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Research Aids

Christian Commission

NOTE: These are just notes and links to Vermonters, members of the Christian Commission. We'd be indebted to someone to turn this into a decent article.

The United States Christian Commission was established in 1861 to minister to soldiers through prayer meetings, worship services, and distribution of tracts, Bibles, and other religious literature. providing supplies and nursing.

Each state had a branch dedicated to increasing public awareness, raising funds and recruiting 'delegates' to go into the field.

Most of the delegates were men, many ordained ministers (mainline Protestant Christians), but there were a number of women delegates as well.

Specific Vermont members:

Fisk, Perrin Batchelder

Pierce, Leroy Matthew

Dascomb, Alfred Brooks

Dyer, Douglass Henry

Holdridge, Ancil

Parker, Charles Carroll

Parker, Charles Carroll

Perry, John Bulkley

Inscription in a Testament provided by the Christian Commission by Captain Charles B. Chapin, 1st Vt. Cavalry.

Smith, Rev. Edward P., Nashville, ministering to a dying Vermont soldier.

Other references:

While in winter quarters, at Brandy Station, Virginia, the Christian Commission kindly furnished the covering for a large chapel tent, which was erected by volunteer workmen and details from the regiment. - Haynes, history of 10th vt., p. 163, 1870 edition.

There were the usual officers, and committees for soliciting contriburtions of cloth, clothing, money, and other necessaries, for making purchases, etc. The disbursement were to be either "for our own state or general hospitals directly or through the organization known as the Christian Commission." - Mary Evelyn wood Lovejoy, History of Royalton, Vermont, (Free Press Printing Co., Burlington, 1911) p. 444.

Vermonters are mentioned in the Third Report of the United States Christian Commission Committe of Maryland

L.L. Wood, Esq., of Vermont, Rev. Stevens, of Vermont and others, labored at Sandy Hook, as Delegates to the Christian Commission in August and September, 1864.

The Annals of the USCC, by Lemuel Moss mentions former Governor Fairbanks as joining the commission on 22 July 1864.

Vermonters from Burlington and Montpelier mentioned in the First Annual Report of the Commission in 1863.

Lydia E. White, of Newbury, wrote a pamphlet The Record of a Day, published under the auspices of the Christian Commission; about 1/2 million copies were printed!

Record of the Federal Dead: Buried from Libby, Bell Isle, Danville & Camp Lawton Prisons, and at City Point, and in the Field Before Petersburg and Richmond. Vermont soldiers are mentioned on pages 65=66, 69-73, 84, 88, 97, 107, 149, 156, and 163.