“On the Battlefield for My Lord”: Chaplain Henry McNeal Turner, Part 3

Last updated on: June 10, 2013 at 4:01 pm by Andre E. Johnson

“On the Battlefield for My Lord”: Chaplain Henry McNeal Turner, Part 3 2013-06-10T16:01:00-05:00 Andre E. Johnson

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by Andre E. Johnson

Chaplain Henry McNeal Turner

R3 Editor

*This is the third of a four part series. Read the other installments here

However, despite the fact the Turner was in the middle of a war and was very busy ministering to his troops and handling the daily affairs of his position, he still had an eye on church matters. He called for the merging of the AMEand AME Zion churches, a position he maintain throughout his life and he also critiqued the AMEministers for not contributing enough to the Recorder.

The ministers of the A.M.E. Church must either be asleep or absorbed in some deep mathematical problem, which has so engaged all their intellectual forces, that a few leisure moments can’t be spared to write an occasional article for the benefit of your many patrons. The RECORDER has an extensive circulation amongst the colored troops in this department. Its approach is watched with the utmost vigilance, and when it makes its appearance, it is seized and read with eager avidity. That portion of our divines who stay at home, could do an incalculable amount of good by sending us through the open columns of the RECORDER a short sermon, occasionally. Unless our ministers come to the RECORDER’S assistance, it will go down in the estimation of the better-informed class of readers (Johnson, 38-41).

He also had time to write about political matters as well. No one was sparred Turner’s wrath—even the commander in chief, President Lincoln. When the Democrats offered the infamous Chicago platform in 1864, Turner blamed Lincoln.

England’s false neutrality, and the manifest treachery of France, in making a cat’s paw of the Austrian Prince, culminates at third-rate, compared to the diabolical Tories, before whom Mr. Lincoln has bowed, and honored with the highest positions. Had the President from the beginning administered the stern mandates of moral and political justice to the enemies of the country, who came as goats in sheep’s clothing, until they were fostered and nourished into strength, the evil they are now perpetrating and the injury they are doing the Government, in its efforts to crush the rebellion, would have been entirely obviated. But like the man who warmed and animated the frozen serpent, to only sting his children to death, and forever demolish the comforts of his household, had half the encouragement been tendered to the negro, which has been given to Copperheads, the nation might have rallied to-day over two hundred thousand colored soldiers, who would have struck terror to the heart of the rebellion, and swept the seceded States, with a tornado of desolation, such as would have silenced the clang of war, and hushed the rage of battle. But instead of this, the country’s most inveterate enemies have been permitted to lounge upon the most comfortable seats, and plot and plan its ruin, only to leave a wreck, where the eternal bastions of a free and happy Government should have stood, forever founded upon the rock of grandeur, glory, and honor (Johnson, 42-45).

Further Turner lamented:

The argument, that Mr. Lincoln was obliged to court the affections of the Democratic parties, to secure the co-operation of the whole North, is nothing more than a farce. The principles which should have governed him, were those of eternal justice; they were clearly laid down in the Bible, and engraved upon the tables of nature; they were throbbed in every pulsation of the human heart, and preached by the proclamation of John C. Fremont, in the opening of the war. And had these principles been his modus operandi, or his compass, to run the national ship by, amid the stormy winds, and lurid siege of war, this opposition party would have set in profound dumbness, until the last foe had bitten the dust at his lordly feet. But instead thereof, they rise with indignant majesty before him, contemning, insulting, and trying to defame that name which should have been as dear to the American heart, as Washington to American, or Cromwell to England (Johnson, 42-45).

He also found time to report on religious matters pertaining to his troops. In writing about a revival that occurred, Turner wrote,

We are regularly fortifying ourselves as securely against the devil and his subalterns, or angels, as we are against the rebels. We have preaching three times on every Sabbath, and most of the remaining intervals are consumed in prayer meetings, besides preaching or prayer meeting every night in the week. While I am now writing, bothers John Hames and Stephenson are pouring the words of eternal life into the ranks of the regiment, regardless of whom it may riddle asunder. During the entire night, mourners can be heard groaning and praying in every direction for God’s pardoning grace; and, thank God, several have not mourned in vain, having found the Pearl of great price (Johnson, 53-57).

Turner’s letters were also filled with comedy, which made him one of the Recorder’s favorite columnists. Once while attempting to read a newspaper and enjoy a moment of rest adjacent to a graveyard, Turner heard a voice. He wrote that while he knew that “no one should have been there and that the dead don’t talked,” he kept hearing this voice. Further he wrote:

I got up, however, and went out to look around; and, in spite of all I could do, I thought my hair would turn to hog bristles, for it rose up, and pushed off my hat, as though every hair had eyes, and was trying to see what was the matter. But I asked God for faith, for I never felt more need of it, because the talking party, as I imagined, seemed to get more and more conversational. Lifting up my feet to see if I could walk, I found my legs exceedingly nimble, and judged I could have given a locomotive quite a race from that grave-yard, and all others, if that were the way the dead were going to talk, But, determined to see what was the matter, I set out to find my loquacious guest; and, after blundering around some ten minutes, I found one of my soldiers near the iron railing of some graves, lying upon his face, pleading with God in behalf of his sinful soul. After feeling his head, body, feet, and pulse, to be certain it was a living person, I rose on my feet, and said, (I do not know how it came out,) but I know I said , “AH, THANK GOD,” for it was a great relief, and I returned to my tent, cherishing my former conclusion that the dead don’t talk (Johnson, 53-57).

Whether focusing on church matters, engaging in political affairs, writing about the religious happenings in his camp, or a humorous story about the dead not speaking, for the Christian Recorder readers, Turner was a must read.

Works Cited

Johnson, Andre E. and Henry McNeal Turner (ed). An African American Pastor Before and During the American Civil War. The Literary Archive of Henry McNeal Turner, Vol 2: The Chaplain Letters. Edwin Mellen Press, 2012

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