C: Oliver Otis Howard
Oliver O. Howard
(1830—1909)
“Old Prayer Book” fought for the North—and then for freed slaves.
General Oliver Otis Howard was a New England abolitionist who never drank, smoked, or swore. His troops called him “Old Prayer Book.”
Howard’s brigade was routed at the First Battle of Bull Run. He blamed the Union Army’s horrific defeat on its decision to attack on a Sabbath.
Howard, who was widely known as “the Christian soldier,” also fought at Antietam, and he was routed by Stonewall Jackson at Chancellorsville. After losing his right arm at the battle of Seven Pines, he mustered humor to say to General Kearny, who had lost his left arm, “I am sorry, General, but you must not mind it; … we can buy our gloves together!”
On a Sabbath rest during Sherman’s march to Atlanta, General Howard, as he occasionally did, spoke during chapel services. According to a missionary of the Christian Commission, “the General spoke of the Saviour, his love for Him and his peace in His service, as freely and simply as he could have spoken in his own family circle.”
Following the war, Howard led the Freedmen’s Bureau, a government effort to assist former slaves. He helped to found a university for blacks in 1867. Named in his honor, Howard University stands today, in
The New York Times’s words, as “the largest and most prestigious black research university in America.” The general also stirred controversy when he tried to integrate a church.
Howard served as chairman of the board of the American Tract Society and as superintendent of West Point. In 1869 he presented Bibles to all incoming West Point cadets, a practice that continues today.
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