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- Aug 6, 2016
Stephen Elliott (1806–1866) was a true Southern man. He was born in South Carolina, a graduate of Harvard and practicing attorney in his home state. A conversion and calling to enter the ministry in 1833 changed the direction of his life. By the time the Civil War arrived he was known as Bishop Elliott and would go down in history as the first and only Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America.
In the January 13, 1863 edition of the "Charleston Mercury" there was a re-print of a tribute given by Bishop Elliott. He speaks a universal language of life, death and war.
"The attitude of woman is sublime. Bearing all the sacrifices of which I have just spoken, she is moreover called upon to suffer in her affections, to be wounded and smitten where she feels deepest and most enduringly. Man goes to the battlefield, but woman sends him there, even though her heart-strings tremble while she gives the farewell kiss and the farewell blessing. Man is supported by the necessity of movement, by the excitement of action, by the hope of honor, by the glory of conquest. Woman remains at home to suffer, to bear the cruel torture of suspense, to tremble when the battle has been fought and the news of the slaughter is flashing over the electric wire, to know that defeat will cover her with dishonor and her little ones with ruin, to learn that the husband she doted upon, the son whom she cherished in her bosom, and upon whom she never let the wind blow too rudely, the brother with whom she sported through all her happy days of childhood, the lover to whom her early vows were plighted, has died upon some distant battlefield, and lies there a mangled corpse, unknown and uncared for, never to be seen again, even in death! Oh! those fearful lists of the wounded and the dead! How carelessly we pass them over, unless our own loved ones happen to be linked with them in military association, and yet each name in that roll of slaughter, carries a fatal pang to some woman's heart--some noble, devoted woman's heart. But she bears it all, and bows submissively to the stroke. He died for the cause. He perished for his country. I would not have it otherwise, but I should like to have given the dying boy my blessing, the expiring husband my last kiss of affection, the bleeding lover the comfort of knowing that I kneeled beside him." {1}
During his second inaugural address, President Abraham Lincoln turned his thoughts to the women and children left behind when he concluded:
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations." {2}
Union General John Logan would reiterate Lincoln's call when he wrote his General Order #11 on May 5th of 1868:
"The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.
and he concludes:
let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon a nation's gratitude, the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan." {3}
Sources
1. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8648/old/8wrpm10h.htm#184
2. https://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2014/06/civil-war-widows.html
3. https://loganmuseum.org/general-order/
{*} https://underthehome.org/reading/lesson?textbooktitle
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