holy Trinity in that city, and extended his work to
Edgefield, (now East Nashville), and to the parish of St Ann. He served
the Diocese as a member of the Standing Committee, and as a clerical
deputy to the General Convention meeting in Richmond, Virginia, in the
Fall of 1859.
He was a man of varied and deep learning--a preacher of power and
attractiveness, and ranked among the clergymen of greatest prominence
and popularity in Nashville. He was of ardent temperament, affectionate
disposition, and possessed personal magnetism to a remarkable degree,
especially with young men, who looked up to him with an affection which
is now rarely if ever shown by young men to the ministry. This, and the
influence he had over young men, are illustrated by the organization in
1859 of the Rock City Guard, a militia company composed largely of the
young men of Nashville. Dr. Quintard was at once elected Chaplain of
that organization, and its first public parade was for the purpose of
attending services in a body at the Church of the Advent at which he
officiated.
His was a churchmanship of a type in those days considerably in advance
of the average in the ante-bellum period in the South. He was clearly
under the spell of the "Oxford Movement," and of the English
"Tractarians," and occupied a position to which Churchmen generally in
this country did not approach until ten or twenty years later. He was a
"sacerdotalist,"--a pronounced "sacramentarian" at times when the
highest "High" Churchmen of the country would have hesitated long before
applying those terms to themselves.
To him baptism was, not "a theory and a notion," but "a gift and a
power." And baptized children were to be educated, "not with a view to
their becoming Christians, but because they were already Christians."
Consequently he regarded Confirmation, not as "joining the Church," or
as merely a ratifying and renewing of the vows and promises of Holy
Baptism, and hence as something which man does for God;--but as
something which God does for man,--the bestowal of the gifts of the Holy
Spirit. To the preparation of candidates for Confirmation he therefore
gave his most earnest attention, even to the extent of preparing "A
Plain Tract on Confirmation," and (in 1861), "A Preparation for
Confirmation," a manual of eighty-nine pages.
His veneration for the Church's liturgical inheritance was great, and
the books of devotion he compiled and had printed for the use of
soldiers during the war were drawn from the ancient sources. He attached
the utmost importance to the Holy Communion as a means of spiritual
life, and throughout the war he availed himself of every opportunity of
administering it to the soldiers in camp, in the way-side churches as he
passed them, and in towns where he temporarily rested with the army.
With a host of friends in Nashville and vicinity, who looked up to him
with love and reverence, it is not strange that Doctor Quintard should
have been the choice for chaplain of those who enlisted from that city
for the defence of their homes and firesides in 1861. Many of the young
men of his parish enlisted in the First Tennessee regiment, of which he
was elected chaplain, and feeling as he did that these young men would
need his spiritual care far more than those of his parishioners who were
left behind, he felt it his duty to accept the office and go with his
regiment to the seat of war. Both he and his parishioners supposed that
his absence would not exceed six months. He did not return to Nashville
until after the collapse of the Confederacy and the surrender of Lee's
army in 1865.
During those four years he gathered up a rich fund of experiences, both
grave and gay. Always an accomplished _raconteur_ and brilliant
conversationalist, it is but natural that a wide circle of friends in
different parts of the world should have begged him to commit to writing
the story of the war as he saw it and as none but he could tell it, and
permit its publication. About the year 1896 he consented to do this and
entered with considerable enthusiasm upon the literary task thus set for
him.
It was quite characteristic of him, however, that the work as he
projected it was likely to have been a laudation of the men with whom he
was brought into contact during the civil strife, at the expense of the
personal experiences of which his friends were more anxious to read. For
Doctor Quintard was an enthusiast and an optimist. No man was ever more
loyal to his friends than he. His estimate of human character was always
based upon whatever good he could find in a man. Nothing was a greater
delight to him in recalling the scenes of the war than to describe some
deed of heroism, some noble trait of character, or some mark of
friendship that was shown him by a soldier; to acknowledge some kindness
shown him, or to correct some error of judgment that had been passed
upon some actor in the drama of the civil war. Some of the men whom he
paused to eulogize were those to whom fame had otherwise done but scant
justice, and his estimate of them is in more than one instance an
addition of worth to the history of the people of the Southern States.
The death of Doctor Quintard on the 15th of February, 1898, prevented
the completion of the work he had begun more than two years previously;
but left it in such form that it has not been entirely impossible to
gratify the wishes of his friends in regard thereto, and to make a
valuable contribution to the pictures of life in the Southern States
during the troubled days of the Civil War.