An interesting article from the local Hanover newspaper covers the present-day re-enactment of Civil War military church services:

When a Civil War regiment marched into battle, it usually had more chaplains than surgeons backing it up.

Battlefield medicine may have been in its infancy, but religion was central to most of the men, and soldiers relied on faith to heal the spirit from the horrors of war.

“If you were in a potential battle area, you definitely wanted to make sure you went to church and didn’t want to go in there without that blessing,” said Kirk Davis, history director at Gettysburg Anniversary Committee.

In an interesting note: 

Regiments were typically of one faith because they were recruited from the same communities. The monument to Father William Corby on the Gettysburg battlefield shows him granting absolution to the mostly Catholic Irish Brigade. But other soldiers waiting to go into battle bowed their heads in reverence alongside the Irish.

The American military has long recognized the need for religious support within its ranks — a need generated by the troops themselves. Military chaplains and their faith support to the troops is not a modern invention. Rather, it is a long-standing tradition of supporting the human liberty of religious freedom — a freedom protected by the US Constitution.

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