"Catholic chaplains shared fully in the lot of the common soldier in World War II - in Pacific island jungles, Europe's battered cities, North African deserts, and the oceans in between. And like the common soldier, they endured the same combat perils, exposure to the elements, internal conflicts, boredom, and intense longings for peace and home. They saved lives, provided comfort and hope, and renewed lost faith in a dark time. In this compelling account Father Donald Crosby provides an unforgettable portrait of faith under fire and grace at ground level, reminding us again that "there are no atheists in foxholes.""--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Paul Cowley grew up in Manchester amid the chaotic world of his alcoholic parents. His early exposure to heavy drinking, explosive arguments and the unnerving aggression of his father led him into homelessness and crime. By seventeen he was behind bars. Years later, following a career in the army which 'made a man of him' yet ultimately failed to give him direction and purpose, Paul's search for meaning resulted in an unexpected encounter with God that changed his life for ever. This remarkable and touching account of his early years, from thief to prisoner, soldier and, eventually, priest, should inspire anyone who feels their life is out of control. It is, by turns, a dramatic, traumatic and comic story, yet one that stands as a testament to how God offers hope to all who have the courage to respond.

Darius Hubert (1823‒1893), a French-born Jesuit, made his home in Louisiana in the 1840s and served churches and schools in Grand Coteau, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans. In 1861, he pronounced a blessing at the Louisiana Secession Convention and became the first chaplain of any denomination appointed to Confederate service. Hubert served with the First Louisiana Infantry in Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia for the entirety of the war, afterward returning to New Orleans, where he continued his ministry among veterans as a trusted pastor and comrade. One of just three full-time Catholic chaplains in Lee’s army, only Hubert returned permanently to the South after surrender. In postwar New Orleans, he was unanimously elected chaplain of the veterans of the eastern campaign and became well-known for his eloquent public prayers at memorial events, funerals of prominent figures such as Jefferson Davis, and dedications of Confederate monuments. In this first-ever biography of Hubert, Katherine Bentley Jeffrey offers a far-reaching account of his extraordinary life. Born in revolutionary France, Hubert entered the Society of Jesus as a young man and left his homeland with fellow Jesuits to join the New Orleans mission. In antebellum Louisiana, he interacted with slaves and free people of color, felt the effects of anti-Catholic and anti-Jesuit propaganda, experienced disputes and dysfunction with the trustees of his Baton Rouge church, and survived a near-fatal encounter with Know-Nothing vigilantism. As a chaplain with the Army of Northern Virginia, Hubert witnessed harrowing battles and their equally traumatic aftermath in surgeons’ tents and hospitals. After the war, he was a spiritual director, friend, mentor, and intermediary in the fractious and politically divided Crescent City, where he both honored Confederate memory and promoted reconciliation and social harmony. Hubert’s complicated and tumultuous life is notable both for its connection to the most compelling events of the era and its illumination of the complex and unexpected ways religion intersected with politics, war, and war’s repercussions.

“The best battlefield first-person compilation I have read . . . Here it all is—the tactics, the movement, the truth about warfare.” —The Civil War Times In Antietam: The Soldiers’ Battle, historian John Michael Priest tells this brutal tale of slaughter from an entirely new point of view: that of the common enlisted man. Concentrating on the days of actual battle—September 16, 17, and 18, 1862—Priest vividly brings to life the fear, the horror, and the profound courage that soldiers displayed, from the first Federal cavalry probe of the Confederate lines to the last skirmish on the streets of Sharpsburg. Antietam is not a book about generals and their grand strategies, but rather concerns men such as the Pennsylvanian corporal who lied to receive the Medal of Honor; the Virginian who lay unattended on the battlefield through most of the second day of fighting, his arm shattered from a Union artillery shell; the Confederate surgeon who wrote to the sweetheart he left behind enemy lines in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania that he had seen so much death and suffering that his “head had whitened and my very soul turned to stone.” Besides being a gripping tale charged with the immediacy of firsthand accounts of the fighting, Antietam also dispels many misconceptions long held by historians and Civil War buffs alike. Seventy-two detailed maps—which describe the battle in the hourly and quarter-hourly formats established by the Cope Maps of 1904—together with rarely-seen photographs and his own intimate knowledge of the Antietam terrain, allow Priest to offer a substantially new interpretation of what actually happened.

For both the Union and Confederate soldiers, religion was the greatest sustainer of morale in the Civil War, and faith was a refuge in times of need. Guarding and guiding the spiritual well-being of the fighters, the army chaplain was a voice of hope and reason in an otherwise chaotic military existence. The clerics' duties did not end after Sunday prayers; rather, many ministers could be found performing daily regimental duties, and some even found their way onto fields of battle.

Presents the life of the American Catholic priest who served as a chaplain in the Korean War, describing his heroic behavior as a prisoner of war which resulted in his being awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously in 2013.

In World War II, more than twelve thousand Protestant ministers, Catholic priests, and Jewish rabbis joined the Chaplain Corps. They were men of faith under fire. And they would charge straight into Hell to save the soul of a single soldier… Representing America’s three major religious traditions, volunteers from across the country enlisted as noncombatant commissioned officers to provide spiritual strength and guidance for those fighting men who never knew if they were going to survive. Armed only with Bibles, Torahs, and the tools of their holy trade, these men of God went wherever the troops went. They prayed over men about to go into combat on land, at sea, and in the air. And, most important and difficult of all, they guided fallen fighting men of every faith as they breathed their last, and gave up their lives in the fight against tyranny. These are the personal stories of some of the bravest and most selfless men who served with the armed forces. Many lost their lives or suffered debilitating wounds as they strived to keep the military personnel spiritually awake, morally fit—and prepared to make the journey from this world to the next without fear or despair, and with the trust of the Almighty in their hearts. INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS