Soldiers of the Cross

During an era of official segregation in the U.S. Army, chaplains ministered to both black and white Union regiments fighting in the Civil War. Nearly two decades passed before the Regular Army followed suit, for motives that were as much practical as they were religious. Many enlisted men in the post-Civil War Army were illiterate. This particularly proved true for blacks who had been enslaved in the American South, where paranoia and prejudice led to laws that prohibited their formal educat