December 24, 1863---Chaplains

DECEMBER 24, 1863:        

On Christmas Eve, 1863, along with a large number of Protestant Chaplains, 40 Roman Catholic Chaplains are ministering to the Christian soldiery of the Union. Jewish Chaplains had already served their flock, on December 6^th, the first day of Chanukah. Although Protestant Clergy had been serving as Army Chaplains as far back as 1775, during the Revolutionary War, and Roman Catholic Clergy had been approved during the Mexican War in 1848, Jewish Chaplaincy was a brand-new matter. A prewar bill specified that only “Clergy of Christian denominations” could be appointed as Chaplains. In July 1861, Clement Vallandigham, the infamous Copperhead, proposed a Bill to permit the appointment of Jewish Chaplains. Although the Bill went down to defeat, while it was pending, several Army units appointed rabbis to their chaplaincies. Finally, in July 1862, Vallandigham’s Bill was signed into law by the President, who had supported the measure from its initial inception. Less than 15 rabbis served the Union as Chaplains in the Civil War.  

  The Confederacy was ahead of the Union in this, as in the institution of paper currency and a central bank. Rabbis, Priests and Ministers served as Chaplains in the Confederate Army from the very outset of the Civil War, although individual States (such as North Carolina) had laws controlling the issue for their State Militias. Even fewer Jewish Chaplains served the South than the North, but the appointment of Chaplains of non-majority faiths was an important indicia of equality under the law (at least for Whites). Muslim Chaplains were approved in 1994, and Buddhist Chaplains in 2009.