“Living and Moving Amongst Us Again”: John Kline and Civil War Martyrdo 1 Aaron D. Jerviss OVER the last 150 years, the story of cause. After presenting numerous examples John Kline has been well-told in Brethren of Kline remembrance, this essay will con - circles. For nearly three decades before the clude by placing John Kline’s memory in Civil War, Kline served the Brethren as a conversation with one respected scholar’s pastor, evangelist, and denominational criteria for establishing authentic martyr - leader. His opposition to both slavery and dom. The line between martyrology and secession, along with his efforts to secure hagiography can be a thin one, and, in Brethren exemption from the Confederate examining how the Brethren remembered military, however, made him suspect among John Kline, the adjective “hagiographic” his Rockingham County, Virginia, neigh - suggests a tension with, or even a contra - bors. Kline’s June 1864 murder at the hands diction of, long-cherished Brethren ideals, of Confederate irregulars continues to elicit such as simplicity and humility. Such termi - speculation and finger-pointing as armchair nology, however, remains appropriate only gumshoes (Brethren and otherwise) seek to because Kline’s death appeared to give the solve a puzzling “whodunit.” Considering Brethren a bonafide Civil War martyr. both his standing in Brethren leadership Throughout church history, martyrdom and the tragic circumstances surrounding has been a conceptually fluid notion. After his death, it is not difficult to see why, in the the fourth-century conversion of the Roman decades after his death, John Kline became emperor Constantine to Christianity, for the patron saint, in the truest sense of the example, a highly ascetic and often solitary phrase, of Brethren Civil War memory. This form of monasticism became “the new mar - article examines the Brethren martyrology tyrdom,” a way of distinguishing valid of John Kline in remembrance, poetic verse, Christianity from the fashionable Christiani - and song in the fifty years following the ty of the imperial court. According to one Civil War. On the one hand, Brethren adu - noted medieval scholar, the Late Middle lation of Kline reached back through the Ages became an era when “the patient centuries by likening Kline to the martyrs of endurance of suffering” replaced dying for the early Christian church and even biblical the faith as the essential prerequisite for giants of faith. At the same time, however, martyrdom. Transferring that latter under - John Kline was cast as a martyr in secular standing to nonresistants of the Civil War terms more easily grasped by post-Appo - era, one finds no shortage of martyrs. As mattox Americans: a soldier who “died at “patient sufferers,” the German Baptist his post,” a heroic Civil War-era crusader Brethren, Mennonites, and members of the who laid down his life for a valued personal Society of Friends lost property, watched as SPRING/SUMMER 2019 1 the state deprived them of basic liberties, officer by not “stopping bullets,” as and, in some cases, carried bodily scars as described by Cartland: “(Macon) seemed to remnants of physical torment for the rest of possess a charmed life. His comrades fell all their lives. A few did not live to see the end around him, their places being filled by oth - of the war. In his 1895 work Southern ers who wondered at the strange sight,—a Heroes , a lengthy description of the war man with plain citizen’s dress, having nei - time sufferings of North Carolina Friends, ther pistol, sword, nor gun, and no military cap nor coat, calmly filling his place in bat - Kline, the advocate of tle line, but taking no part.” 1 In a tragic turn of events, Isaiah Macon nonviolence, met a quite died a few days after the aforementioned battle as a captive in the Point Lookout violent end, and this prison. Cartland described Macon as “a re - markably sensitive lad” (a man so uncom - murder would, to fortable with “the sight of blood…that he would rather be excused from killing the subsequent generations fowls needed for his dinner”) and attributed his death to “mental suffering caused by his of Brethren, both elevate being taken from his loved ones, and by the terrible scenes of battle.” In another passage Kline beyond the status from Southern Friends , Cartland wrote, “In the experience of those Friends, and of oth - of mere denominational ers who were conscientious in their posi - “hero” and prove that tion in favor of peace, not only did (God) support them by his presence and power, Christian martyrdom but not one of all those who steadily refused to bear arms was permitted to come to a could and did occur violent death.” Fernando Cartland classified Isaiah Macon as a “good soldier” whose on American soi l. death advanced the cause of Christian peace, but was he a martyr? That was easier author Fernando Cartland told the tale of to prove in terms of suffering for the sake of the young Quaker conscript Isaiah Macon. righteousness rather than the more tradi - Even though Macon refused to pick up a gun tional notion of voluntary and violent death or wear a Confederate uniform, this draftee for a belief or cause. Without question, the still silently endured the atrocities of battle Civil War bore some responsibility for near Winchester, Virginia. Before combat killing Isaiah Macon, yet mental anguish ever began, a Confederate officer uttered, took the life of this young man rather than “If Macon will not fight, put him in the front bullets. With Cartland asserting that no to stop bullets for those who will.” Posi - Quaker died a violent wartime death, tioned at the front of the fighting, Macon Friends could celebrate the gallantry of witnessed “the fierce shouts and fearful Macon and, at the same time, demonstrate oaths of the combatants around him,” “the a special form of divine protection for those dreadful groans of wounded men and hors - espousing the peace viewpoint. In compar - es,” and “the gaping wounds made by shell, ison to Isaiah Macon, however, the death of shot and sword.” In spite of the increasing John Kline appears to be more of a literal carnage, Macon defied the prediction of his martyrdom. Kline, the advocate of nonvio - 2 BRETHREN LIFE & THOUGHT lence, met a quite violent end, and this mur - viewed Bowman’s death as tragic yet ran - der would, to subsequent generations of dom, a contingent accident of time and Brethren, both elevate Kline beyond the sta - space, based more on a refusal to part with tus of mere denominational “hero” and a horse than a defense of the faith. More prove that Christian martyrdom could and likely, Kline’s stature and longer length of did occur on American soil. 2 service within the denomination caused his Although Brethren recognized John Kline commemoration to overshadow the re- as the preeminent Civil War martyr, he was not the only Brethren figure to suffer a vio - As a Brethren pastor lent wartime death. John A. Bowman (1813– 1863) lived and ministered in Sullivan Coun - passed away, a Brethren ty, Tennessee, where his “more than ordi - nary” oratorical abilities made him a high - martyr was bor n. ly-esteemed preacher and a ubiquitous fig - ure presiding at countless local weddings membrance of Bowman. 3 and funerals. On September 8, 1863, sever - On the fateful day of Wednesday, June 15, al men wearing the uniforms of Confederate 1864, around 11:00 in the morning, the guns soldiers entered Bowman’s barn, located near of an unspecified number (most likely two Blountville, seeking saddle-horses. Bowman or three) of Confederate irregulars perched attempted to reason with the intruders, and above the roadside fired several bullets into the 1907 Brethren history The Olive Branch John Kline as he rode atop his beloved mare described the ensuing confrontation: “(Bow - “Old Nell” after a morning of Rockingham man) implored them not to take his horse, as County errand-running. In a region and he very greatly stood in need of his service, time increasingly numbed by violence and and during the time he gently laid his hand loss of life, Brethren quickly ascertained upon the horse’s mane, whereupon one of that this was no ordinary wartime death. the soldiers drew his gun and shot him Annie Zigler Bowman (1849–1935), a dead.” Thus, a shot fired by “a thoughtless, Shenandoah Valley resident and acquain - reckless man in the garb of a soldier” cut tance of Kline, remembered the loyalty of short the life of “a useful servant of the Nell in securing assistance for her longtime Lord.” In 1912, Brethren biographers Miller traveling companion: “…it was her contin - and Royer used even more laudatory lan - ued nickerings that brought help when her guage when remembering Bowman’s death: master was brought down by the wicked “That sharp musket-shot penetrated many bullet and lay dead in the road. She never homes and touched many hearts, as the left his side but nickered again and again as dastardly deed of the assassin was borne on if she would arouse him to go home. The the still morning air by the pitiful grief and neighbors heard this nickering up in the moans of his loving companion and dear woods, and went to see what it meant.” For children. He truly died a martyr’s death.” others, the final lasting impression of John The practice of nonresistance provided the Kline was the smile gracing Kline’s face as proof of Bowman’s death for an explicitly he sojourned into the eternal. Benjamin spiritual cause: “It is well known that the Funk, the editor of The Life and Labors of position he took in favor of peace and Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary , against war made him enemies among a vouched, “The writer’s own eyes witnessed certain class.” In general, however, Brethren this.