'Dinner With A Civil War Soldier' in Gettysburg Next Sunday

by Christopher Hodapp

If you are anywhere near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania next weekend, consider attending historic Good Samaritan Lodge 336 on Sunday night for their 2nd annual Dinner With A Civil War Soldier. The lodge is located at 7 Lincoln Square (right on the town square downtown).

Photo from my visit in November 2010. 

From their Facebook page announcement:

Good Samaritan Lodge 336 will host its second annual Civil War Dinner on Sunday, November 19 at the Lodge on the Square. Presentations from our Civil War guests will begin at six o’clock. Dinner will be served at 6:30. Dessert and additional presentations will follow. 

Dinner will be prepared by our chef from a Civil War era cookbook. Choice of meat will be venison loaf or pigeon (we will substitute Cornish game hen, as the bird used historically is difficult to source), plus potatoes and vegetables, with pumpkin pie for dessert. Enjoy hot mulled cider, and try traditional hard tack, if you dare.

Come hear the stories of:

• Elizabeth Thorne, who while six months pregnant, buried nearly 100 soldiers at the Evergreen Cemetery.
• Pvt. Sherwood, from Co. K, 2nd Division, 5th Corps, the Pennsylvania Reserves, who returned home to fight.
• Daniel Skelly, a teenager who witnessed the Battle of Gettysburg and the aftermath.
• Cpl. Chester Judson, 24th New York “Orange Blossoms,” who fought at Gettysburg.
• Cornelia Hancock, a nurse tending to the wounded at Gettysburg.
• Nicholas, a newspaper man from New York City observing the war and reporting back.
• Dr. Jelks, a Confederate physician with the 26th Georga, who treated the injuries of the war.
• Cpl. J.R. Bennet, 6th New York Independent Battery, an artillery soldier killed in battle.

Seating will be limited, and the cost is $50 per person. The dinner and program are open to non-Masons, and there are still spaces left as of today. To make reservations, CLICK HERE

Good Samaritan Lodge has an interesting past, and I quite literally stumbled upon a meeting there after the Veteran's Day weekend when I came though Gettysburg in 2010. The lodge was originally chartered in 1824, was dissolved just 8 years later in 1832 during the Anti-Masonic period, and re-chartered in 1860, on the eve of the U.S. Civil War.

On July 1st, 1863, war reached Gettysburg and its population of 2,400 when some 170,000 troops converged on the town and began three days of horrific fighting and bloodshed. Almost a third of the two opposing forces became casualties: 7,058 dead, 33,264 wounded, and another 10,790 missing. As many as 18,000 of the soldiers at Gettysburg may have been Freemasons, and numerous stories of Masonic kindness extended to an “enemy” Brother on the field of battle were recorded. Shooting from afar at opposing forces is impersonal — enemy troops are simply masses of faceless, nameless soldiers. But when distances closed and the fighting became one-on-one between individual men, countless Masons remembered their duty to another Brother. This didn't mean engaging in treason, or "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" — but it did (and does) mean treating each other with honor and compassion and charity in a way people aren't much taught these days.

As you first enter the battlefield area and approach the Visitor's Center outside the cemetery, you'll find the famous "Friend To Friend" statue that was erected by the Freemasons of Pennsylvania. It depicts the famous incident when Confederate Major Lewis Armistead lay dying from a Union soldier's bullet, and the brethren of Samaritan Lodge were instrumental in having it installed there.

From their website:

Prior to the war, Major Lewis Armistead and Captain Winfred Scott Hancock served together in the 6th US Infantry in California. They were friends and Masonic Brothers. At the onset of the war, Brother Armistead would resign his commission and join the Confederacy, whereas Brother Hancock would remain with the Union. 

At Gettysburg, now a brigadier general, Armistead would lead his brigade in the famous Pickett’s Charge against the Union center on July 3rd. Hancock, now a major general and commander of the Union II Corps, was stationed right at the point of attack. Armistead would iconically place his hat on his raised sword to rally his men as they approached the Union line. Shortly after breaching the line, Brother Armistead was mortally wounded. He called out for his friend, Brother Hancock, who was nearby. Unfortunately, Hancock was simultaneously injured and removed from the field.

Captain Henry Bingham, Hancock’s chief of staff and a Mason, attended to the fallen Armistead. Armistead entrusted to Bingham his personal belongings, including his Masonic watch and the Bible he had taken his Oath and Obligation upon, to be given to Hancock in the hope the items would be given to his wife. Armistead died shortly thereafter. Hancock, upon his recovery, delivered the items to his Brother’s wife as asked.

Why Freemasonry Still Matters

by Christopher Hodapp

The United States has been rocked over the past month with images and stories relating to massive protests, rioting and statue-removing furor set off by the death of George Floyd while being arrested in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As the weeks passed, the toxic confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns, anger, widespread unemployment, summer heat, pent up frustration, a breathless media, and the echo chamber of the Internet have all worked their worst influences to bring out some of the most socially divisive traits, allegations and arguments among Americans in more than 50 years. 

Over the last couple of weeks, some enthusiastic or activist Masons have advocated for the fraternity to 'get on the right side of history' and support the Black Lives Matter movement. Some energetic Masonic keyboard artists have created graphics to combine the square and compass of Freemasonry with symbols of social activism, such as a clenched fist of BLM, confederate flags, the 'gay pride' rainbow,' or others. Such symbols have been making the rounds of the Internet, often with the exhortation to 'get on board' with one side or another, because, according to the bromide, 'silence is violence.'

With all due respects to my energetically demonstrative brethren, that's not the role of Freemasonry. It never has been, and it cannot be today. Its role is just the opposite.

Freemasons are human beings, and as individuals, we often take different sides in arguments. This is as it has always been throughout the history of the fraternity, sometimes violently so. When you examine the wars involving America and other Western nations in which Masons have fought in the last 300 years, you will find dedicated Freemasons on both sides of those conflicts. We tout the famous Masons who led the American Revolution, but there were plenty of loyalist Masons throughout the American colonies who fought and died to keep us British. (And, no, the Boston Tea Party was NOT a Masonic action, despite what you might have been told.)

Individual Freemasons may fight for the causes they support, but 'The Freemasons' do not take sides in social, political, cultural or religious conflicts.

That's why images like this one are not appropriate for any Freemason. This very moment in time is an excellent teaching moment for this lesson, and our youngest, newest members need to understand it. 

Freemasonry teaches men to behave properly, to treat each other fairly, to live by the cardinal virtues and follow our precepts. But it does not tell Masons what to think, how to vote, how to worship God, what protests to march in, what products to boycott, or what bumper stickers to put on our cars. The sanctuary of the lodge is absolutely shattered by any member who seeks to abuse its good offices by assigning political or religious motives to it that do not exist. 
Freemasonry is a force for good by espousing and teaching mannered toleration, reinforcing the cardinal virtues, and providing a sanctuary from the divisive nature of the profane world. If a Mason abuses the square and compass into a symbol that creates a deliberately divisive atmosphere within the Masonic community, to compel his brethren to also adopt his favored cause, or to erroneously create a false public perception of Masonry's motives -  that Mason has erred, not the fraternity.


James Anderson listed in the Constitutions of Masonry our responsibility to the civil authorities (second only to God):

A Mason is a peaceable Subject to the Civil Powers, wherever he resides or works, and is never to be concern’d in Plots and Conspiracies against the Peace and Welfare of the Nation, nor to behave himself undutiful to inferior Magistrates ; for as Masonry hath been always injured by War, Bloodshed, and Confusion, so ancient Kings and Princes have been much dispos’d to encourage the Craftsmen, be- cause of their Peaceableness and Loyalty, whereby they practically answer’d the Cavils of their Adversaries and promoted the Honour of the Fraternity, who ever flourish’d in Times of Peace. So that if a Brother should be a Rebel against the State, he is not to be countenanc’d in his Rebel- lion, however he may be pitied as an unhappy Man ; and if convicted of no other Crime, though the loyal Brotherhood must and ought to disown his Rebellion, and give no Umbrage or Ground of political Jealousy to the Government for the time being; they cannot expel him from the Lodge, and his Relation to it remains indefeasible.

Masons from the past who have been prominent leaders of revolutions (along with not-so-prominent ones who were on the losing sides of failed ones) never marched at the head of mobs wearing a giant square and compass on their chest or helmet, for good reason. Riots, revolts, revolutions, wars - these take place between nations or factions or masses or mobs of peoples. Freemasonry is practiced between individual human beings who seek to retain their individual honor and humanity, and to civilize and improve their town, their country, and the world by their own actions. Freemasonry is not a movement - it is a cultural institution that can only function if it is seen as a diverse, calm, civil, and evenhanded organization of a community's best leaders, regardless of their particular political affinities. 

The Western world is currently caught up in a moment that measures diversity only by the hue of skin color - literally the one human trait that cannot be altered, controlled or changed, and therefore the very least important one - and not by diversity of thought, belief, achievement, or aspiration. That is how Freemasonry seeks to differ from the outside world. If we're doing it right, we welcome diversity among men in all its intellectual, theological, economic and vocational forms. But I have never in my 20 years as a Mason seen a petition for the degrees of Freemasonry that asked a man's race. 

It is why, for instance, the meetings of lodges under the Grand Lodge of Israel are attended by Masons who are Jewish, Muslim and Christian, from all races, and from political persuasions that are diametrically (sometimes militantly) opposed to each other in that turbulent part of the world. Even the seal of their grand lodge reflects its uniquely Masonic diversity. It is the true meaning of meeting 'on the level.'

We say that Masonry becomes the 'center of union' because it conciliates true friendship among men who would for any other reasons have remained at a perpetual distance. Living through a tumultuous moment in time with heated passions on all sides doesn't imbue any of us with the ability to decide who is 'on the right side of history.' That's the nature of mass conflict and social unrest and upheaval. Only the lapse of time and history itself can make that judgement. 

The famed 'Friend To Friend' statue at the top of this post, erected at Gettysburg by the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, is a parable in bronze that demonstrates the unbreakable mystic tie between two Masons on opposing sides of a deadly conflict.  Union General Winfield Scott Hancock and Confederate General Lewis Addison Armistead were personal friends and both were Freemasons. Secession wasn't a Masonic cause, and neither was preserving the Union. These two men had served and fought side by side in the US Army before the Civil War broke out. But Armistead said he could never raise his sword against his fellow Southerners and joined the Confederate Army in 1861. 

Armistead led his men against Hancock’s troops in the ill-fated Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg, but was mortally wounded in the battle - by the irony of fate, Hancock was also wounded during the same battle. The statue depicts Union Captain Henry Bingham, also a Freemason and staff assistant to General Hancock, rendering aid to the fallen Confederate General. It was a bloody day - Henry Bingham himself had been wounded in the fighting, but he knelt by Armistead's side as he died. General Armistead is shown handing his watch and personal effects to be delivered to his friend and Brother, Union General Hancock. A final act of friendship among men who would for any other reasons have remained at a perpetual distance.

It's one of those lessons people can learn if statues aren't toppled by mobs. 

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UPDATE: JULY 7, 2020

This post generated an unprecedented amount of discussion, pro and con, in numerous Facebook groups and elsewhere over the last several days. 

Brother James R. Morgan III is a Prince Hall Mason in Washington, D.C. and a volunteer coordinator at that city's African-American Civil War Museum. He is an author and historian, and recently published the outstanding book, The Lost Empire: Black Freemasonry in the Old West (1867-1906). 

On Sunday, James was motivated to pen a thoughtful response to my essay above, entitled 'What to the Prince Hall Freemason is the Fourth of July? - Why Black Masonic Memory Matters' (his title is a deliberate play upon a famed abolitionist speech by Frederick Douglass in 1852, commonly known as 'What to the slave is the Fourth of July?'). In it, he rhetorically points out numerous incidents and issues I did not discuss in my original post, and seems to be critical less of what I said than of what I did not say. Please read it and decide for yourself. I don't regard either of us as being on opposite sides of things, merely looking at it from both sides of a picket fence that sometimes blocks as much as it admits. 

CLICK HERE: 
https://www.facebook.com/jamesrmorgan/posts/10217184280782312

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Did the Freemasons create the United States?

Albert Pike's Civil War Era Sword Donated to House of the Temple

Arturo De Hoyos at the Scottish Rite SJ House of the Temple in Washington, D.C. reports that an incredible artifact has just been rescued thanks to the due diligence of Louisiana Freemasons, particularly in the New Orleans area:

In August 1861, a month after the beginning of the Civil War, Albert Pike was commissioned a Brigadier General in the Confederate States of America.
M.W. Bro. Benjamin B. French, Past Grand Master of Washington DC (who also served as Commissioner of Public Buildings, under Presidents Franklin Pierce and Abraham Lincoln) presented his friend Albert Pike with this beautiful sword in commemoration. It's a testament of the powerful bonds of fraternal esteem, in spite of political differences (if only we all had that type of mutual respect today).

The sword was recently purchased at an auction by the Freemasons of Louisiana (and in particular New Orleans) and was donated to the House of the Temple on Thursday, May 23, 2019.

Albert Pike was born and raised in Boston, but he and his family were living in Arkansas before and during the Civil War. He had lived among Indian tribes in the West in prior years with whom he was sympathetic. That's why he was compelled by the Confederacy to enlist and command Indian troops. He was commissioned in November 1861, but resigned March 1862 in disgust, disgraced by their savagery in the wake of the Pea Ridge catastrophe that he had been unable to control. 

He was a Confederate officer for less than six months.

Benjamin Brown French (1800–1870) was originally born in New Hampshire, and serve in the New hampshire Legislature. Ultimately, he would relocate to D.C. for nearly 40 years, holding several appointed positions in the government. He was appointed and served as Clerk of the United States House of Representatives from 1845-1847. From 1847-1850, he served as president of Samuel B. Morse's Magnetic Telegraph Company overseeing the expansion of telegraph communications throughout the United States. And in 1853, he was appointed Commissioner of Public Buildings By President Franklin Pierce. During his time as Commissioner under both Pierce and Abraham Lincoln, he played a major role in extending the U.S. Capitol and building the Capitol Dome. He also oversaw a number of historical events including the Gettysburg Address and the funeral of Abraham Lincoln. 

Republican Lincoln and his Vice Presidential running mate, Tennessee Democrat Andrew Johnson, had hoped their combined National Unity Party would heal the divided nation as the war ended. But after Lincoln's assassination in 1867, angry Reconstruction Republicans in the Senate decided to impeach President Johnson. As a sympathetic member of both Lincoln and Johnson administration's vision for reunification, French was punished by the Republicans for standing by Johnson. They dissolved the Commissioner of Public Buildings office and created what we have today, the office of Architect of the Capitol. 

French was an incredibly enthusiastic Freemason. He joined the fraternity in New Hampshire in 1826, serving three years as Master of his lodge. He then affiliated in National Lodge 12 in D.C. in 1846. In that same year, he was elected as Grand Master of the Grand lodge of the District of Columbia, a position he would hold for seven years. As Grand Master, French laid cornerstones of the Smithsonian Institution, the Washington Monument, the U.S. Capitol extension, and countless churches and other public buildings. 

He also served as the Grand Recorder for the Grand Encampment of the Knights Templar. Brother French became a Scottish Rite Mason and on September 15, 1859 he became the first 33rd Degree Mason from the District of Columbia. He was elected Grand Chancellor of the Supreme Council for the Southern Jurisdiction.

Benjamin B. French Lodge No. 15 of the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia was chartered in 1852, and is thought to be the only U.S. Masonic lodge named after a sitting Grand Master. Benjamin Brown French, Grand Master of the District of Columbia from 1846 to 1853, reluctantly signed the charter establishing his namesake lodge in late 1852.

Pike's VERY brief time in the CSA frequently gets trotted out by anti-Masons in an effort to gin up controversy over him. And the ebb and flow of political fashion usually erupts every two decades or so over his statue in Washington D.C. For much, much more than you'll ever want to know about Albert Pike, his statue in Judiciary Square, his time in the Confederate Army, and of course, his views on slavery and its related topics, see Albert Pike, Statues, History and Hysteria from 2017.

But what makes the story of Benjamin B. French's gift of the sword to Pike so poignant is that it was such a deliberate act of Masonic Brotherhood and honor. Here was a Yankee Republican, from an anti-slavery party and part of the country, giving his Masonic Brother a sword as he went off to battle against his own nation for a cause both men knew to be wrong. And the sword was Masonically decorated with the All Seeing Eye of the Grand Architect, and the 'Lion of the Tribe of Judah.' Both men were following the code of defending their homes and the honor of their respective sides in the conflict that was tearing the country in two. 

And then, when the war ended and Pike was found to be a traitor against the Union for his six months as a brigadier general, Benjamin B. French himself, the man who gave him that sword, would draft an appeal in July of 1865 for acquittal from President Andrew Johnson. Numerous other Brethren across the country did the same, and Albert Pike was granted a presidential pardon on April 23, 1866.

Author Michael Halleran at Gettysburg May 21st

Pennsylvania Masons take note! Brother Michael Halleran, author of "The Better Nature of Our Angels: Freemasonry in the American Civil War," will be speaking at the Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center on Saturday, May 21st, 2011. This public event begins at 2PM.

The Center is carrying Brother Halleran's book, and is one of the rare instances of a book about Freemasonry offered for sale by the National Parks Service.

Michael is the former editor of the Scottish Rite Research Society’s Plumbline. He is a freelance writer, a lecturer at Emporia State University, and a practicing attorney in the Flint Hills of East-Central Kansas. He is a member of both Emporia Lodge No. 12, AF&AM, and Mount Zion Lodge No. 266, AF&AM, Topeka, Kansas. Halleran received the Mackey Award for Excellence in Masonic Scholarship by the Scottish Rite Research Society for his article on Civil War Freemasonry in Heredom, vol. 14 (2006), and he was the author of the "Brother Brother" feature for The Scottish Rite Journal (now appearing in The Square Magazine). He is a member of the Quatuor Coronati Correspondence Circle, and the Scottish Rite Research Society, where he studies American military Masonry and the traditions of military lodges worldwide.

The Gettysburg National Military Park Museum & Visitor Center is located at 1195 Baltimore Pike, Gettysburg, PA 17325. For more information, contact the center at (717) 334-2288.