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7 All Passions Laid Aside? Freemasonry in the Army After the fall of Vicksburg, there was a lull in the fighting along the Mississippi . Federal officers encamped along the river received a request from citizens of a nearby town to assist them in conducting a Masonic ritual, most of the local lodge being away in the service. The colonel summoned those officers and men he knew to be Masons in his command, and an impromptu chapter was put together to confer the degrees of Royal Arch Masonry—four degrees appendant to, but distinct from, Blue Lodge Masonry—on three men living in the town.1 Freemasonry knows no distinction between military men and civilians, and this request was not unusual . What is noteworthy, however, is that the participants were on different sides of the conflict. Col. Jonathan B. Moore, of the 33rd Wisconsin Volunteers, had received the request from Masons at Natchez Chapter No. 1, Natchez, Mississippi, and the initiates were paroled Confederate Army officers released after the fall of Vicksburg. The ritual, it was reported , went off without a hitch.2 Seven hundred and fifty miles away, rebel officers reportedly returned the favor for a Union soldier known only as “L. J. Williams of the 114th New York Infantry.” As the story is told in numerous Masonic circulars, Williams, captured near Savannah, Georgia, was a Fellow Craft from Downsville Lodge No. 464 in Delaware County, New York. While imprisoned he communicated with friends in New York, and allegedly his Freemasonry in the Army / 141 lodge there corresponded with the local lodge in Georgia, Zerubbabel Lodge No. 15 in Savannah, requesting the completion of his Masonic work. When the sought-after permission was finally granted, “he was taken from his prison and conducted to the Savannah lodge room. . . . All the chairs were occupied by Confederate officers. . . . Then and there he was made a master mason.” Later that evening, Williams escaped—presumably with the assistance of Confederate Masons—although he maintained that he never knew the identity of his rescuers.3 Masonry in the Army Deeply rooted in the fabric of peacetime America, Freemasonry was, as preceding chapters have clearly shown, quite prevalent among the soldiers of both armies. Although portrayed as a secret society cloaked in mystery , Masons in America were—and remain today—very visible. Army life was no different. Individual members of the fraternity identified themselves by wearing Masonic emblems—the familiar square and compasses chief among them—on their uniforms, and when associated together they coalesced in camp and bivouac. At times, this association signified nothing more than individual Freemasons banding together to share a tent, or form a mess. More elaborate expressions of Masonic solidarity were not uncommon , however. Masons in the 102nd Illinois Infantry constructed a “beautiful encampment” near Lookout Mountain in 1864, decorated with archways over the company streets formed by the long rows of tents. The arches were carved and decorated to suit the soldiers who made them, and one of these was emblazoned with the square and compasses.4 In the camp of the 12th Indiana Infantry at Scottsboro, Alabama, the officers’ tents were also decorated with verdant arches, “while in front of the Colonel’s tent, a larger arch, with the Masonic emblem, all in evergreen, formed the central point of beauty.”5 These quaint symbols in the camps and bivouacs sometimes evolved into more permanent expressions of Freemasonry; given enough Masons, a regiment was sometimes justified in forming its own lodge. The officers and men of the 1st New York Engineer Regiment, famous for their skill as artificers, “erected a Masonic Temple, commodious 142 / Chapter 7 and a beautiful work of art, constructed of the rustic materials the Island afforded” on Folly Island, South Carolina, in November 1863.6 The 1st New York Engineers are a typical example of the establishment of a “military lodge,” that is, an actual lodge belonging to a military unit, a circumstance for which Masonry was prepared. As explained in chapter 2, a lodge of Masons must meet certain requirements before it can formally operate. First, it must have a charter or warrant—a license from a higher Masonic authority—empowering it to conduct business, initiate new members, and perform ritual work. Without such charter, granted outright or provisionally under a dispensation (known as a “Lodge UD” in Masonic parlance), the lodge would not be recognized. In Masonic terms it would be “clandestine” and Masons from regularly approved lodges would be prohibited from interacting with...

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