Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/176

162 candles (we thought them magnificent) adorned the pulpit, and, perhaps, three others were in the room, subject to the caprices of the wind. A few torches in the fireplace made the complement of light, and fully served to render the darkness visible. But there was a sort of spell in the flicker of those lights and the solemn stillness of the vast crowds, and as they would flare the lurid gleam would reveal many an earnest face and brimming eye." There were forty chapels built along the Rapidan in the winter of 1863-64, and over sixty the next winter along the Richmond and Petersburg lines, notwithstanding the fact that at this last period timber was very scarce and transportation hard to obtain on a large part of the lines, and the men had to bring the lumber at great distances on their shoulders. In many of these chapels there were circulating libraries and daily prayer-meetings, Sunday-schools, literary societies, Young Men's Christian Association meetings, etc. And many of them answered the double purpose of church and school. Some few were taught to read and write. I remember one poor fellow, who said to me: "Oh! Chaplain, if you will just teach me how to read, so that I can read God's Word, and how to write, so that I can write to my wife, there is nothing in this world I will not do for you;" and I shall never forget what a proud fellow he was when in a very short time he had learned both to read his Bible and to write to his wife. But I met during the four years of the war very few Confederate soldiers who could not read and write, and the schools established were generally for the study of Latin, Greek, mathematics, French, German and other similar branches.

The strong religious spirit of the Confederate army is shown by the accurately reported results of the services held among the soldiers. From the minutes of the Chaplains' Association, the estimate of other chaplains and missionaries in position to know, and a very careful compilation of facts and figures from files of religious news-