Bro. Sheldon A. Munn (a member of Lafayette
Lodge #194, Selins Grove, PA) is a student of the Civil
War, particularly the Battle of Gettysburg. Bro Munn
gives many lectures as well as writing on the Civil War
and is a licensed Battlefield Guide at Gettysburg We
thank him for preparing this Short Talk Bulletin.

Editor

MASONS AT THE
BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG

by Sheldon A. Munn

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought in 
the hot, sticky days of July Ist, 2nd and 
3rd, 1863. Confederate General Robert E. 
Lee had brought his 70,000 soldiers north-
ward for food and supplies; to relieve 
Virginia from the ravages of war; to in-
fluence the powerful northern Peace Party 
to stop the war, and to gain Confederate 
recognition and support from Britain and 
France. Lee also was looking for an oppor-
tunity to defeat the Union Army away from 
its base in Washington, D.C.
  Twenty-seven months before the Battle of
Gettysburg, the first shots of the war 
between the states were fired between 
Masons. Confederate Brigadier General 
P.G.T. Beauregard fired on Union Major 
Robert Anderson, defending Fort Sumter
in Charleston, South Carolina. Beauregard 
was a Mason and Knight Templar from 
New Orleans, Louisiana. Anderson was a 
Mason from Trenton, New Jersey.
  As the war began with shots fired
between Masonic brothers, so did the 
greatest battle of the war. It was in the 
morning hours of July 1, 1863, when 
Lieutenant Marcellus Jones fired the first 
shot that began the Battle of Gettysburg. 
Jones, a carpenter and a Mason from 
Wheaton, Illinois, used a Sharps 52-caliber 
breech-loading rifle, invented and manufac-
tured by Christian Sharps, a Mason from 
Philadelphia. The shot that Jones fired was 
directed at Confederate troops led by 
Brigadier General Henry Heth, a Mason
from Rocky Mountain Lodge in the Utah
Territory.
  In mentioning the Rocky Mountain
Lodge, you will find it interesting to know
that while it surrendered its charter due to
the war, over two hundred Masonic Lodges 
were created during the war. An even more 
unusual circumstance unfolds when we 
learn that John C. Robinson, a Union 
Brigadier General and immediate Past 
Master of the Rocky Mountain Lodge, was 
heavily involved in the first days fighting 
at Gettysburg. The desperate fighting that
day also involved Confederate Major 
General Henry Heth. Henry Heth had been 
John Robinson's Senior Warden in the 
Rocky Mountain Lodge.
  Later that morning, Union Brigadier
General Solomon Meredith, a Mason from 
Indiana, and Colonel Lucius Fairchild, a 
Mason from Wisconsin, met and held the 
Confederates on the bloodied fields and 
woods between Herr's Ridge and the 
Seminary for over 8-hours. Among those 
attacking Meredith's legendary Iron 
Brigade and Fairchild's hard-fighting 2nd 
Wisconsin Intantry regiment was Con-
federate Colonel James Connor, a Past 
Master of Landmark Lodge in Charleston, 
South Carolina. Colonel Henry Morrow of 
the 24th Michigan was with Meredith's Iron 
Brigade. During the furious fighting, Mor-
row was struck in the head by a Confederate 
bullet. Later, a Confederate surgeon, iden-
tifying himself as a Mason, decided that 
Morrow's scalp wound was "too serious" 
for him to be marched away as a prisoner-
of-war. This act of Masonic compassion 
probably saved Morrow's life.
  The very first regimental volley of the
battle was fired by the men of the 56th 
Pennsylvania Volunteers, led by Colonel 
John W. Hofmann, a Mason from Nor-
ristown, Pennsylvania. Before the first days 
battle ended, Hofmann's bloodied regiment
would be forced from the fields north of 
the Chambersburg Road by a gallant charge 
led by Major William Cox, commander of 
the 2nd North Carolina infantry. William 
Cox was a Mason from Raleigh, North 
Carolina. He was wounded eleven times 
during the war and would later become a 
Brigadier General. Cox also became a Con-
gressman and served as the Grand Master 
of North Carolina for four years.
  Early in the evening of the 2nd day's bat-
tle, on the ridge north of Devil's Den, 
Union Major General Winfield Hancock 
told Colonel Edward Cross, "Today you'll 
earn your star" meaning that Cross would 
win his promotion to Brigadier General for 
his brilliant service over the past two years. 
Colonel Cross, a Mason from New Hamp-
shire, had received twelve wounds during 
his heroic service, however his thirteenth 
wound would be fatal and he was killed 
leading his brigade against the attacking 
Confederates led by Brigadier General 
George Thomas Anderson, a Mason from 
Atlanta, Georgia.
  According to Lieutenant General James
Longstreet, Commander of the Con-
federate First Corps, the most gallant 
charge of the entire war was led by 
Brigadier General William Barksdale, a 
Mason from Jackson, Mississippi. When 
Longstreet ordered him forward, Barksdale 
was on the front-line. It was in that posi-
tion, after forcing the Union lines to col-
lapse and retreat, that he was shot-- 
mortally wounded--wearing a clean white 
linen shirt fastened with Masonic studs.
  Barksdale's courageous charge was
directed at the bloody Peach Orchard, 
defended in part by the men of the 2nd New 
Hampshire regiment (Co. B) led by Captain 
Thomas Hubbard, a Mason from Concord, 
New Hampshire. Hubbard was killed on the 
battlefield and was buried by Confederate 
Masons.

  Consider the significance of this act,
when soldiers in the midst of a major bat-
tle, take the time and care to bury an enemy 
soldier! Unusual in every sense of the word, 
but not so unusual when you consider that 
it happened between Masons.
  While the entire southern end of the
battlefield erupted with savage fighting at 
the Peach Orchard, the Wheatfield, and 
Devil's Den, a hero was born on the rocky, 
wooded southern slope of Little Round 
Top. Colonel Joshua Lawrence 
Chamberlain, formerly a language pro-
fessor at Bowdoin College in Maine, was 
in command of the 20th Maine Infantry 
defending the critical Union left flank. The 
determined Confederates launched attack 
after attack against Chamberlain's shat-
tered line. The gallant defenders held their 
position heroically despite their fearful 
losses. Running out of ammunition, and 
without reinforcements, Chamberlain knew 
that the next Confederate attack would 
destroy his line and cause the loss of the 
Federal armies strong defensive position. It 
was then that Chamberlain, a man school-
ed in religion and language, ordered his 
men to fix bayonets and charge the attack-
ing Confederates in a swinging barn-door 
like maneuver. His unorthodox attack 
shocked the Rebels, causing them to scat-
ter in hurried retreat. Chamberlain was a 
Mason, a member of United Lodge in 
Brunswick, Maine. He would receive a 
Congressional Medal of Honor in recogni-
tion of his courage and heroism at 
Gettysburg.
   While Chamberlain was gallantly de-
fending the southern end of the Union's 
fish-hook shaped line, another Mason was 
desperately trying to overrun the Union 
army on the opposite end of that line on 
Culp's Hill. John Brown Gordon, a suc-
cessful businessman and lawyer from 
Georgia, had fought with brilliance
throughout the two years prior to Gettys-
burg. Gordon had been severely wounded 
nine-months earlier at the Battle of Anti-
etam (September 17, 1862). A bullet hole 
in his hat had saved him from drowning in 
his own blood as he lay unconscious on the 
battle field. Gordon was a man of extraor-
dinary compassion and care--a trait taught 
at our fraternities holy altars. During Gor-
don's attack on the first day, which resulted 
in the Confederates forcing the Union 
Army to retreat from their position in the 
fields north of Gettysburg, Union Brigadier 
General Francis Barlow was severely 
wounded. A Confederate bullet paralyzed 
his arms and legs. When Gordon, in the 
midst of his attack, saw Barlow, he dis-
mounted, gave Barlow water from his can-
teen and saw that he was cared for. Another 
instance where a Mason's compassion and 
care for his brother transcended the hostili-
ty normally found between enemies.
 The Battle of Gettysburg was culminated
in an attack, the likes of which the world 
had never seen, nor would ever see again. 
It was on the atternoon of July 3rd, follow-
ing a two-hour cannonade of volcanic pro-
portions, that three Confederate Generals, 
all Virginia Masons, led the attack that has 
become known as Pickett's Charge. Cor-
rectly named Longstreet's Assault, Major 
General George Pickett, Brigadier General 
James Kemper and Brigadier General Lewis 
Armistead led their 12,000 men across the 
mile-long rolling fields to crash against the 
center of the Union line near the clump of 
trees that became the "High Water Mark 
of the Confederacy."
  As the Confederate tide swept closer to
the Union line, a sergeant in the 14th 
Virginia Infantry came upon some Union 
skirmishers huddled in the tall wheat, who 
had been cut off from their retreat. The 
Virginians would have been fully justified 
in killing the Union soldiers. They were the 
enemy! But the sergeant recognized a 
Masonic sign--the sign of distress--thrown 
by one of the Yankees and ordered his men 
to pass them by. Wasn't it fortunate that the
Virginia Sergeant, Drewry B. Easley, was a 
Mason--a member of South Boston Lodge, 
in Halitax County, Virginia.
  Brigadier General Lewis Armistead was
the only officer to pierce the Union line. As 
Armistead crossed the low stone wall that 
formed the front of the Union defense line,
he shouted, "Give 'em the cold steel boys!" 
Holding his black hat on the tip of his
sword to guide his men, since all his color-
bearers had been killed, he led his 150 Vir-
ginians amidst the swirling tide of blue-
coats. Placing his hand on a hot, smoking 
Union cannon barrel, he claimed it his, in 
the name of the Old Dominion. Instantly 
he was struck by two bullets and fell, giv-
ing the sign of distress, ". . . as the son of 
a widow." At the same time, Major General 
Winfield Scott Hancock, the general com-
manding the Union troops defending the 
line at the center of the Confederate attack 
saw his old friend and Masonic brother fall. 
Hancock, a member of Charity Lodge in 
Norristown, Pennsylvania, who was severe-
ly wounded at the same time, ordered his 
chief of staff, Captain Henry Harrison 
Bingham, a Mason from Philadelphia, to 
go to Armistead's aid. Bingham had Arm-
istead taken to the 11th Corps field hospital 
where he received the best medical care 
possible. When Armistead died, Hancock 
saw that his personal belongings were 
handled according to his wishes. The 
Armistead-Hancock story is most unusual, 
especially when you consider that they were, 
in fact, enemies. But it is not unusual when 
you consider that they were Masons. Again 
we witness the power of brotherly-love, care 
and concern ... transcending the most 
severe hatred and hostility associated with 
battle.
  The Battle of Gettysburg was fought be-
tween 70,000 Confederates and 93,000 
Union soldiers. Over 50,000 men became 
casualties in those three terrible days. The 
Confederate Army would retreat back into 
Virginia and the war would continue for 
another eighteen months.
  The war began with shots fired between
Masonic brothers. The greatest battle of 
that war was started with shots fired bet-
ween Masonic brothers. How do you sup-
pose the war ended?
  Come with me, to that chill, damp,
Easter Sunday morning on April 9, 1865, 
in Appomattox, Virginia, when over 
112,000 well-fed and well-equipped federal 
soldiers surrounded the 26,765 starving, 
ragged Confederates--all that remained of 
the once invincible Army of Northern 
Virginia. It was a time for the Yankee's to 
shout and cheer! It was a time to celebrate. 
It was the end of the war--the bloodiest, 
in American casualties, that the world had 
ever seen or would ever see again. 618,000 
men became casualties. But, the killing 
years were finally over! No one would have 
disputed the Yankee's right to scream, shout 
and cheer. But when Confederate General 
John Gordon brought his battle hardened 
Stonewall Brigade on the field to lay down 
their guns and furl their tattered flags, 
Union General Joshua Lawrence 
Chamberlain ordered his men to give their 
former enemies a full military salute. It was 
an honorable and heartfelt act. It was the 
first act to heal the wounds of a nation and 
that greeting was given by a Mason! It was 
an act that uplifted the spirits of every man 
present. But then what would you have ex-
pected? Remember that both Joshua 
Chamberlain and John Gordon were 
Masons, representing a brotherhood that 
was never divided, now dedicated to a 
nation indivisible.

  Let us take pride from the heritage of dedica-
tion and heroism demonstrated by our gallant
brothers who advanced the principles of
freedom, liberty and justice. And let us share 
that pride with all Americans to the advance-
rnent of our fraternity and the good of America.

