USA > North Carolina > Lives of the bishops of North Carolina from the establishment of the episcopate in that state down to the division of the diocese > Part 13
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In the period preceding the War Between the States, Bishop Atkinson had faithfully carried out the policy of his Church in extending spiritual enlightenment among the negroes; and, like his predecessors, had the hearty co-operation of the most exten- sive slave-holders of his Diocese in this good work. In his address to the Diocesan Convention of 1854, speaking of the plantation of Henry K. Burgwyn, on the Roanoke River, he said: "At a little chapel on his estate, after evening prayer, 1 preached to his slaves, who attended very numerously and with a gratifying appearance of interest and devotion. The Rev. Mr. Fitz Gerald, who lives at Mr. Burgwyn's, gives much of his time and labor to this important and often neglected part of our population ; and, with the efficient aid he receives from Mr. Morell, now a candidate for Orders, who resides as a tutor in the family, and from the excellent mistress of the household, the good work seems to make gratifying progress." That Mr. Josiah Collins faithfully kept up the religious work on his plantation, heretofore alluded to, appears in the same journal. After speaking of the incessant labors of Mr. Collins in person- ally instructing his negroes, the Bishop says: "Such cares and labors for their souls' good, accomplished, as in his case, by cor-
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respondent solicitude for their temporal welfare, seems to mne the best answer to those who revile the entire population of the South, and who know so well'how to do that which Burke felt to be so far beyond his powers-to draw up an indictment against a whole people. Perhaps the philanthropy, which thus rails and is puffed up, may be less precious in the sight of God than that obscure benevolence which only works and makes sacrifices." To the Diocesan Convention of 1856, Bishop Atkinson reported : "I appointed Mr. William Murphy some months ago to officiate here [at Wilson,] together with Rocky Mount, taking charge at the same time of the religious instruction of the slaves of Mr. Turner Battle and his sisters. He has recently, with my con- sent, agreed to serve also once a month, a new congregation at Marlborough, in Pitt County. I preached in Rocky Mount in the afternoon, and administered the Communion ; and, in the evening, preached to the slaves of Mr. Battle and his sis- ters. As an encouraging indication of increasing interest in the religious instruction of slaves, I will mention that two ministers. in this quarter of the Diocese, have, in the last few months, been employed by masters to aid them in this part of their duty-Mr. Murphy by the Battle family, and Mr. Gallagher by Mr. T. P. Devereux. With Mr. Devereux, indeed, the subject has long been one of deep interest and practical effort." The Devereux family, of which the above-mentioned Thomas Pollock Devereux was head, owned eight large plantations and about sixteen hun- dred negroes. An interesting account of the workings of these vast estates has been preserved in a volume (published in 1906) entitled Plantation Sketches, by Mrs. Margaret Devereux, of Raleigh. Even while the War Between the States was at its height, the religious instruction of the negroes was not neg- lected. In one of his addresses the Bishop speaks of a visitation to Christ Church in Raleigh, where, on the night of May 11, 1862, he "preached to a crowded and very attentive congrega- tion of colored people." Later in the war-time, October 13, 1863. the Bishop made a brief stay at the plantation of Mr. Peter W.
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Hairston, in Davie County, and says of this visit : "I preached twice to a large body of his slaves, some of his family and a few of his neighbors being present, and administered the Holy Com- munion. The care bestowed by Mr. and Mrs. Hairston on the religious instruction of their slaves is much to be commended." The Mr. Hairston, here mentioned, owned about two thousand slaves-few men in the entire South having so great a number.
The first meeting of the Diocesan Convention of North Caro- lina, after the beginning of the war, was to have been held at New Bern; but, as hostilities had opened in that neighborhood, and many male members of the local congregation were already absent in the military service of the Confederacy, Bishop Atkin- son changed the place of meeting to Morganton, and it accord- ingly assembled in the latter town, July 10th-12th, 1861. In his annual address, the Bishop discussed at some length the political situation, averring that the secession of the Southern States did not, in itself, work a dissolution of the relations existing between the dioceses forming the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. Should the dioceses in the seceded States form a union, however (as they later did), he intimated that the Dio- cese of North Carolina should join with them, and thus separate from the Church in the northern dioceses. Concerning some alterations he had authorized in forms of worship, he said that he had added a prayer for the people of the Confederate States and the soldiers gone forth to war, as well as substituting prayers for the civil rulers of the Confederacy, its Congress, etc., in the place of such civil officers of the United States, as the latter had ceased to hold authority over the territory in which the Diocese of North Carolina was situated. He also said: "The State is always entitled to our prayers and obedience unless she under- took to set aside the law of Christ, in which case we must obey God rather than man. But the State has a right to frame her own government, and the Church in that State must sustain and respect that government. If, then, we individually censured the acts by which North Carolina seceded from the American Union
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and established a government for herself, and afterwards adopted the government of the Confederate States, still, as a Church, we must have acknowledged, prayed for, and obeyed that govern- ment; for, as to us, its officers are 'the powers that be,' whom St. Paul bids us obey. Happily, however, for our peace of mind, we have had no perplexing questions of the sort to settle. By the time the State acted, her citizens had become nearly unanimous in the conviction that she must adopt the course which she has pursued. The duty of the Church, in this Diocese, to the State, is, then, clear."
As early as July 3, 1861 (a few days before the North Caro- lina Diocesan Convention met at Morganton) a meeting of rep- resentatives of the Southern dioceses had been held at Mont- gomery, Alabama, being attended by Bishops Davis of South Carolina, Elliott of Georgia, Green of Mississippi, and Rutledge of Florida, together with some clerical and lay delegates. This meeting was held in pursuance of a call contained in a circular letter sent to the Southern Bishops from Sewanee, Tennessee, by Bishops Polk and Elliott in the Spring of 1861. To this call, Bishop Atkinson did not respond. Polk himself, having relue- tantly laid aside his crosier and taken up the sword, was absent in the field. Of the other Southern Bishops, Cobbs of Alabama had recently died, Meade of Virginia was infirm from age, Otey of Tennessee was ill, and Gregg of Texas was unable to get through the Federal blockade. This meeting at Montgomery was more of a conference than a convention -- the Bishops and the delegates, both clerical and lay, all sitting together. The conference agreed that it was necessary for the Church in the Confederate States to organize; and also resolved that a com- mittee (consisting of Bishops and both classes of delegates) should prepare a constitution to be submitted to the various Southern dioceses. Then the meeting adjourned to re-assemble at Columbia, South Carolina, October 16th-25th, 1861. At this Columbia meeting all the Southern Bishops were present except General Polk. The constitution which the committee
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had drawn up by order of the meeting at Montgomery, and which had been submitted to each Southern diocese for ratifi- cation, was found to have been formally adopted by the Dioceses of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas-while Tennessee, Louisiana, Florida, and the Missionary Jurisdiction of the South-west had been prevented, owing to military occupation by United States troops, from holding conventions to consider the same. Under these circumstances, the Right Reverend Stephen Elliott, of Georgia, Presiding Bishop, officially declared that "The Protestant Epis- copal Church in the Confederate States of America" was duly organized, and issued a call for "The First General Council" of the same, to assemble in the city of Augusta, Georgia, Novem- ber 12, 1862. It met at the appointed time and place-remain- ing in session till November 22d-the Bishops present being Elliott of Georgia, Johns of Virginia, Atkinson of North Caro- lina, Davis of South Carolina, Lay of the Missionary Jurisdic- tion of the South-west, and Wilmer of Alabama, the last named being the first and only Bishop who was consecrated under the authority of the Church in the Confederate States.
In the Book of Common Prayer of the newly organized Church, few changes were made. The words "Confederate States" were substituted for "United States" in the prayers for those in authority. Under the new constitution of the Church, the diocesan assemblies, both State and National, were to be called "Councils" instead of Conventions. Up to and including the year 1862, the meetings of the clergy and laity in North Carolina were called Conventions, as formerly. In 1863, 1864, and 1865, such meetings were officially designated as Councils ; and, thereafter, they were again called Conventions. We may add that, in the Diocese of East Carolina, the governing body, from its organization, in 1883, up to the present time, has been called the Diocesan Council, and this is also true of many other dioceses throughout the United States.
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The constitution of the Church in the Confederate States also provided that whenever a single State should contain more than one diocese, these dioceses might be erected into an Ecclesiastical Province, the governing body of which should be a Provincial Council, meeting at least once every three years. This Provincial Council was to be made up of all the Bishops in the State, and such representatives (clerical and lay) from the several dioceses, as might be deter- mined by the Diocesan Councils or Conventions. The senior Bishop, in line of consecration, should preside; and, if there were as many as three Bishops, they were to form a separate House. This "Provincial System" is now authorized by the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, and it seems a pity that North Carolina had not adopted it, for the broad expanse of territory in that State has necessitated the erection of three separate and distinct dioceses. Could all three of these occasionally meet in joint council, it would bring together Churchmen from every quarter of the State which is the com- mon mother of all, and renew the happy associations which the necessities of Church government have heretofore severed- aside from giving a better idea of the full strength of the Church throughout the State of North Carolina.
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In the Confederate Book of Common Prayer, printed in Lon- don, there was a curious oversight, as mentioned in the Reverend John Fulton's monograph in Bishop Perry's History of the American Episcopal Church. In the forms of prayer to be used at sea, the words "Confederate States" were, through inadver- tence, not substituted for "United States"; and hence, on the Confederate cruisers, if this form of worship were used, the ship's officers and crew must pray "that we may be a safe-guard unto the United States of America, and a security for such as pass on the seas upon their lawful occasions !"
Prior to the war, Arkansas had been part of the Missionary Jurisdiction of the South-west, with the Right Reverend Henry Champlin Lay as Missionary Bishop. The General Convention
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(or Council) of the Confederate States, at its session in Augusta, erected Arkansas into a separate diocese, and Doctor Lay there- upon took his seat in the House of Bishops as Bishop of Arkan- sas. Of the later fate of the Diocese of Arkansas, further men- tion will be made in the present work.
In the course of his address to the House of Deputies in the General Council at Augusta, its president, the Reverend Chris- tian Hanckel, D. D., of South Carolina, said: "We are about, not to detach ourselves from the Church Catholic, but to put forth a new bud from the parent stock; indeed, by our proceed- ings thus far, we have already developed the elements of a full, perfect, and complete branch, which, I trust, may grow and spread till it covers the whole land, and reach, and bless by its precious influence, the remotest part of our Confederate States."
In the beginning of the war, after North Carolina had se- ceded, but before the Diocese had by its own act withdrawn from the union with the northern dioceses, Bishop Atkinson incurred some adverse criticism in the South by officially giving his con- sent for the consecration, in a Northern State (Pennsylvania ) of an Assistant Bishop, the Reverend William Bacon Stevens. Holding that the Church and the civil government were separate and distinct institutions, Bishop Atkinson's contention was that as the Diocese of North Carolina had not, up to that time, with- drawn from the union of dioceses in the United States, he was still a Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in its old form; and, as such, bound by the canon law to give his assent to, or dissent from, such consecration. For reasons somewhat simi- lar, he refused to join in the consecration of the Reverend Rich- ard Hooker Wilmer as Bishop of Alabama (March 6, 1862), counseling delay in the latter ceremony until a diocesan union could be perfected and a Church of national proportions duly organized within the Confederacy. Alluding to this refusal on his part, Bishop Atkinson addressed the Diocesan Convention of 1862 in these words : "It was . painful for me to decline . to take part in the consecration of Bishop Wilmer. The choice
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made by the Diocese of Alabama I believed wise and judicious; and it would on personal grounds, moreover, have been very gratifying to unite in the hallowed ceremonial by which the brother thus chosen was set apart for his new and trying duties. But our existing canons, providing for the consecration of a Bishop, could not well, if at all, have been carried out in the present state of the Church and the country, nor was this at-" tempted; and our new code had not then been, and still has not been, ratified. I thought it right to wait until these last were adopted. In this I differed from some living Bishops of great intelligence and of unquestionable zeal for the Gospel and the Church, and from one, since dead, whose character I especially revered and by whose judgment I have been for many years greatly influenced-the late Bishop Meade. Since it was thought necessary that a Bishop should be immediately consecrated for Alabama, we may well rejoice that the man set apart for the work should be one so well qualified to perform it to the glory of God and the edification of His Church."
Bishop Atkinson's worst enemy-if enemies he had-could not question his loyalty to the Confederate government, or his in- terest in the spiritual welfare of its soldiery. Time and again did he hold services for the North Carolina troops both in Vir- ginia and at home. Speaking of the year 1861, he says: "The month of August I spent in Virginia, preaching to the soldiers in various camps, and also to congregations in several Churches in Richmond. At Yorktown, August 6th, I buried a soldier from North Carolina." The Bishop also devoted some of his time to religious work among soldiers in the large garrison at Fort Fisher, not many miles from his home in Wilmington.
During the course of the war, at least two North Carolina candidates for holy orders - Robert Walker Anderson and James T. Cooke-were killed in battle. Among the Episcopa- lian chaplains holding commissions in the various regiments of North Carolina troops were the Reverend Alfred A. Watson (in later years Bishop of East Carolina), of the Second Regiment;
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the Reverend Frederick Fitz Gerald, also of the Second Regi- ment (succeeding Mr. Watson) ; the Reverend Maurice Hamil- ton Vaughan, and the Reverend George Patterson, both succes- sively of the Third Regiment-Mr. Vaughan having been trans- ferred thereto from the Seventeenth; the Reverend Bennett Smedes, of the Fifth Regiment; the Reverend Matthias M. Mar- shall, of the Seventh Regiment, and later Chaplain of Hospitals at Kittrell; the Reverend Aristides S. Smith, of the Eleventh Regiment; the Reverend Mr. Vaughan (already mentioned), and the Reverend Girard W. Phelps, of the Seventeenth Regi- ment ; the Reverend Joseph W. Murphy, of the Forty-third, and later of the Thirty-second Regiment; the Reverend John Huske Tillinghast, of the Forty-fourth Regiment ; the Reverend Thomas B. Haughton, of the Fiftieth Regiment ; and the Reverend Edwin Geer and the Reverend Francis W. Hilliard, Post Chaplains at Wilmington. Others there were- such as the courageous Colonel Edwin A. Osborne, of the Fourth North Carolina, afterwards Archdeacon of the Convocation of Charlotte-who entered the ministry after the close of hostilities. Another brave soldier of the same class was Major James A. Weston, of the Thirty-third Regiment, who was Rector of the Church of the Ascension at.
Hickory, North Carolina, when he died, on December 13, 1905. In 1880 about half a dozen ex-Confederate officers were Bishops in the Church throughout the United States. In Bishop Atkin- son's address in 1864, he refers to one of the above army chap- lains as follows: "I have also had the pleasure of receiving again into the Diocese the Rev. Bennett Smedes, who, although happily situated in Baltimore, felt it his duty to endure peril and privation in returning to his parents and his native State to render service to those to whom he felt most bounden. The Bishop of Maryland declining to give him Letters Dimissory for this purpose, I received him without them. He first became a Chaplain in the Army; but, his health failing him in a mode of life to which he was unaccustomed, he has since become the Assistant of his father, the Rev. Aldert Smedes, in charge of
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St. Mary's School, Raleigh, the onerous duties of which were pressing too heavily on the latter." Including the Reverend Bennett Smedes, just mentioned (himself at one time a prisoner, having been captured while coming South), Doctor Aldert Smedes had four sons in the Confederate Army, and two were killed in battle.
It must not be inferred that all the courage and devotion displayed by the clergy during the war were confined to camp and field; for more unflinching bravery is hard to find than that which stands unappalled before the pestilence that walketh in darkness and the destruction that wasteth at noonday. Yellow fever, with all its attendant horrors, in 1862, visited the seaport city of Wilmington, where had long been stationed the Reverend Robert Brent Drane, D. D., Rector of the parish of Saint James. In recording Doctor Drane's devotion unto death, amid that terrible epidemic, we cannot do better than quoto the account given the Diocesan Convention of 1863 by Bishop Atkin- son, in these words: "Remarkable as Dr. Drane had ever been for his attention to his flock, he became doubly assiduous in that distressing time, and especially, as I have reason to know, to the poor and friendless, carrying with his own hand, day by day. the nourishment and the little comforts which they needed and which he had it in his power to supply. In the midst of this career of ministerial fidelity and Christian charity, he was him- self stricken down; and, after a few days' illness, borne with his usual fortitude and faith, he died. Wilmington has had many citizens who are honored and respected, and some of the chief of these she lost in that season of pestilence, but none of the living and none of the dead could have been removed with deeper and more universal grief than followed the death of Dr. Drane. He had been the Rector of St. James's Church, with but a short intermission, for eight and twenty years-living among a people many of whom he had baptized, not a few of whom he had mar- ried, many of whom he had comforted in sickness and trouble. and all of whom he had instructed in the Christian faith ably
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and successfully. Distinguished, too, as he was, for his powers as a preacher, the soundness of his judgment, his unwearied dili- gence as a pastor, and his consistency to principle, his loss will be felt for years in his congregation and community. No suc- cessor, whatever his qualities may be, can adequately fill his place at once; for confidence, such as was felt towards him, is a plant of slow growth. In this body, we shall be very sensible of the loss of his counsels and his labors." A worthy son and name- sake of Doctor Drane is at present Rector of Saint Paul's Church, an old colonial house of worship, in Edenton, North Carolina, where (excepting a year's service in Wilmington as deacon) he has been stationed during his entire ministerial life. Bishop Atkinson himself was Rector of the parish of Saint James for a short while after the elder Doctor Drane died, and was succeeded by the Reverend Alfred A. Watson.
During the same year that the elder Doctor Drane died in Wilmington, a faithful deacon of the Church, laboring in an entirely different sphere, passed away. His life was spent among the mountains of North Carolina, near the temporarily abandoned mission of Valle Crusis. This was the Reverend Wil- liam West Skiles. Of him the Bishop said : "He was a true mis- sionary : humble, patient, laborious, and affectionate-not de- spising the day of small things, and still less despising any human soul, however rude, and ignorant, and sin-stained that soul might be. Long will the dwellers in the valleys and forests of that wild mountain region miss their faithful pastor, who was at the same time their physician, their counsellor, and their familiar friend." In 1890 there was published a little volume entitled William West Skiles, a Sketch of Missionary Life at Valle Crusis, by Susan Fenimore Cooper.
Another death among the clergy, recorded with sorrow by the Bishop about the time that the Reverend Messrs. Drane and Skiles passed away, was that of the Reverend George Benton, formerly a missionary to Greece, who spent the last seventeen
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years of his life in faithful labors among the people of North Carolina, chiefly at Rockfish, in Cumberland County. One of his sons (born in Crete), the Reverend Angelo Ames Benton, D. D., was for some years a clergyman in the Diocese of North Caro- lina and a theological writer of note, his chief work being The Church Cyclopaedia. The latter gentleman also attained dis- tinction as an educator, being Professor of Latin and Greek in Delaware College for a while, and afterwards Professor of Dog- matic Theology in the University of the South, at Sewanee, Ten- nessee.
The whole course of the war was a sore and continued trial, not only to the country in general, but to the Church as well. A note of sorrow, yet not of despair, is found in the Bishop's . address of 1862. "We are met together," he said, "to take coun- sel for the Church on a dark and anxious day, both for the .Church and the country. The invading enemy has taken pos- session of a considerable part of this State, as well as of others of the Southern Confederacy, and is seeking to over-run and possess the whole. In this we suffer, not only as patriots, but as Churchmen. The blood of our brethren of the household of faith has been shed on the field of battle. Our congregations have been dispersed, our ministers driven from their Churches, public worship suspended, and the slender maintenance of the clergy diminished or taken away. It is a sore and grievous trial, necessary, we must suppose, because it comes in the provi- dence of God, but hard to bear without despondency, without secret murmurings against that providence, and without bitter and malignant feelings against the men who have brought these calamities upon us. May we, by His grace, learn thus to bear it and to inherit the blessing promised to those who suffer as Chris- tians."
During the war the Church lost by sickness many old and honored members -- Frederick J. Hill, M. D., Edward Lee Wins- low (Secretary of the Diocese), Josiah Collins, and others -- while countless numbers of her younger sons were slain fighting
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