Chaplains in the Military

Of all areas of civil–military relations, the military chaplaincy presents the clearest example of the complexity of maintaining a standing, professional military in a democratic society that embraces the separation of church and state. Experiencing role confusion, individual chaplains serve two masters—the military and their denominations—and are considered noncombatants in the warfare machine. Critics have questioned its constitutionality and worried that the chaplaincy would “Prussianize” American youth, but since the American Revolution the armed forces have considered the presence of clergy essential to good morale and order.

The tradition of a military chaplaincy was well established in America when the Continental Congress first authorized ministers to serve with the rebel forces on July 29, 1775. Chaplains had long served with militias during the various colonial wars, and George Washington placed great importance on assigning clergy to his undisciplined troops. The commanding general hoped that the presence of ministers would help improve the moral character of the rank and file and thereby enhance the Army's reputation. The Army's 15 chaplains (who carried no official rank) served with 23 regiments and performed their varied duties during the Revolution without any central direction. The Continental [Page 113]Navy exercised considerably more control over its chaplains (chosen by individual ship captains) with regulations that specified each man's religious and clerical duties aboard ship. Both Army and Navy chaplains, largely Protestant and non-Anglican and with little, if any, formal theological training, not only preached patriotism and ministered to the spiritual needs of the men under their care, but often addressed their medical and educational needs as well.

Prior to the Civil War, the versatile military chaplaincy struggled for existence and definition of purpose. The Navy integrated its shipboard ministers fully into the service, again supplementing their religious duties with teaching midshipmen (officers in training) navigation and mathematics. Congress, however, failed to provide the Army with any chaplains until the War of 1812, when a handful of ministers served at the brigade level. Following that conflict, Congress cut the chaplaincy to one man, stationed at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. In 1838, legislators finally responded to the Army's pleas for more ministers and appointed 20 civilians as chaplain–schoolmasters. In the absence of spiritual guidance for all 70 Army posts, circuit-riding missionaries ministered to most Army men and their dependents on the lonely frontier. The Mexican War proved to be disastrous to the effectiveness of the Army chaplaincy, as their garrison post assignments prevented them from traveling with troops until 1847, when Congress sent only one minister to the battlefront. Immediately following the war, however, the future of the military chaplaincy improved after Congress, resisting a reform movement within society that questioned the constitutionality of a publicly funded chaplaincy, passed legislation that provided all service personnel with the clergy necessary for the “free exercise of religion.”

From the Civil War through World War I, the military chaplaincy acquired many of its modern characteristics and expanded to include Roman Catholic, Jewish, and black religious officials. Because many saw the Civil War conflict in religious terms, both the Union and Confederate forces appointed a large number of chaplains (nearly 3,700) who now required denominational affiliation, were forbidden to participate in battle, and performed ecumenical services along with their traditional supplementary clerical and educational tasks. In addition, chaplains for volunteer regiments served without commissions and possessed varying degrees of education and church affiliation. At the end of the war the military demobilized rapidly, retaining only 30 ministers as post chaplains until the Spanish–American War in 1898, when once again the services opened their doors wide to the clergy. After that conflict, reformers, including Sec. of War Elihu Root and Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, supported professionalizing the chaplaincy along with other military reforms of the day. In 1909, the War Department created the Board of Chaplains to gather information and to make recommendations “for a more effective chaplaincy.” World War I prompted real modernization as nearly 2,400 ministers served the spiritual needs of the American military.

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