Showing results for "tales from a monk in the union army"
Tales from a Monk in the Union Army: A Solitary Monk
Part of a series. By November 1864, the St. Vincent monks—once united under the banner of the 61st Pennsylvania—now found themselves separated. Brother Bonaventure Gaul was the only one that remained with the regiment, serving as a nurse in the Sheridan field hospital in Winchester, Virginia. Brother Ildephonse Hoffmann, Gaul’s close confidante, fell ill that […]
Read more...Tales from a Monk in the Union Army: The Shenandoah Valley Campaign
Part of a series. By the summer of 1864, the war showed no signs of ending for Br. Bonaventure Gaul. Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Army of the Potomac remained gridlocked in the Siege of Petersburg, while Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s armies stalled outside of Atlanta. To draw Confederate attention away […]
Read more...Tales from a Monk in the Union Army: Petersburg
This is the first of a series. In 1864, the United States army was perhaps as diverse as it ever had been. By then, blacks, whites, Republicans, Democrats, Catholics, Protestants, and Jews all served side by side in defense of the Union. But one member of the Army of the Potomac, Pvt. Bonaventure Gaul, did […]
Read more...Brother Bonaventure’s “Wizard Oil”
ECW welcomes back guest author Joseph Casino. When Benedictine Brother Bonaventure Gaul returned from his Civil War service to St. Vincent Abbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, he took up again his craft of shoemaking and occasional wood carving for the benefit of the community.[1] But Brother Bonaventure also returned with a new skill learned the hard […]
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