This pocket bible is a CS imprint presented in June 1864 to a member of the 17^th Alabama who was captured at Nashville in December and sent to Camp Douglas as a P.O.W. This was a hard-fighting unit, especially in the last year of the war fighting against Sherman and Thomas. Even more interesting is the presenter: George Waldo Stickney, Chaplain of the 14^th Louisiana, Chaplain of the Army of Mobile, and Post Chaplain at Columbus, Ga., but who also served at Mobile as the “Superintendent of the Office of Army-Intelligence.”

The bible itself is a Confederate imprint: “Confederate States Bible Society. Published Evans & Cogswell, Columbia, SC., 1864.” A pencil inscription inside the cover reads: “J.M. Dozwell, Co. “I”, 17^th/ Ala. Reg./Presented by/ Rev. Geo. W. Stickney/ Chaplain of the Post/ Columbus, Ga. June 20, 1864.” The bible is non-paginated and in brown card covers with brown leatherette spine, and green paste-down cover lettering. The bible exhibits wear at the extremities, with light water-staining of the final few pages at the lower margin. The green past-down cover is partially worn off. Otherwise it rates good.

James M. Dozwell of the 17^th Alabama shows up on a roster of prisoners of war captured at the Battle of Nashville on Dec. 15, 1864. The single card in his compiled service records lists him as a sergeant in Co. C at the time of his capture. He was sent to the military prison at Louisville, KY, and from there was transferred to Camp Douglas, Illinois, on December 20. At that point the trail turns cold, but he does not appear on the 1892 register of deaths at Camp Douglas and the 1880 census picks up a J.M. Daswell or Doswell in Henry County, Alabama, who might be our man. He is listed at born about 1845, so the age would be right for Civil War military service. A James P. Dozwell appears as a private in Co. I of the 17^th. The two men are likely related and both were captured at Nashville in December 1864.

The 17th Alabama infantry was organized at Montgomery, August, 1861. It was present at Pensacola in October and at Shiloh in April 1862. It served at Mobile from autumn 1862 to March, 1864, and then joined the army of Tennessee, with whom it fought Sherman from Dalton to Lovejoy's Station, being engaged at Resaca, Cassville, Kennesaw Mountain, Peach Tree Creek, Atlanta, Jonesboro, and Lovejoy's Station, and then against Thomas at Franklin and Nashville. Dozwell was lucky to have survived until capture at Nashville: “From Resaca to Lovejoy Station the entire loss of the regiment was 586, but few of whom were captured. The regiment moved into Tennessee with Gen. Hood, and lost at least two-thirds of its forces engaged at Franklin, and a number of the remainder were captured at Nashville…”

The Reverend George Waldo Stickney (1829-1888,) presenter of the bible, was an Episcopal clergyman and the Rector of St. Mathews Church in Houma, Louisiana, when war broke out in 1861. He was an assistant secretary in the delegation of the Diocese of Louisiana sent to form the Protestant Episcopal Church of the C.S.A. and chose to follow some of his congregation into military service as Chaplain of Col. Sulakowsi’s “First Regiment Polish Brigade,” which later settled for the designation 13^th Louisiana Infantry, and finally 14^th Louisiana Infantry. He was reputed to have been so concerned with the spiritual well-being of the men that when inspirational tracts were in short supply, he wrote and published several of his own: “The Priceless Jewel,” “Called to Repentance,” and “Have you been Baptized?”

Stickney had been appointed Chaplain of the 14^th on 7/1/61, formally accepted it 8/29/61, and was confirmed 12/24/61. It seems, however, that he transferred from the regiment on 9/21/61, before they were sent to the Virginia peninsula, and was posted to the “New Orleans Barracks” by October. We find him still there in January 1862 and seems to have stayed in New Orleans until he was appointed Chaplain in the Army of Mobile on 6/16/62, where he remained until appointed Post Chaplain in Columbus, Ga., 4/20/64.

Stickney’s functions at Mobile are intriguing. He is listed not only as “Chaplain,” but as “Superintendent of the Office of Army Intelligence” on a number of requisitions and vouchers. Chaplains were often required to report on the well-being of their men, but this seems something else. In remarks attached to a very large requisition for writing paper, pens, ink, envelopes, etc., for the third quarter of 1862 it is noted: “Rev. Mr. Stickney is in charge of the Army Intelligence Office at this place, hence the large quantity of stationery required.” If not an entirely separate operation, Stickney may even be using his network of church contacts to assemble information. He had studied and taught in Alabama, North Carolina, and Baltimore, as well as graduating from the General Theological Seminary in New York City in 1855. Needless to say, the clergy could be very conservative. Baltimore and Washington churchmen sometimes got in trouble for too vocal opposition to such “radical” ideas as “universal abolition,” so there might have been more than a casual exchange of information. At the very least, a combination of clerical and military duties was not unusual. Stickney was well acquainted with Leonidas Polk, Episcopal Bishop and Confederate General. We include with the bible a printout of the 1864 narrative of the “funeral Services at the RIGHT REV. [GENERAL] LEONIDAS POLK, D.D. together with the sermon delivered in St. Paul’s Church, Augusta Ga., on June 29, 1864.” Stickney is prominently listed as one of the clergy recommending its publication. More importantly, Polk had both confirmed Stickney when he was fourteen and had officiated at his wedding in 1858.

How effective Stickney was in his religious or intelligence duties can’t be known, but he remained at his post in Mobile for almost two years, until transferred in April 1864 as Post Chaplain to Columbus, Ga., where he met Dozwell on June 20, less than a week after Bishop Polk’s death from a Union artillery round. Part of his duty was visiting the hospitals, so Dozwell may have been a patient there at the time. It seems, though, that Stickney had other things to keep him busy. Two surgeons in charge of hospitals complained in September that he was “inefficient” in the performance of his duties, his visits to the hospitals were “few and far between,” and several soldiers had died or been buried “without any of the customary religious rites.” Jefferson Davis, however, reviewed the findings of a Court of Inquiry and returned him to duty and we find him still at his post in February 1865.

At the end of the war Stickney returned to Louisiana and lived in New Orleans, but after the death of his wife in 1868 moved to North Carolina and later to South Carolina, where he died in Charleston in 1888. This is a very nice example of a CS bible carried by a soldier in the field, but is even more interesting in the questions it raises about the intersection of religious and military duties, which may have included military intelligence functions as well.  [SR]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THIS ITEM, AS WITH ALL OTHER ITEMS AVAILABLE ON OUR WEB SITE,

MAY BE PURCHASED THROUGH OUR LAYAWAY PROGRAM.

FOR OUR POLICIES AND TERMS,

CLICK ON ‘CONTACT US’ AT THE TOP OF ANY PAGE ON THE SITE,

THEN ON ‘LAYAWAY POLICY’.

THANK YOU!