Catholic Confederates: Faith and Duty in the Civil War South by Gracjan Kraszewski (review)

The history of Catholicism in the American South is an understudied area of research. With so much yet to be learned, Gracjan Kraszewski’s Catholic Confederates: Faith and Duty in the Civil War South is an important step to understanding the role of the Catholic Church in the Confederate States of America. Whether on the home front or the battlefield, southern Catholics generally supported secession and fought for independence from the United States. Kraszewski accounts for this fact by describing the thoughts and actions of priests, and a few women religious, stationed in the South during the Civil War. Most of them were Catholics of Irish, English, or French descent, with some being immigrants and others American-born. Kraszewski uses the term “Confederatization” to explain how white southern Catholics “prioritize[d] a new national identity above older ethnic ones,” exhibiting varying degrees of “politicization” when it came to involvement in the Confederate cause (p. xix).

Five of the six chapters focus on the experiences and perspectives of priests and bishops. The clergy’s reaction to the crisis of secession was a quick evolution from caution and fear to enthusiasm and resolve. Patrick Lynch, the bishop of Charleston, stands out as one of the most virulent supporters of the Confederacy and what Kraszewski calls “a religiously tinged nation-building process” (p. 13). On the battlefront, Kraszewski highlights the activities of three chaplains (John Bannon, James Sheeran, and Louis-Hippolyte Gache) and three soldiers (John Dooley, Felix Pierre Poche, and Henri Garidel) for insight into the Confederate patriotism and anti-Union sentiment of white southern Catholics. He also analyzes the uniquely Catholic beliefs and rituals associated with suffering and death during war. Kraszewski notes that “one could be a devoted Confederate and a devout Catholic with easy symbiosis” (p. 71). He dedicates one chapter almost entirely to William Henry Elder, the bishop of Natchez who famously refused to give an oath of allegiance to the Union, as a way to explore the “ambiguities of peace” that came with a white southern Catholic desire for Confederate victory (p. 72). Chapter 5 deviates from priests to women religious, those vowed nuns and sisters who worked as nurses and caretakers in hospitals and convents throughout the South. Here, Kraszewski sees a body of women who were unique for their “‘participation without politicization’ Confederatization,” showing few signs, if any, of pro-Confederate motivation (p. 95). The same could not be said for the clergy, as Kraszewski shows throughout the book and in his last chapter on the diplomatic misadventures of Bannon and Lynch in Europe. In the final analysis, the Catholic clergy of the South believed themselves to be Confederates until the end.

The chief contribution of Catholic Confederates is its characterization of the southern Catholic clergy’s involvement in the Confederacy’s political causes and military actions. Kraszewski’s employment of Catholic archives and newspapers will provide other historians with a foundation for further research into the Catholic contours of southern history. Moreover, Kraszewski demonstrates the importance of integrating American Catholic historiography with southern historiography, allowing for greater awareness of the cultural and religious diversity of the American South. The cooperation of white Catholics and white Protestants in the Confederacy challenges the notion that the “solid Protestant South” made Catholics into perpetual “outsiders” (p. 16). On the contrary, as Kraszewski makes clear, there were issues and ideologies around which white southerners of different religions and ethnicities could join forces and influence the direction of the region.