Roman Catholics and the Southern Confederacy During the American
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Template A v3.0 (beta): Created by J. Nail 06/2015 Dogma and Dixie: Roman Catholics and the Southern Confederacy during the American Civil War By TITLE PAGE Gracjan Kraszewski A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Mississippi State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in American History in the Department of History Mississippi State, Mississippi August 2016 Copyright by COPYRIGHT PAGE Gracjan Kraszewski 2016 Dogma and Dixie: Roman Catholics and the Southern Confederacy during the American Civil War By APPROVAL PAGE Gracjan Kraszewski Approved: ____________________________________ Alison Collis Greene (Major Professor) ____________________________________ Anne E. Marshall (Committee Member) ____________________________________ William Anthony Hay (Committee Member) ____________________________________ Andrew F. Lang (Committee Member) ____________________________________ Stephen C. Brain (Graduate Coordinator) ____________________________________ Rick Travis Interim Dean College of Arts & Sciences Name: Gracjan Kraszewski ABSTRACT Date of Degree: August 12, 2016 Institution: Mississippi State University Major Field: American History Major Professor: Alison Greene Title of Study: Dogma and Dixie: Roman Catholics and the Southern Confederacy during the American Civil War Pages in Study 310 Candidate for Degree of Doctor of Philosophy My work—studying Roman Catholics in the South during the American Civil War— is a remedy to a two-directional historiographical neglect. Much of American Catholic scholarship focuses on the twentieth century (especially the Second Vatican Council and its aftermath), the North, and issues of race, class, urbanization, and gender giving sparse treatment to the nineteenth century South; when the nineteenth century is discussed the focus is once more usually on the North, immigration, and societal tensions between Catholics and Protestants. On the other hand, Civil War religious scholarship is largely Protestant in nature and while treating the nineteenth century South there is sparse coverage of how Catholicism fits within this paradigm. My work addresses both issues, adding the nineteenth century Southern voice to American Catholic scholarship and the Catholic voice to Civil War religious studies. My work is a study of allegiance and the interplay between religious and political attachments. Clergy—Catholic bishops, priests (usually chaplains), sisters, and the Pope, Pius IX—are the main characters of the study with a lay component present as well via Catholic soldiers. I argue that all of the Catholics of my study were fully “Confederatized,” committed to and involved in the Southern nation and cause, and both “devout Catholics and devoted Confederates.” They found no tension between their faith and their politics and lived both allegiances to the maximum with chaplains and soldiers the most ardent Confederates. The one exception to the “devoted Confederates” label were Catholic nuns. They were almost exclusively focused on their faith and providing spiritual and medical assistance to the men they ministered to in their role as Sister-nurses. While the Sister- nurses were apolitical their participation in the Confederate cause as battlefield medics shows the all encompassing involvement of Southern Catholics in the Confederacy—as soldiers, medics, and religious and social leaders as the bishops were, and both men and women, clergy and laity—and demonstrates that future studies of American Catholic, and Civil War religious, history can no longer overlook these men and women. DEDICATION For Katy ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project would not be possible without David Nolen—Assistant Professor, Assistant Editor, Reference Librarian, and Renaissance Man. I first met him in the fall of 2012 when I asked for his advice on a seminar paper I was researching about Catholics in the nineteenth century South. To that point I had found little. David, seemingly in twenty minutes of searching, opened an entire floodgate of information for me; not least of which the Civil War diary of William Henry Elder, Bishop of Natchez and a central figure of my work. David lit the first spark to a now three-hundred page manuscript. Lest anyone get the wrong impression and think David is somewhere near perfect…he is an Alabama fan. I am, nonetheless, incredibly grateful for all of his help and his kindness and humor, too. Thank you, David. I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Alison Collis Greene, my advisor. I’ll say, simply, that no one could ask for a better advisor or professor from which to learn how to become a historian. I first met Doctor Greene five years ago when I served as her TA. I then took a graduate seminar with her and, with these two great experiences in tow, asked her to be my advisor. It was a great decision. Thank you for everything, Doctor Greene. I extend similar gratitude to the three other members of my committee: Anne Marshall, William Anthony Hay, and Andrew Lang. Their guidance, help in preparation for exams, and comments on my drafts proved indispensible. Thank you all. I also want to thank the many other professors who helped me during my time at Mississippi State: iii among them, but not limited to, Mary Kathryn Barbier, Jason Phillips, Dennis Doyle, Allyson Delnore, Peter Messer, Jason Ward, Michael Williams, Godfrey Uzoigwe, James Giesen, Alexandra Hui, Richard Damms, and Stephen Brain. Special thanks as well to Department Head Alan I. Marcus. Doctor Marcus’ deft leadership of the department has enabled students like me to receive the scholarships that both finance their studies and allow them to gain invaluable teaching experience. Thank you. I am grateful to Professor Emeritus John F. Marszalek for selecting me to give the 2015 Marszalek Lecture at MSU which enabled me to give a one-percent distillation of my entire dissertation and helped me focus the thesis and direction of my work. Thank you. I am very grateful for two travel grants that enabled me to accomplish the bulk of my research. Thank you to Doctor Peter Ryan and the MSU Office of the Provost for the funding to travel to the Diocesan archives in Charleston, South Carolina; and to the archivist in Charleston, Brian P. Fahey, a sincere thanks for all of your help. Thank you to the University of Notre Dame’s Cushwa Center for a travel grant to be able to research at the Notre Dame archives. The trip, as is true of Charleston, was indispensible for my work. Thank you to all the archivists at Notre Dame, especially Senior Archivist William Kevin Cawley, for all of your help; you made the trip both fruitful and very enjoyable. Additionally, it would be wrong for an American Catholic like myself to have never visited Our Lady’s University, right? The Cushwa Center made it possible for this no longer to be the case. Speaking of Notre Dame, I am deeply grateful to James McCartin, Notre Dame PhD and currently the Director of Fordham’s Center on Religion and Culture. I took iv Doctor McCartin’s American history class my freshman year when both he and I were at Seton Hall University and it is no exaggeration to say that this formative experience solidified my desire to become at professor myself. Years later, when I was at MSU, Dr. McCartin helped me with a historiography paper and encouraged me to apply for the Cushwa Grant. For this, and everything, thank you, Jim. I want to extend a special thanks to Dr. Cristofer Scarboro of King’s College and to my many colleagues and friends at Mississippi State, and in Starkville, for their friendship and support. Among them Garett and Michelle LaFleur, Cory and Jamie Lucius, Doug and Cori Cater, Alan Harrelson, Rachel D’Addabbo, Karrie Barfield, Larson and Lydia Plyler, and Cameron Zinsou. I want to specially thank my family. To my father, Charles, and my mother, Aleksandra, no son could have better parents. Not only is my father a great father, but he is my academic and literary role model as well. And my mother likewise is not simply a wonderful mother but wonderful at everything. Bardzo was kocham. The same thanks and love to my brother Konrad, who has one of best baseball swings I have ever seen and is just an all-around amazing person. Thanks and love to my Aunt Claire and Uncle Carl, Uncle Bill, Uncle Przemek, Aunt Kasia, and all my family in Częstochowa, and to my Uncle Rusty, Aunt Sheri, and all the Boicourts. Thanks and love to all my brothers and sisters: Anson, Colin, Liam, Lars, Molly, Sean, Amy, Mat, and Colby. Thanks and love to my parents-in-law Bill and Theresa; as I could not ask for better parents the same is true for in-laws. I love you all. Finally, the deepest thanks and love to my wife, Katy. You are my best friend, an amazing wife and mother to our boy Søren, and an inspiration to me every day. I love you. This book, and all my work and life, is for you. v TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION .................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................1 Chapter Summaries .............................................................................................31 I. The Bishops respond to the Secession Crisis and the First Year of War, 1860-61 .....................................................................................31 II.