Chattanooga Communication Souvenir

Prince Hall Temple Souvenir Pin, 1914. Chattanooga Button & Badge Manufacturing Company, Chattanooga, Tennessee. Gift of Valley of Columbus, Ohio, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, 99.013.29.

On August 2-7, 1914, the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Tennessee celebrated its forty-fourth annual meeting, or Communication, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. This souvenir badge in the collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library was created to commemorate that meeting and connects the stories of emancipation and African American Freemasonry.

The annual Communication was a chance for African American Masons from all over Tennessee to meet and visit. The larger Chattanooga African American community found other ways to convene. On January 1, 1914, leaders in the city hosted an “emancipation celebration.” As reported by the Chattanooga Daily Times, “the fifty-first anniversary of emancipation was celebrated yesterday by the colored population of Chattanooga under the auspices of the Colored Boosters' Club of this city.” The observance included speeches, banquets, musical performances, and a parade “nearly a quarter of a mile long.”

This anniversary celebration seems to have been tied to the original Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect on January 1, 1863. However, Lincoln’s Proclamation depended on the Union winning the Civil War to take effect in the South. Hence June 19, 1865–the day when news of the war’s end and the resulting emancipation of enslaved people reached the African American community in Galveston, Texas–is celebrated as the end of slavery in the United States. Five years after that momentous date, on August 31, 1870, the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Tennessee was founded.

Prince Hall Temple Souvenir Pin, 1914. Chattanooga Button & Badge Manufacturing Company, Chattanooga, Tennessee. Gift of Valley of Columbus, Ohio, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, 99.013.29.

The pin at the top of this commemorative item shows the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge building in Chattanooga. This three-story brick building was built in the 1800s as a commercial building and renovated by the local Masonic community between 1903 and 1908 to house seven Prince Hall Affiliated Masonic lodges, three women’s auxiliaries, and one Knights Templar commandery. The building was located on East 9^th Street, the same street as the City Auditorium where many events that were part of the 1914 Communication were held. The use of the Masonic Temple on the Annual Communication pin reflects the pride of Chattanooga Masons and celebrates the progress of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Tennessee.

The ribbon is marked on the back with the name of the maker, Chattanooga Button & Badge Mfg. Co. This company was founded around 1911 and located on East 4^th Street in Chattanooga, a few blocks from East 9^th Street where the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge was.

In preparation for inclusion in The Masonic Hall of Fame: Extraordinary Freemasons in American History, this souvenir badge was conserved in 2021. This souvenir, a compelling symbol of African American identity in the South after emancipation, will be on view at the Museum & Library until October 2024.

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Similar examples at Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture:

• Badge for Prince Hall Grand Lodge F. & A. M. Massachusetts Victory Celebration, 1922
• Badge from the Philadelphia First Masonic District Temple cornerstone-laying, 1951

A Maine Mason at Sea

In 1852, shipbuilders in Calais, Maine, near the American border with Canada, launched a ship named the Lincoln. The following year, the Lincoln would commemorate American Independence Day many miles from Maine, in the Aegean port of Smyrna, Greece (now İzmir, Turkey). Like the Lincoln, her captain that day left his Maine home to make a living in the maritime world of the nineteenth century.

Bark Lincoln, W.H. Polleys Master Laying at Anchor in Smyrna July 4th 1853. Raffaele Corsini, Smyrna, Greece. Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, 85.9.

In this watercolor, acquired by the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library in 1985, the Lincoln is shown lying at anchor in the foreground, with the city, its castle, and surrounding hills in the background. The ship bears four flags: from bow to stern, the “Union Jack” or Navy Jack, a blue flag with a Masonic square and compasses, a masthead pennant, and an American flag. The Lincoln’s Union Jack, a blue flag with white stars flown on American ships, appears to have twenty-six stars and her American flag twenty-one stars. Given that the United States had thirty-one states by 1853, perhaps the ship’s owners or captain had not updated her flags or, more likely, the painter took artistic license with these details.

It is believed that ship’s captains sometimes raised a flag bearing a square and compasses to invite Masons in the area aboard their vessel. To local residents and other mariners, this signaled his fraternal affiliation and served as an invitation for conversation, informal meetings, and trade. The Lincoln was in Smyrna in July 1853 to purchase opium, a common ingredient in American patent medicines at the time.

The Lincoln’s captain and 1/16 share owner for her first five years was Woodbury H. Polleys. Polleys was born in Cape Elizabeth, Maine in 1817 and raised in Portland Lodge No. 1 in 1844. When he took command of the ship, he had been, as he later wrote in a letter to the Secretary of the Navy, “at sea as Master of a Ship since June 1848, principally trading between Europe & southern ports . . .”

After the Lincoln, Polleys went on to captain other vessels, including at least three Union ships during the Civil War. These included the USS Katahdin, USS Oleander, and USS Madgie. The latter two ships were part of the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, preventing Confederate vessels from eluding the Union trade blockade. After the Madgie sank off North Carolina in 1863, Polleys traveled north to Maine for a month’s leave “to procure a new outfit and visit my family.”

In the late 1870s and early 1880s, Polleys used his knowledge of international trade to serve the new United States as Consul to Barbados and Commercial Agent to Cuba. Woodbury H. Polleys died of suicide in 1885 and is buried in Portland’s Pine Grove Cemetery. His headstone bears a Masonic square and compasses, as his ship’s flag did that day in 1853, many miles from Maine.

If you want to dive into this piece of artwork further, you can visit it and many others in our exhibition, “What’s in a Portrait?,” now on view at the Museum & Library. You can also visit the online version of the exhibition.

Further Reading:

• Polleys was Acting Master of the steam boat USS Katahdin in November 1862. He requested a change of station on November 11, 1862. The request was approved – Polleys was in Essex, MA by December 1862, signing his name as “late Acting Master, USS Katahdin."
• Captain Polleys’ report on the loss of the USS Madgie: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, p. 34-35.
• Polleys captained another Maine ship, the bark S.W. Holbrook, in the late 1860s and early 1870s. He traveled from Cuba to Philadelphia with her in 1870.

"When among Unionists these limbs were of course lost in the service of the Union": A Masonic Impostor During the American Civil War

Long-time readers of our blog know that every May we return to the topic of our very first blog post: Masonic impostors. This year we highlight a document from our Digital Collections website, an American Civil War era circular letter warning other Masons of an itinerant Masonic impostor.

Olympia Lodge No. 1, a Masonic lodge in what was then Washington Territory - statehood would not come until 1889 - issued this letter warning other lodges to be wary of a man named "O. H. Treat, Tweed, or Treed," who had claimed to be a Mason and asked for financial help from the lodge.

Written by Elwood Evans, the Master of Olympia Lodge No. 1, this letter describes the appearance of "Treat" and his story claiming to be a Mason in need of assistance. The story is one that, Evans admits, upon first hearing, engenders sympathy:

He is about 6 feet in height, sallow complexion, dark hair, light blueish grey eyes, supposed to be about 32 years old, and uses two crutches to travel with. His sallow, sickly appearance, and the use of crutches, invite a sympathy, as would the first hearing of his story about his hip-disease, disease of the spine, rheumatism, kidney disease, gravel, and finally a deep-seated pulmonary affection. He said his father was blind from infancy; that his poor mother, lately made a widow, is but recently afflicted by her other son having lost a leg and right arm in the present war. When among Unionists these limbs were of course lost in the service of the Union; but if the crowd be of different sympathies, then the "story is changed." Before I could learn where such mishap occurred, he desired my views, as he said it was not politic to say which side his brother fought upon, as that would commit him.

However, as Evans described his attempt to determine whether "Treat" was indeed a Freemason, he encountered many red flags and conflicting statements. For instance, Evans noted that while "Treat" seemed very familiar with the various parts of known ritual exposures, he could not name the lodge he belonged to, despite claiming to have been a Mason for six years.

Are elements of the story told by the man known as Treat/Tweed/Treed true? Were any of those names his real name or were they all aliases? Was he a mere con artist or a man with a hard life seeking assistance on false pretenses during a time before government- and company-based insurance was commonplace? We may not find answers to these questions, but this document reminds us that even during times of conflict - perhaps especially during times of conflict - both Masons and those falsely claiming to be Masons sought aid from local lodges.

Want to read more about Masonic impostors? Be sure to check out all of our previous posts on the topic.

Caption:

Letter from Worshipful Master Elwood Evans of Olympia Lodge, No. 1, 1864. Collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, Lexington, Massachusetts. MA 630.003. Museum purchase.

Online Exhibition - Illustrated Patriotic Envelopes of the American Civil War

The Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library invites you to explore our new online exhibition, “Illustrated Patriotic Envelopes of the American Civil War” now available on the Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives Digital Collections website. The objects in the exhibition are from a collection of over 1,000 Illustrated patriotic envelopes of the American Civil War that were donated to the museum by William Caleb Loring, 33° (1925-2011).

Following the November 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) as President of the United States, seven states in which slavery was legal individually seceded from the Union. They did so because of Lincoln’s opposition to the expansion of slavery in the western United States. South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas declared themselves the Confederate States of America (C.S.A.), and established a capital first in Montgomery, Alabama and then in Richmond, Virginia. After the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina in April 1861, four more slave-holding states joined the Confederacy. The C.S.A. was never officially recognized by the United States or any foreign government. The American Civil War, fought between the Union and the Confederate South, lasted until 1865. Casualties on both sides, from death, disease, and wounds, totaled over one million.

Shortly after the war began, publishers began printing illustrated envelopes (also known as covers) related to the war. The designs treated a variety of subjects, such as soldiers, battles, and patriotism. Publishers released 3,000-4,000 individual Union designs and no more than 160 individual Confederate designs of this form of wartime propaganda. Americans quickly began collecting these envelopes and, as early as 1861, manufacturers marketed albums that consumers could fill with examples that they had acquired. Soldiers also put these envelopes to practical use, using them to mail letters home to their families. These envelopes offer an immediate view on the bold rhetoric and political passions of the American Civil War.

If you haven't already, be sure to visit the Museum's online exhibition website for more online exhibitions.

 

Freemasonry and the Growth of Nursing during the Civil War

Research into this recent acquisition to the collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library highlights the Fraternity’s efforts to support the Union through the creation of the Masonic Mission, an agency created and “managed wholly by Masons.”

Circular letter from W. H. Hadley of the Masonic Mission to Mosaic Lodge, September 20, 1864.

As many readers may know, the support and care of sick and wounded soldiers throughout the war was carried out by private relief agencies and not by the federal government. The most well-known of these private agencies was the United States Sanitary Commission, which was created by an act of federal legislation in 1861 and was responsible for the set-up, staffing, and management of almost all Union hospitals during the war. However, as Union losses mounted in the early years of the Civil War, the Sanitary Commission found it more and more difficult to drum up the necessary support to meet the demand for female nurses by late 1862. As William Hobart Hadley, the author of this circular letter, a Mason, and an agent for the Sanitary Commission in the New England states, reported, anti-Republican sentiment permeated the areas he had canvassed for help. The hearts of people throughout the North had hardened to the fate of the Union by April 1863.

During this same period, another member of the Masonic family tree, Sarah P. Edson, a volunteer nurse, and possibly a holder of all the Adoptive Degrees, sought to address the growing need for nurses on the front lines. After her first effort to create a training school for women nurses met with opposition from the Sanitary Commission and the Surgeon General of the United States in a Senate committee, Edson sought the help of New York’s Freemasons. In response to Edson’s pleas, the “Army Nurses’ Association was formed . . . and commenced work under the auspices of the Masons” in the winter of 1862.

By the time of the Battle of the Wilderness (May 5-7, 1864), Union surgeons on the front lines requested that Edson, who had rushed to help at the front, send ten of her “nurses then receiving instruction as part of her class at Clinton Hall, New York.” The Masonic Mission was formed shortly after, and by the time of the Battle of the Crater (July 30, 1864), the agency worked in partnership with the Sanitary Commission, the Christian Commission, and other state and local agencies to help the Army create a “hospital tent city, which could care for twelve thousand patients.”

After a brief period of success, political clashes with the Sanitary Commission and the failure of its managers to pay its female nurses led to the demise of the Masonic Mission as a school for Army nurses. The Mission would refocus its efforts on aiding the North’s poor who were hit especially hard by the rising cost of coal for heating and flour. Sarah P. Edson’s ambitious plan to create an Army-based school for nursing would have to wait until Congress established the United States Army Nurse Corps in 1901, and the Navy followed suit in 1908.

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Captions

Circular letter from W. H. Hadley of the Masonic Mission to Mosaic Lodge, September 20, 1864. Collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, MA 260.006.

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References

Attie, Jeanie. 1998. Patriotic Toil: Northern Women and the American Civil War. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

Brockett, L. P. and Mary C. Vaughan. 1867. “Mrs. Sarah P. Edson.” In Woman’s Work in the Civil War: A Record of Heroism, Patriotism and Patience, 440-447. Philadelphia: Zeigler, McCurdy & Co. Accessed: 5 February 2019. https://books.google.com/books?id=0aDhAAAAMAAJ

Carpenter, C. C. 1903. “William Hobart Hadley, 21, Waterford Vt.” In Biographical Catalogue of the Trustees, Teachers and Students of Phillips Academy, Andover, 1778-1830, 143. Andover, Mass.: Andover Press. Accessed: 5 February 2019.https://books.google.com/books?id=HbNBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA143

Edson, Sarah P. 1865. “The Masonic Mission and the Five Points Mission.” New York Herald, January 9 1865. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030313/1865-01-09/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1865&index=0&date2=1865

Frank, Linda C. 2012. “Our Famous Women, Part 1.” Auburnpub.com, March 11, 2012. Accessed: 5 February 2019. https://auburnpub.com/lifestyles/our-famous-women-part-i/article_33d1b54c-6b05-11e1-a597-0019bb2963f4.html

Mitchell, E. L. “Masonic Charities.” Masonic Monthly 2, no. 3 (January): 118-120. Accessed: 5 February 2019. https://archive.org/details/MasonicMonthlyVolII1864/page/n129

Morris, Rob. 1864. “The Masonic Mission.” The Voice of Masonry and Tidings from the Craft 2, no. 6 (June): 276-277. Accessed: 5 February 2019. https://books.google.com/books?id=zd0cAQAAMAAJ&dq="masonic%20mission" 1864&pg=PA276   

Oates, Stephen B. 1994. Woman of Valor: Clara Barton and the Civil War. New York: The Free Press.

Sarnecky, Mary T. 1999. A History of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Slotkin, Richard. 2009. No Quarter: The Battle of the Crater, 1864. New York: Random House.

Illustrated Patriotic Envelopes of the American Civil War - now on view

Now on view in the reading room of the Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives at the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library are a selection of 32 illustrated patriotic envelopes of the American Civil War. Nearly all of the envelopes on exhibition are from a collection of over 1,000 illustrated patriotic envelopes of the American Civil War that were donated to the museum by William Caleb Loring, 33° (1925-2011). 

Following the November 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) as President of the United States, seven states in which slavery was legal individually seceded from the Union. They did so because of Lincoln’s opposition to the expansion of slavery in the western United States. South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas declared themselves the Confederate States of America (C.S.A.), and established a capital first in Montgomery, Alabama and then in Richmond, Virginia. After the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina in April 1861, four more slave-holding states joined the Confederacy. The C.S.A. was never officially recognized by the United States or any foreign government. The American Civil War, fought between the Union and the Confederate South, lasted until 1865. Casualties on both sides, from death, disease, and wounds, totaled over one million.

Shortly after the war began, publishers began printing illustrated envelopes (also known as covers) related to the war. The designs treated a variety of subjects, such as soldiers, battles, and patriotism. Publishers released 3,000-4,000 individual Union designs and no more than 160 individual Confederate designs of this form of wartime propaganda.  Americans quickly began collecting these envelopes and, as early as 1861, manufacturers marketed albums that consumers could fill with examples that they had acquired. Soldiers also put these envelopes to practical use, using them to mail letters home to their families. These envelopes offer an immediate view on the bold rhetoric and political passions of the American Civil War.

Illustrated Patriotic Envelopes of the American Civil War is on view in the reading room through December 1, 2018.

Captions:

Top left:
“USA,” 1861-1865
Published by Car Bell
Hartford, Connecticut
A85/012/1020

Top right:
“Remember Fort Sumter!,” 1861-1865
A85/012/0111

Bottom left:
“Traitor. Patriot,” 1861-1865
Engraved by Carpenter & Allen
Boston, Massachusetts
A85/012/0563

Bottom right:
“Haines’ Envelope Holder,” 1861
Published by J.M. Whittemore & Co.
Boston, Massachusetts
A85/012/0297

 

 

Digital Collections Highlight: Civil War Discharge Certificate

The Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives' Digital Collections website features a rich collection of digitized documents from the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library.

This week, in commemoration of Veterans’ Day, we highlight this Civil War discharge certificate, issued to James Foran in September 1864 at Philadelphia.

Foran (1840-1906), pictured below in a tintype portrait from the museum's collection, was born in Ireland and immigrated to the United States in 1859. Foran entered the service as a Private of Company G, 8th New Jersey Volunteer Infantry on September 2, 1861. He was wounded by a gunshot in the left side at the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 3, 1863. One of the major battles of the American Civil War, the Battle of Chancellorsville took place near the village of Chancellorsville, Virginia, from April 30 to May 6, 1863. Foran was wounded on May 3, the fiercest day of fighting of the battle—a day that was also the second bloodiest day of the Civil War. The Battle of Chancellorsville resulted in heavy losses on both the Union and Confederate sides.

Nearly a year later, on May 1, 1864, Foran was transferred to the 162nd Company, 2nd Battalion, Veteran Reserve Corps where he served at Cuyler General Hospital at Germantown, Pennsylvania. Originally organized as the Invalid Corps in 1863, the renamed Veteran Reserve Corps was organized at Cuyler General Hospital on March 20, 1864. The Corps was a military reserve organization created within the Union Army during the Civil War. In existence until 1869, its purpose was to allow partially disabled or otherwise infirm soldiers – or former soldiers – to perform light duty. Foran served with the Veteran Reserve Corps for four months, mustering out on September 3, 1864 at the expiration of his term of service.

In 1870, he married Mary Connell (1847-1913), with whom he had three children. Foran died in 1906 at the age of 65 and is buried in Lambertville, New Jersey.

You can check out other tintypes from the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library's collection here and other digitized Civil War-related Library & Archives items here.

 

Captions:

Civil War Discharge Certificate, 1864. Collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, Gift of George Sommer, USM 001.336.

James Foran, ca. 1861. United States. Gift of George Sommer, 2011.004.2. Photograph by David Bohl.

 

 

 

 

New Acquisitions Brings Attention to the Character and Life of a Freemason

Recently, the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library acquired a collection of four Civil War letters written to Reverend Alonzo Hall Quint, the chaplain of the Second Massachusetts Volunteers and a Freemason. Below are images from two of the letters in this collection, as well as a transcription for both, which highlight Quint's humanity and his contributions to the Fraternity.

[page 1]     ([page 2]   Letter from Moses Williams to Alonzo Hall Quint, August 24, 1862

[page 1] Boston, Aug. 24 1862 Revd. Alonzo H. Quint Chaplain of the 2d Regt of Mass. Volunteers My Dear Sir, I received by Thomas Connolly your letter of the 12th instant. For the account given of my son [William Blackstone Williams], and for your thoughtfulness in sending a lock of his hair, you have the heart felt thanks of myself and all my family. I was not prepared for the sad event, and I feel humbled that I was not, for the life of [a] true soldier is always uncertain. His business is to cheerfully obey orders whatever may be the result. My son, I believed to be cool and courageous, with a quick eye to perceive, and not wreckless [sic], and I had never thought that he would be killed in this war, but he died, as a patriot should die, in the cause of his country. He was my youngest son, and I mourn his loss, for he was a generous, manly, gallant boy. for yourself he had an affectionate regard, and always spoke of you, as the best man he knew, for the place you fill, and [page 2] I am happy to bear testimony of the same expression from other officers in your regiments. In fact, they say you were on the battlefield doing what you could for the dead and wounded all  night after the battle. May God reward you for all your humane and patriotic deeds, and may he save our beloved country in this terrible hour of her tryal [sic]. Tom says he was near my son, when he was shot, that he with another helped him off a short distance, until the suffering was so great, that he ordered them to lay him down, and that when he was found, he was in a different place, and that there was in addition to the shot in the body, an apparent bayonet thrust in the neck. Will you tell me if you noticed any such thing. [sic] For your very kind notice of my son, and your consoling letter, in this my time of severe tryal [sic], you will always have my respect and esteem. Very Truly, Your friend, Moses Williams

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Letter from Grand Master William Parkman to Alonzo Hall Quint, November 17, 1864

Boston, Nov. 17, 1864 Rev. A. H. Quint My Dear Bro. Yours under date of 8th is to hand and I am very much grateful to learn you are still alive and are about starting the Lodge anew. If you will please insert upon the back of the dispensation you now have the names of the Brethren to be associated with you and the date when added and also [send in/fill in?] the names of the officers you [?] appointed [and send it to me?]. I will make the endorsements that will [legalize?] you to now go, [?] and you will do so with my hearty good wishes for good success and happiness; the [work?] is one of sure success! And which will yield you a rich Reward and bring honor to your Mother Grand Lodge; be assured my heart is with and will do all I can to encourage you. With my very kind regards to all and especially to yourself. I am Fraternally William Parkman Gr. Master

During his three-year military service to the country and throughout his life, Alonzo Hall Quint played an active role in the development and growth of Freemasonry. In 1861, after being mustered into the Army, Quint took on a leadership role in his regiment’s lodge, Bunker Hill Army Lodge, No. 5. He served as the Lodge’s Senior Warden, a position he held for the duration of the Lodge’s existence, and on several occasions served as the Lodge’s Acting Master, a position thrust upon Quint because of personnel changes, battle-related or otherwise. After Quint completed his military service in 1864, he continued his active participation and support of the Fraternity. In 1870, he accepted the appointment to the office of Grand Chaplain of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in great part to take a stand against the rebirth of the Anti-Masonic movement.

Alonzo Hall Quint died on November 4, 1896; an article in the Boston Evening Transcript commemorated his life, a life well lived.     

 

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Captions

Letter from Moses Williams to Alonzo Hall Quint, August 24, 1862. Collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, MA 390.003.

Letter from Grand Master William Parkman to Alonzo Hall Quint, November 17, 1864. Collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, MA 390.003.

Civil War Letter Highlights the Difficulties of Prisoner of War Exchanges

Research into this letter held in the collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library highlights the unpreparedness of both the Union and the Confederacy to fight a prolonged war and displays how divisive the institution of slavery was, even on the battlefield.

(front of letter)   Letter from General Henry Wager Halleck to General Robert E. Lee, December, 1863

Washington, December 7th, 1863 Genl. Robt. E. Lee Commanding &c. General— I am authorized to offer, through you, to exchange all United States prisoners of war now in Richmond and its vicinity for equivalents, according to the scale of the cartel. These equivalents to be sent by us to City Point, leaving for future arrangement all questions in regard to other prisoners of war held by either party. If the offer is accepted, you will please inform me of the numbers and grades to be so exchanged, and the times of their delivery. Very respectfully Your Obdt. Sert. H.W. Halleck Genl. in chief

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(reverse of letter) Response by General Robert E. Lee, December 15, 1863

Head Qus of the Army Washington, December 7th 1863 H.W. Halleck General in Chief Offering to exchange all United States prisoners of war now in Richmond and its vicinity for equivalents according to the scale of the cartel, these equivalents to be sent to City Point, leaving for future arrangements all questions in regard to the other prisoners held by either party. H.Q.: 15 Dec '63 Respt. referred for information of secy of war. Genl Halleck has been informed that the cartel entered into by the Govt. provided for the exchange of all prisoners of war and that I had no authority to depart from it, and therefore could not accept his offer. R.E. Lee, Genl Col. Ould for information 17 Dec 63 JSS [?] Secy of War file

Both the Union and the Confederacy had predicted a short war, and because of this miscalculation, no preparations were made by either side to house and to care for the large numbers of men who would become prisoners of war. Commanders on both sides were left to decide matters on their own, and in the first few years of the war, it was common for ad hoc prisoner exchanges to take place after each battle.

These impromptu prisoner of war exchanges were replaced on July 22, 1862, when both sides adopted the Dix-Hill cartel. This agreement or cartel, as it was called, would last until July 30, 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln issued an order that suspended all prisoner exchanges until the Confederacy would treat black soldiers the same as white soldiers. The cessation of prisoner exchanges led to the creation of the notorious prisoner of war camps, Andersonville in the South and Rock Island in the North.

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Caption

Letter from General Henry Wager Halleck to General Robert E. Lee and a Response by Lee, December 7-17, 1863. Gift of Tobin William. Collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, USM 001.039.

References

United States National Park Service. “African Americans at Andersonville.” Accessed: 7 July 2016. https://www.nps.gov/ande/learn/historyculture/african_americans.htm

 

A Civil War Masonic Military Lodge

Interior View of Rustic Masonic Lodge, 1863, Sam A. Cooley; E.W. Sinclair, Folly Island, South Carolina, Collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, Special Acquisitions Fund, 88.42.94.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In its collection,the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library has a number of Masonic and fraternal artifacts related to American Civil War history. Freemasons were among the thousands of Confederate and Union soldiers fighting throughout the four-year conflict. This stereocard shows a Masonic military lodge that was reportedly photographed in November 1863 on Folly Island, South Carolina. It was not uncommon for Masons in the military to form military or traveling lodges during times of war.  The 1^st New York Engineer Regiment is believed to have established this particular lodge. They constructed the lodge with materials found on the island. This  photograph is one of the most unique Masonic lodge images in our collection.

Military lodges were usually connected to specific units. These lodges received a special dispensation from the Grand Lodge of the state in which the regiment was organized in order to be chartered and recognized as a lodge. Like other lodges, military lodges needed “volume of sacred law”, most likely a bible, and “working tools” commonly used in ritual, like a square and compasses. 

In 1861, the Grand Lodge of New York passed a resolution granting dispensations for military lodges with a stipulation that no men from outside of New York could be made Masons without the permission of the Grand Lodge. In addition, the dispensation had to be recommended by a lodge in the state and bear the names of seven petitioners. Many Grand Lodges granting dispensations for military or traveling lodges were concerned about how these lodges and their operations might impact the integrity of Freemasonry.  In 1863, due to overwhelming jurisdictional issues and questions about legality, New York passed a resolution against the "further establishment or continuance of military lodges."

These special lodges were just one of the many ways that Freemasonry was visible during the Civil War. For more information about our collection as it relates to Freemasonry during the Civil War please visit our previous blog posts at: http://bit.ly/1HD7som

To see this photograph and others from our collection on our HistoryPin map please visit:  http://www.historypin.org/en/person/64613  

 

References:

Halleran, Michael A., The Better Angels of Our Nature: Freemasonry in the American Civil War, University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 2010.

Ross, Peter, A Standard History of Freemasonry in the state of New York, New York: The Lewis Pub. Co., 1899.

Hyde, William L., History of the One hundred and twelfth regiment, N.Y. volunteers,Fredonia, NY: McKinstry, 1866.

 

 

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