In Which Jim Gets a Letter from Fr. Pete in Papua New Guinea!

Readers of this blog and of my book, Notre Dame and the Civil War: Marching Onward to Victory (The History Press, 2010) will recall that I happily dedicated the book to my second cousin, Fr. Pete Meis, OFM, Cap., a missionary in Papua New Guinea for the past forty years. You can read about Fr. Pete and the Dedication in a previous post (here).

As soon as I got my first shipment of books I sent a signed copy by airmail to him in New Guinea. I was so happy this week to get a letter from him, parts of which I share below.



The letter demonstrates his sincere kindness, humility, and spirituality (not surprising) but also an eye for an amazing thread of history (read below to find out!):

Dear Jim...

Greetings and blessings on these days of the new year...

You posted your packet on November 26 and it arrived a few days after Christmas. Thank you for your wonderful gift. You really blew me away! Your note advised me to open and read the first few pages of the book - well, it made me feel so humble to have you dedicate this wonderful book to me. I certainly have done nothing as heroic as the persons of whom you write in this account of the Holy Cross priests, brothers and sisters during the Civil War...

I am half way reading through your book and find that your writing style brings these men and women almost to life. I could be sitting here listening to them tell their stories...

Of course when I read the name of Fr. Edward Sorin my thoughts went to Bishop Andre Sorin...these two men might be from the same area or "line" of ancestors in France. Bishop Sorin might be fifty years younger than Fr. Edward...

Another very interesting historical bit of information that I really enjoyed is about St. Martin. Your explanation of how the word "chaplain" came to be used was something I did not know. But from a Capuchin Franciscan point of view we know that Francis of Assisi had as one of his hero saints this very same St. martin. Francis wanted to be chivalrous in everything he did, and as a young man he saw Martin's life and actions as a military person of honor and generosity so inspiring. Francis was a soldier for a time, but not very good at that. He was better in imitating Martin by his own embracing the leper on the road and caring for lepers in their abandoned condition.

Thank you for the inspiring stories of Fr. William Corby and Mother Angela...

With love,

Fr. Pete

Wow - what a great letter, huh?!

First...Yikes! It took a month for the book to get there!

In my mind, Fr. Pete demonstrates every bit of missionary zeal and heroism as the Holy Cross priests and brothers demonstrated on the battlefield and in the hospitals.

His mention of Bishop Andre Sorin is so interesting! Andre Sorin was born in 1903 in France, ordained in 1929, appointed Bishop in Papua New Guinea in 1946 and died there in 1959.



Wouldn't it be amazing if he was indeed related somehow to Notre Dame founder Fr. Edward Sorin? I'll have to do some digging!

In any event, the Dedication of the book to Fr. Pete is sincere and well-deserved and this is a letter I shall treasure always!

The Penn Quakers Commemorate their Civil War Heitage!

In the spirit of my book, Notre Dame and the Civil War: Marching Onward to Victory (The History Press, 2010), I always LOVE to see other academic institutions celebrating their Civil War heritage also!

(I have posted earlier on Hobart College's (Geneva, NY) online Civil War material here.)

Therefore, I was pleased to see a brief note in the most recent issue of The Civil War News stating that the University of Pennsylvania - one of the oldest universities in the United States - has launched a website to commemorate its role in the Civil War.


The site includes brief introduction and links to university archive records and some photographic material regarding the College Administration, Student Life, Medical School Administration, Philadelphia Society, Military Service, Scientific Topics, Remembrances, Miscellaneous, and the Class of 1865.

It looks like a GREAT resource for people researching the role of higher education in the Civil War years, the University of Pennsylvania specifically, and/or ancestors who may have attended the university and fought in the Civil War.

Well done, Penn!

If you know of other colleges or universities who are commemorating their Civil War heritage drop me a line!

"Confederate Book Review" Interviews the Author! (Me!)

I want to thank Robert Redd for posting a very kind review of Notre Dame and the Civil War: Marching Onward to Victory (The History Press, 2010) on his popular "Confederate Book Review" blog this week.

You can read the review here. Excerpts are below.

Robert followed up the review with an interview with questions that were very insightful and fun to answer! You can read the interview here.

Thanks, Robert!

By the way, while you are at "Confederate Book Review," also take time to read his other great book reviews...he'll also be doing more author interviews and I really look forward to that!

Robert is also interested in the Civil War in Florida, genealogy, and visiting historic cemeteries!

Review excerpts:

"Author Jim Schmidt has written an enjoyable, fascinating, and needed book dealing with Notre Dame and the contribution it's students and administrators made during the Civil War. The culmination of more than a decades research Schmidt has proven that the young college did more than just contribute Father Corby to the war effort...

This is an interesting book and a must read for anybody interested in the history of the University of Notre Dame and also anybody with an interest in the Civil War. The chapters are easy to read and the book can be read as a whole or the chapters as stand alones. The book is well illustrated with b/w photos both vintage and modern. End notes wrap up the work nicely."

"Irish in the American Civil War" Reviews "Notre Dame and the Civil War"!

Damian Shiels was kind enough to review my book, Notre Dame and the Civil War: Marching Onward to Victory (The History Press) at his "Irish in the American Civil War" blog.

The full review is here and excerpts are below.

Please make sure to check out Damian's terrific blog! He is a trained and professional archaeologist who specializes in battlefield archaeology. Even cooler is that he writes about the Irish in the American Civil War from...IRELAND!

All of his posts are terrific but my favorites are when he posts photos of monuments and cemeteries in Ireland. See some examples here, here, and here!

Thanks, Damian!

Excerpts:

"James M. Schmidt has produced a book which charts Notre Dame’s involvement in the American Civil War, following the fortunes of the students, faculty and the school itself both during and after the conflict.

This book is far more than just a run through of those individuals from Notre Dame who served in the Union ranks. Many other aspects of the University’s war and post-war experience are provided...

This book is written in a logical and easily digestible style, and is well illustrated throughout. The author has carried out extensive research on all aspects of the University’s involvement and experience of the conflict...It successfully provides a sense of the effects of the war on the community of students, staff, past-pupils and families associated with the school ...Notre Dame and the Civil War is a book that should attract a wide readership, not least amongst those interested in the Irish experience of the American Civil War."

Notre Dame Civil War Chaplain Profile #3 - Fr. Joseph C. Carrier

I'm pleased to add another installment introducing the Holy Cross priests from the University of Notre Dame who served as chaplains in the Civil War.

See these posts for previous profiles:

#1 = Fr. Paul E. Gillen, CSC

#2 = Fr. Peter P. Cooney, CSC

Below is an excerpt from my book, Notre Dame and the Civil War: Marching Onward to Victory (The History Press, 2010) describing some of the life and ministry of Fr. Joseph C. Carrier, CSC, as a chaplain in the Union army.

Genius, Interrupted

Father Joseph C. Carrier was born in France in 1833, the youngest of ten children in a respected and wealthy family. He received his earlyeducation under the care of a private tutor before attending the College of Belley, where he excelled in all of his studies but especially in science and mathematics. Indeed, while only in his late teens, he was appointed professor of natural philosophy (physics) at a small college in Geneva,Switzerland. In 1855, he came to America and decided to enter the priesthood. His patron—the bishop of St. Paul, Minnesota—had high hopes for establishing a religious order and college in his part of the country and thought that the young scholar would be an ideal choice to lead both.

Unfortunately, the bishop died before he or his protégé could act on the plan. Instead, Carrier entered the Holy Cross community at Notre Dame, where he was ordained a priest in early 1861. In May 1863, Father Carrier was serving as a professor of Latin and Greek at the university, as well as a pastor of the church in nearby South Bend, when Father Sorin told him to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice to join General Ulysses S. Grant’s army as a chaplain. Within days, Father Carrier bid farewell to his students and parishioners and set out for Mississippi, where he was commissioned as chaplain of the 6th Missouri Infantry Regiment. In fact,his ministry extended to all of Grant’s army.

By all accounts, Father Carrier was as comfortable among the leading generals of the army as he was among the common soldier. When he met Grant for the first time, the general asked if he was a professor. “Yes,” Father Carrier replied, “I have been years in the college of Notre Dameand am still attached to it.” The general then declared, “You will find that the life of a soldier is quite different from that of a professor and that our tents are not so comfortable as the halls of a college.” The good priest replied, “I understood that before I left Notre Dame, I did not expect to find in the soldiers’ camp all the comforts, the conveniences,and ease of home.” Grant expressed his happiness that Father Carrier had joined his army, and the two men then discussed the progress of the siege at Vicksburg.

While all of Notre Dame’s priests may have steeled themselves for the vagaries of camp life, they must have been less prepared for the constant threat and presence of death. The bookish Father Carrier seemed to be the most sensitive to this grim reality. In advance of the great “Vicksburg mine” explosion on June 25, 1863, Father Carrier witnessed a Union soldier being killed by a Confederate sniper. Father Carrier was “much moved by the terrible sudden…death of the soldier” and “sat at the foot of the tree.” Rather than watch the historic detonation, as his fellow officers were doing, Father Carrier “fell into a deep and irrepressible reverie,” left the scene, went back to camp “and threw himself on hiscot.” To his credit, Father Carrier returned to the lines and ministered to some of the soldiers wounded in the post-explosion charge.

Before the end of the year, Father Carrier was called back to Notre Dame, where he began to place the school’s scientific program on a firm foundation. In 1866, he spent several months in Paris collecting laboratory apparatus and specimens for the university’s museum of natural history.His greatest coup was securing a six-inch telescope as a gift from Emperor Napoleon III. Father Carrier was the longtime curator of the museum and professor of chemistry and physics. He was eventually assigned as a professor at St. Laurent College, near Montreal, and expertly tended themuseum there until his death in 1904.

Learn more about the good Fr. Carrier - including his letter to President Abraham Lincoln and his ministry to the Sherman family in Notre Dame and the Civil War: Marching Onward to Victory!

Notre Dame at the Battle of Stone's River - Part II - "A Martial Fire"

In yesterday's post, I provided an excerpt from my book, Notre Dame and the Civil War: Marching Onward to Victory (The History Press, 2010) describing the valor of Notre Dame's Fr. Peter Cooney at the Battle of Stone's River, Tennessee.

In today's excerpt, you will learn about Notre Dame student-soldier Frank Baldwin, who was killed-in-action in the battle. May he rest in peace.

You can learn more about a monument in Elkhart, IN, dedicated to Baldwin - and all of Elkhart's Civil War soldiers and sailors - in a previous post (here).

Excerpt:

His Last Full Measure

While the 35th Indiana and Father Cooney fought on the Union left at Stones River, other Notre Dame student-soldiers were also on the battlefield, including Frank Baldwin, who was engaged nearby with the 44th Indiana Infantry. Baldwin, a native of Elkhart, Indiana, attended Notre Dame from 1860 to 1861. Perhaps inspired by classmate William F. Lynch, the seventeen-year-old Baldwin left home in the summer of 1861 with friend George M. Keeley and traveled to Illinois to join Colonel Mulligan’s 23rd Illinois Infantry. While Lynch missed the early battles of the 23rd in Missouri, Baldwin did not and was taken prisoner when Mulligan surrendered his command at Lexington; Baldwin was paroled soon after.

Baldwin returned home to Elkhart, yet against his parents’ wishes, “the martial fire still burned in him at the exclusion of everything else.” One day in early 1862, Baldwin and his friends Norman H. Strong and Cullen W. Green heard that the 48th Indiana Infantry regiment was leaving nearby Goshen for the front. The boys—all still under eighteen—went to the schoolhouse, bid farewell to their classmates, hid behind an old blacksmith shop and then jumped on the train carrying the regiment.

The train carried the soldiers, Baldwin and his two companion stowaways to Paducah, Kentucky, where the 48th Indiana met a fleet of transports carrying the Union army to Fort Donelson. Baldwin, Strong and Green went down to the river and boarded a boat, where they happily found themselves among Elkhart men of the 44th Indiana Infantry. The boys indicated their desire to enlist but a company commander, Captain Albert Heath, refused them on account of their age. He told the boys that they could see the fight at Donelson, after which he would send them back home. The boys protested and declared that “they had come to fight and were going to fight anyway.” Heath consulted with his commander, Colonel Hugh B. Read, who agreed to let them join. Baldwin was with the 44th Indiana through all its engagements of 1862, including at Shiloh, where he was wounded.

On December 31, 1862, Baldwin—since promoted to third sergeant—and the 44th Indiana were engaged in the first day of the Battle of Stones River. The regiment marched in line of battle through an open field, where it discovered the enemy making a flank movement on its right, in a wood bordering the field. The men made a stand at the edge of the wood in their front but were soon ordered to advance, with the line of the enemy soon coming into sight. They continued their advance, coming within a hundred yards of the enemy’s line. The 44th Indiana opened fire; the Confederate line replied and advanced as well, and its flanking force opened a galling crossfire on the Hoosiers. The 44th Indiana held the position as long as it could and then fell back to its battery and re-formed its lines.

When the order was given to fall back, Baldwin and Green—himself recently promoted to lieutenant—were standing together behind a tree. They fell back into the open space and started with the rest of the regiment across the field, exposed to the crossfire. As they neared a fence, the two friends were running side by side. Green called out, “Throw your gun over the fence,” pitching his own over and following it to the opposite side. Green pressed on but never saw Frank Baldwin alive again.

A few days later, Green asked for permission to take a detail of six men to find his constant companion. Green found Baldwin just on the other side of the fence from where he had cried out to his friend. Baldwin had been struck by a musket ball—perhaps while climbing over the fence—which had entered under his right shoulder blade, passed through his heart and exited out the left side. The detail placed Baldwin’s body in a crude coffin and buried it in the hospital yard. When, two months later, a family friend came to retrieve Baldwin’s remains, Lieutenant Green accompanied him to the cemetery with a detail of soldiers, who exhumed the body and placed it in a metallic coffin. Baldwin was then laid to rest in the family’s mausoleum in Grace Lawn Cemetery in Elkhart.

Notre Dame at the Battle of Stone's River - Part I - "Indifferent to Danger"

The Battle of Stones River (in the South, the "Battle of Murfreesboro"), was fought from December 31, 1862 to January 2, 1863, in middle Tennessee.

The University of Notre Dame was represented in a chaplain and student-soldiers at the battle. Below is an excerpt from my book, Notre Dame and the Civil War: Marching Onward to Victory (The History Press, 2010), describing the valor of Fr. Peter P. Cooney in the battle. You can learn more about Fr. Cooney in a previous blog post (here).

Look for another excerpt this week about a Notre Dame student-soldier killed in the battle.

Excerpt:

Fighting began in earnest for the 35th Indiana on the very last day of 1862. “I am safe after being through the most terrible battle of the war,” Father Cooney began a letter to his brother, adding, “I have time now to write you but a few words…My time now is very precious attending to the dying and wounded.” The battle was a terrible engagement, indeed; of all the major battles of the war, Stones River was distinguished by having the highest percentage of casualties among the forces engaged on both sides.

The 35th Indiana was involved all three days of the battle, including skirmishing on the first two days and severe fighting on the third, within just yards of the determined enemy. “We lost of our regiment, killed on the field twenty-eight and wounded sixty-seven many of whom are since dead,”“And nothing but God’s protection could have saved me,” he added, “as I was in the midst of it the whole time.” Father Cooney continued. This was no idle boast. Colonel B.F. Mullen, commanding the 35th Indiana, mentioned the brave priest in his official report:

To Father Cooney, our chaplain, too much praise cannot be given. Indifferent as to himself, he was deeply solicitous for the temporal and spiritual welfare of us all. On the field he was cool and indifferent to danger, and in the name of the regiment, I thank him for his kindness and laborious attention to the dead and dying.

It was only the first of several official mentions of bravery that Father Cooney would earn over the course of the war.