The Brothers’ War
ECW welcomes back guest author Joseph Casino.
The Civil War has sometimes been called the Brothers’ War because of the way it separated families into warring sides.[1] But in another sense, it was indeed a Brothers’ War. Eight Benedictine brothers from St. Vincent Abbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, served in the Union Army. Seven of them are among the forty-eight Civil War veterans buried in the abbey’s cemetery.[2] Their graves are marked by metal crosses accompanied by GAR stars.
One of the brothers, Gallus Maier, is not buried in St. Vincent’s cemetery because he left the Benedictine Order after the war. How he came to be wounded at Antietam in September 1862 is a mystery, since official records have him being drafted on July 14, 1863, into Company B, 61st Pennsylvania Volunteers, along with brothers Bonaventure Gaul and Ildephonse Hoffman.[3] Nevertheless, he remained in the army until his discharge on June 9, 1865, not becoming a naturalized citizen until August 29, 1876.[4]
Brother George Held professed vows as a Benedictine monk in 1851. He was 41 years old when he was drafted on October 16, 1862 into the nine-month 168th Pennsylvania Drafted Militia. He was discharged on February 3, 1863 and died in December 1875.[5]
Brother Hugo Schwär followed the profession of butcher in Pennsylvania.[6] He made his simple vows at St. Vincent in January 1855 and his perpetual vows in January 1859. Where and when he served in the Union Army is uncertain. Being 54 years old in 1862 would have made him ineligible to be drafted under the 1862 and 1863 drafts, meaning he likely volunteered. After the war he continued as a butcher at St. Vincent, dying there on August 18, 1896 at the age of 88.[7]
Felix Fellner says that on September 24, 1863, four of the Benedictine brothers were transferred to hospital duties in the VI Corps: brother Bonaventure Gaul was eventually assigned to the Sheridan Field Hospital in Winchester, Virginia; brother Ulric Bart to the Harewood General Hospital in Washington, DC; brother Ildephonse Hoffman to the Stanton Hospital in Washington, D.C.; and brother Leo Christ to the Haddington Hospital in West Philadelphia.[8]
Shoemaker Bonaventure Gaul entered St. Vincent on September 9, 1855. He had just made his simple profession of monastic vows on February 2, 1863, when he was drafted into Company B of the 61st Pennsylvania Volunteers on July 14. [9] He was discharged from the service on June 9, 1865. He suffered from neuralgia that lasted for weeks at a time – probably an unheralded casualty of his war experiences. His pension papers state that, during the 1870s, he was attended by a “family physician” known as “Dr. Ildephons Hoffman” (one of the other Civil War brothers?). Brother Bonaventure died July 21, 1896.[10]
The case of brother Ildephonse Hoffman is most confusing. He is listed as Alphonsa Hoffman, being drafted along with brothers Bonaventure and Gallus on July 14, 1863, into Company B of the 61st Pennsylvania, but other papers list him as enrolled on July 15, 1863 as a private or captain in Adalbert Fell’s Company, First Regiment of Veteran Reserve Corps, discharged on June 10, 1865 at Elmira, New York. To further muddy the waters, his 1890 pension record lists him as Michael Hoffman, enlisted in the fall of 1862 in Company I, 168th Drafted Militia for nine months.[11]
Brother Ulric Bart entered the Benedictine Order in January 1861, professing his first vows in August 1862. He does not appear in Bates’ History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, but he is listed as Frederick Bart, along with brother Bonaventure, as a pension recipient in 1890 for serving from July 1863 to June 1865 in Company B of the 61st Pennsylvania Infantry.[12] Brother Ulric returned to St. Vincent after the war and made his final vows in April 1869, dying there in August 1897.[13]
Brother Leo Christ, a stonecutter by trade, was drafted into Company E, 61st Pennsylvania Volunteers on July 16, 1863.[14] Wounded during the Petersburg campaign, he was transferred to the Veteran Reserve Corps on January 26, 1865 and was discharged on June 13, 1865. He returned to St. Vincent, continuing his craft of stone cutting until his death there in 1883.[15]
The final Civil War veteran found in St. Vincent cemetery is E.H. Kirby, O.S.B. The details of his military service are still a mystery. As Raymond Aguiar has written, cemetery records list Kirby as a Benedictine monk and a Civil War veteran, but the archives of the archabbey have no record of him.[16] He is listed in Company I, 62nd Pennsylvania Infantry in “Names of Allegheny County Soldiers to Be Immortalized in Memorial Hall,” but no E. H. Kirby is listed in the official roster of that unit.[17]
Some of the brothers took part in the last battles of the war, and two were wounded. Brother Ulric’s suffering a hernia and damaged eyesight during the Virginia campaign near Warrenton may qualify him as a casualty of the war.[18] Most clear is the case of brother Leo who was so seriously wounded by a shot in the leg during the Petersburg campaign that he suffered from it for the rest of his life.[19] Like other veterans of that war, these religious men must have also carried other invisible wounds back with them to the more peaceful life at St. Vincent’s.
Joseph J. Casino has been an adjunct professor of history at Villanova University since 1978 and serves on the Board of Governors of the Civil War Museum of Philadelphia.
Endnotes:
[1] Annette Tapert, ed., The Brothers’ War: Civil War Letters to Their Loved Ones from the Blue and the Gray (New York: Times Books, 1988).
[2] Wimmer to Scherr, February 26, 1863, Jerome Oetgen, ed., Boniface Wimmer: Letters of An American Abbot (Latrobe, PA: Saint Vincent Archabbey Publications, 2008), 265.
[3] “Westmoreland County [PA] Naturalization Records,” in Old Westmoreland (Southwest Pennsylvania Genealogical Services), Vol. 12:2 (November 1992); 34-35, Vol. 12:3 (February 1993): 23-24, Vol. 12:4 (May 1993): 17-18, Vol. 13:1 (August 1993): 37; RG 19 (Records of the Department of Military and Veterans’ Affairs), Series 19.11: Civil War Muster Rolls and Related Records, 1861-1866, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pa. [PHMC].
[4] RG 110, Vol. 2, Series 65, Entry 172, Class 1, and RG 21, Circuit Court and District Court, Roll 039 (April 24-Sept 14, 1876), and RG 21, Microfilm M1208, Roll 1, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.; RG 19, Series 19.12: Civil War Veterans’ Card File, 1861-1866, PHMC; Jerome Oetgen, Mission to America: A History of Saint Vincent Archabbey (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 122.
[5] Samuel P. Bates, History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5 (Harrisburg, PA: B. Singerly, 1870), 4:1147; RG 19, Series 19.11: Civil War Muster Rolls and Related Records, 1861-1866, PHMC; Raymond Aguiar, “Georgeius (George) Held, O.S.B.,” https://saintvincentcemetery.com/grave/georgeius-george-held-o-s-b/.
[6] RG 29, Series M432: 1850 U. S. Federal Census, Roll 747, Page 352a, NARA; St. Vincent’s Journal 6, No. 1 (September 21, 1896): 40.
[7] RG 29, Series T9: 1880 U. S. Federal Census, Roll 1205, Page 355c NARA; St. Vincent’s Journal, 6, No. 1 (September 21, 1896): 40.
[8] Felix Fellner, Abbot Boniface and His Monks (Latrobe, PA: Saint Vincent’s Archabbey, 1956), 3:349.
[9] St. Vincent’s Journal, 6, No. 1 (September 21, 1896): 38-39.
[10] RG 15, Pension Application, June 17, 1890, U. S., Civil War Pension Index, 1861-1934, Roll 170, No. 563268, Series M123, and (Special Schedules of the Eleventh Census (1890) Enumerating Union Veterans and Widows of Union Veterans of the Civil War), Series T288, NARA.
[11] Raymond Aguiar, “Brother Ildephonsus, O.S.B.,” https://saintvincentcemetery.com/grave /ildephonsus-o-s-b/. A. T. Brewer commented on the sloppy record-keeping in the 61st Pennsylvania Regiment. History Sixty-first Pennsylvania Volunteers 1861-1865 (Pittsburg, PA: Art Engraving & Printing Co., 1911), 3.
[12] RG 15 (Special Schedules of the Eleventh Census (1890) Enumerating Union Veterans and Widows of Union Veterans of the Civil War), Series T288, NARA.
[13] Raymond Aguiar, “Ulric Bart, O.S.B.,” https://saintvincentcemetery.com/grave/ulric-frederick-bart-o-s-b/.
[14] RG 29, Series M653: 1860 U. S. Federal Census, Roll 1106, Page 920, NARA.
[15] RG 19, Series 19.65: Registers of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-1865, Vol. 4, pp. 429-430, and Series 19.12: Civil War Veterans` Card File, 1861-1866, M554, Roll 19, PMHC; Bates, History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 2:432.
[16] Raymond Aguiar, “E. H. Kirby,” https://saintvincentcemetery.com/grave/e-h-kirby-o-s-b/.
[17] The Gazette Times (Pittsburgh, PA), June 11, 1911.
[18] St. Vincent’s Journal, 7, No. 1 (September 1897): 36.
[19] Fellner, Abbot Boniface, 3:350.
Congratulation on your work! Do you have any records that concern the Benedictines at Mission San Jose (Sab Antonio, Texas) who were abolitionists in Texas during era?
Nothing on those Benedictines so far, but I will keep looking.
Fellner O.S.B., Felix. Benedictine Pioneers at San Jose Mission and South Texas German Churches 1859-1868: Extracts from St. Vincent Archabbey Archives and Abbot Boniface and his Monks. Latrobe, PA: St. Vincent Archabbey Publishing, 1956. 6-11.
On page 6 “As the Germans of the state (Texas) did not approve of slavery, the priests (Benedictines) who ministered to them, were suspected of encouraging them.”
The footnote used by the Fellner to justify the quote is an eyewitness account of a Catholic German parishioner. Can you help by finding this source? Fellner unfortunately left a citation that has been difficult for me to decipher. Any help is much appreciated.
The full citation is “Whfd: letter from Fredericksburg (TX): May 23, 18_6. (The number between 8 and 6 is illegible and the abbreviation “Whfd:” has me wondering it meaning. so can you help point me in the right direction?