THE BUILDER October 1916

REGIMENTAL LODGES

BY BRO. C. M. SCHENCK, COLORADO

UNDER the above caption in the May number of The Builder, Bro. J.
L. Carson says, "Two lodges accompanied the American Army during
the Mexican War, while over a hundred dispensations for lodges are
supposed to have been issued during the Civil War," and continues,
"Cannot some of our grand old veterans tell us something of some of
these ?"

The writer, the son of a veteran over whose grave in Mount Hope
Cemetery, Topeka, Kansas, stands a stone on which is inscribed:

"Maj. W. L. Schenck
Late Surgeon 17th O. V. I. 
1825-1910"

submits the following from the October, 1862, issue of the Masonic
Review, published at Cincinnati, Ohio:

An Ohio Army Lodge.
Head Quarters 17th O. V. I.

Camp Schoepf, on Elk River, Tennessee, Aug. 15, 1862.

"Bro. Moore:--When our army was encamped on the field of Shiloh, in
this State, the 17th Ohio was there, and by virtue of a
dispensation from the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Free and
Accepted Masons of Ohio, duly granted to Bro. Bonham H. Fox, W.M.,
Jno. Stinchcomb, S.W., D.M. Rex, J. W., and several other Brethen,
a Regimental Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons was duly organized
and called "Ward Lodge," in honor of our gallant Major, Durbin
Ward. We organized near the place where General Beauregard's Head
Quarters were during the bloody fight of the 6th and 7th of April
last.

The officers elected were: Bro. Durbin Ward, Treasurer, W.L.
Schenck, Secretary, Robert Gates, S.D., Owen W. Brown, J.D., ____
Sharp, Tyler.

"We keep our Lodge with us, and when we can't get a Lodge room, we
meet on the 'highest hills,' or in the 'lowest vales.' We have
spent many pleasant evenings together in the Lodge, but find many
inconveniences you would little think of, unless you were with us.
Sometimes we are on the march the night of our regular meeting, and
so continue for several days, but as we are nearly all in our
Regiment, we can call a meeting with but little trouble. We have
done considerable work, and have to take advantage of our short
stays at camps, to work.

"At Tuscumbia, also, we met several times in the Masons' Hall?
which brethren there kindly gave into our charge. There is that
romance and oddity about a Lodge of Masons meeting under such
circumstances, that I am sure you would enjoy it.

"Our Colonel, J. M. Connell, was the first applicant, and has the
honor of having been made a Mason on the battle-field of Shiloh.

"Our Tyler, Bro. Sharp, died at Corinth in hospital, a few days
since, and Bro. Rex, our Junior Warden, formerly of Rushville
Lodge, when on a scout with the Regiment, injured himself so badly
as to produce rupture, and he by reason thereof has been compelled
to resign. We lose two valuable officers thereby in the Lodge, and
also in the Regiment. Bro. Sharp commenced in the ranks, but by his
virtues and conduct as a soldier merited and received promotion,
and died a Captain. I may give you an item occasionally.

"Fraternally yours,
(Signed) Jno. Stinchcomb."

In his declining years my father, at the request of his children,
wrote at considerable length "Recollections of his Life and Times"
from which I copy references to this Ohio Army Lodge, and to
Captain Stinchcomb.

"My regiment slowly advanced toward Corinth to take its place in
the grand army under General Halleck that was following the rebels
who had retreated to that point from Pittsburg Landing. One of the
pleasant events in the regiment was the meetings on convenient
occasions of Ward Lodge A. F. and A. M. working under dispensation
from the state of Ohio. We were going to have such a meeting in one
of my hospital tents on the way to Corinth, and I went over to
General Schoepf's quarters to invite his medical director, Surgeon
Strew, to meet with us. After doing so, he asked, 'Why don't you
invite the General?' who stood near us. I replied, 'Because I don't
know him as a Mason.' And addressing him, I asked, 'Are you a
Mason, General ?' He replied, 'I am.' Then I said, 'We would be
glad to have you meet with us.'

"From this point, (Winchester, Tenn.) the army moved eastward to
the foot of the Tennessee Mountains where I recall two or three
incidents out of the common line of army life. . . . We were
encamped in the edge of a thick woods and in cleaning out the
underbrush the craftsmen of my regiment volunteered to make a lodge
room in the open field in front of us by enclosing an oblong square
with proper ante-rooms, the walls being so thickly brushed that the
lights within could not be seen from without, and here Ward Lodge
U.D. held several meetings, at some of which General George H.
Thomas, General Thomas L. Crittenden, General Alvin Schoepf, and
other officers and soldiers exchanged fraternal greetings.

"A four horse ambulance, belonging to my regiment, whose upper
story had given out, had been fixed a la omnibus, and one of the
boards along its sides was supported at one end by a box containing
the 'working tools' of Ward Lodge A. F. & A. M. This being reported
by my amiable assistant, who, like the newly appointed medical
director, was an anti-mason, the latter lost no time in coming to
enquire of me what was in the boxes that held up my omnibus seat.

"I said, 'Some of them contain air, and in one there is a square
and compasses, a plumb and trowel, and sundry other like articles.'

"He said, 'I will give you just five minutes to take that box out
of your ambulance.'

"I rode forward to Major Ward, W.M. of Ward Lodge U.D. and together
we reported the facts to General Schoepf, who said, 'It is my order
you keep that box where you got him. I report him to General
Thomas.'

"During the afternoon the medical director came along again and
asked if I had removed that box.

"I said, 'No it is still on duty.'
"'Didn't I say I would give you five minutes in which to remove
it?'
"'Yes, and I believe I said I would take the five minutes.'
"'So you mean to disobey my orders?'
"'I do.'
"'I'll report you to the General.'
"'Please do.'
"It is needless to say I never heard anything more about removing
the box.

"While my regiment was made up in a distant part of the state,
Fairfield and the adjoining counties, and the men all strangers to
me excepting Major Durbin Ward, who was from Warren County, when I
went home on furlough from Somerset, Kentucky, four of my personal
friends, and members of my Masonic lodge, Eastern Star No. 55, R.F.
and George Ireland, John Gage and Stephen Corwin went back with me
and were mustered into Company B., Captain Stinchcomb, all serving
until the close of the war."

My father, from whose writings the extracts are taken, was made a
Mason in Eastern Star Lodge No. 55, F. & A. M., at Franklin, Ohio,
in the year 1848, and was its Master in 1850. Of this Lodge,
instituted in 1819, his uncle, William C. Schenck, was the first
Master, and his father, Garret A. Schenck, the first Junior Warden.

At the time of his death, which occurred at Topeka, Kansas, in
1910, he was a member of Siloam Lodge No. 225, A. F. & A. M.,
Topeka, and Topeka Commandery No. 5, K. T. His funeral services
were conducted by this Commandery.

"THE VOICE OF THE GUNS"

Never, perhaps, was lyric more bitterly born than Gilbert Frankau's
stirring "A Song of the Guns." two stanzas of which herewith are
given. Thus its prefatory note:

The author, who is now serving in Flanders, was present at the
battle of Loos, and during a lull in the fighting--when the
gunners, who had been sleepless for five nights, were resting like
tired dogs under their guns--he jotted down the main theme of the
poem. After the battle the artillery brigade to which he was
attached was ordered to Ypres, and it was during the long trench
warfare in this district, within sight of the ruined tower of Ypres
Cathedral, that the poem was finally completed. The last three
stanzas were written at midnight in brigade headquarters, with the
German shells screaming over the ruined town.

We are the guns and your masters ! Saw ye our flashes ? 
Heard ye the scream of our shells in the night and the shuddering
crashes?
Saw ye our work by the roadside, the gray wounded lying,
Moaning to God that He made them--the maimed and the dying?
Husbands or sons,
Fathers or lovers, we break them ! We are the guns ! 
We are the guns and ye serve us ! Dare ye grow weary, 
Steadfast at nighttime, at noontime; or waking, when dawn winds
blow dreary
Over the fields and the flats and the reeds of the barrier water,
To wait on the hour of our choosing the minute decided for
slaughter?
Swift the clock runs;
Yes, to the ultimate second. Stand to your guns !



THE MESSAGE OF THE BUDDHA
From an Ancient Manuscript.

"Hate is a cruel word. If men hate you, regard it not; and you can
turn the hate of men to love and mercy and good will, and mercy is
as large as all the heavens.

"And there is good enough for all. With good destroy the bad; with
generous deeds make avarice ashamed; with truth make straight the
crooked lines that error draws, for error is but truth distorted,
gone astray.

"And pain will follow him who speaks or acts with evil thoughts, as
does the wheel the foot of him who draws the cart.

"He is a greater man who conquers self than he who kills a thousand
men in war.

"He is a noble man who is himself what he believes that other men
should be.

"Return to him who does you wrong your purest love, and he will
cease from doing wrong; for love will purify the heart of him who
is beloved as truly as it purifies the heart of him who loves."
