More Freemasonry in The Civil War

ANTIETAM CREEK, MD.

On the morning following the Battle of Antietam, Confederate sharpshooter fired at anything that moved. A wounded Confederate handed a Federal picket a piece of cloth on which a symbol was crudely drawn in blood. The picket carried it to a Captain who recognized it as a Masonic emblem. The Captain told Colonel Cross a wounded Confederate needed help. Cross asked for volunteers and several Masons offered to help. At the risk of their lives they went to and carried Lieutenant Edon of the Alabama Volunteers to the 5th New Hampshire hospital. Edon told them about another Mason lying wounded in the corn field. Back they went and carried him to join the other enemy soldier. Both received the same treatment as did the Federal wounded from the surgeon, a Freemason, William Child.

CHAMBERSBURG, PA.

General Lee sent general John C. Breckenridge, a Freemason, to raid the Federal capital. Due to the reinforcements provided by another Mason, General Lew Wallace, the invasion was foiled. However, during the Confederate retreat, Chambersburg was torched on July 30, 1864, but the Masons among the Confederates made certain the Masonic building was left undamaged.

RICHMOND, VA

When Richmond, Virginia fell to the Federal forces on April 3rd, 1865, mobs burned warehouses, blew up ships, and generally set fire to the property along the James River. Masons' Hall, built in 1785 and which was the first permanent home of the Grand Lodge of Virginia, was close to this area. The federal provost Marshal, A.H. Stevens, a member of Putnam Lodge in Massachusetts, placed a guard about the building, plus the homes of several members of the Lodge. Shortly thereafter, Federal and Confederate members of the Craft met in harmony in the same building.

LITTLE ROCK, AR

On June 4, 1861, Thomas Hart Benton, Jr., Grand Master of Masons in Iowa, told his Grand Lodge of his sorrow with the events taking place in the political arena. He said he, among other Freemasons, Had "labored, though feebly and ineffectually, to avert the awful crisis. It has been my good fortune to press the fraternal hand in various parts of our country, from New England to Texas, and from the Atlantic to the Missouri. This consideration alone were sufficient to enlist my undivided energies in word and deed to perpetuate the friendly relations once so common among us as a people." He proved his sincerity. As the General in command of Federal forces that occupied Little Rock, Arkansas, after the city was evacuated on September 10th, 1863, he placed a Federal guard about the home of the Confederate General, Albert Pike, to save his valuable library.

KENTUCKY

Let not politics be mentioned in your Lodges, and know no difference in men because of political or religious distinctions...Masonry should take no part in civil strife, except to throw the broad mantle of Masonic charity over the faults of our brethren, succor the needy, and apply the oil of consolation and the wine of joy to the afflicted, especially of those of our own household... Amid subsiding kingdom and crumbling empires, our Mystic Brotherhood still stands, the great beacon of life in ages, the friend of justice, the preserver of peace and humanity.

J. D. Landrum, Grand Master of Masons in Kentucky

(in answer to questions about Masonic attendance at Masonic funerals of those who fought for the Confederacy, and whether or not the widows and orphans of such Masons are entitled to Masonic charity.)

WILLIAM MCKINLEY

While accompanying a doctor attending wounded Confederates he noted the surgeon treating many of them especially kindly, and giving some of them money. When McKinley asked him why, he said they were Brother Masons. McKinley asked him how could become one. Soon he was given a petition for Winchester Hiram Lodge No. 21. He received the three degrees on May 1,2,3, 1865.