Nearing the Shores of Eternity: A Chaplain Among the Dying of Antietam

In the days after Antietam, Chaplain William W. Lyle of the 11th Ohio Infantry worked among the field hospitals attending to the spiritual needs of the dying. The experience proved one of the most heart-rending of his wartime service.

“As I looked upon the hundreds of killed and wounded, I thought of the distant homes of these men and how the sunlight of hope and joy would be quenched in grief,” Lyle later wrote. “Mother and wife and sister would clasp their hands in speechless agony, and how fathers would bow their heads and weep as only strong men weep when the names of loved ones were announced as among the killed, wounded, or missing. Not alone on the battlefield was there agony that day. Who could refrain from breathing a prayer that the Angel of the Covenant might visit every weeping household and comfort every stricken heart?”

          Chaplain Lyle was particularly struck by the deaths of two young soldiers, one who seemed prepared to meet his fate and a second who refused to believe the shores of eternity lay so near. Both passages come from Chaplain Lyle’s 1865 book Lights and Shadows of Army Life.

 

In the aftermath of a battle, chaplains moved into the field equipped with little more than a Bible and two willing hands to assist the wounded and dying. Working closely the army's medical detachment, a chaplain's duties were both heart-rending yet intimate. As Chaplain Lyle describes in his book, he focused his efforts on the immediate: bringing soldiers water, food, and bandages while offering spiritual solace in their final moments. Before the war, Chaplain Lyle led the Franklin Street Presbyterian Church in Troy, Ohio and went out with the 11th Ohio in January 1862, serving two years with his regiment. 

          In one of the temporary hospitals there was a wounded man to whose attention I was directed by one of the attendants who informed me that he seemed to be dying. Approaching where he lay, I asked whether he wished anything done for him. At first, he could not answer me and it was evident that he was near his last. The perspiration stood in large drops on his pale, massive forehead, his breathing was short and difficult, and his sufferings were very great. At last, he was able to speak, although but in whispers and at intervals.

          “Chaplain, I’m in great pain!”

          “I see you are in great pain,” I replied. “I wish it were in my power to help you. There is one, however, who can always help in the hour of trouble and who is ready now to help you. How do you feel? Do you think you will get well?”

          “Yes, I think I will.”

          “Would you be displeased if I should tell you that you can live but a short time?”

          “No,” he said. “If I die, I feel I am ready. Jesus is my Savor. I would rather have been at home, however, for I want to see mother before I die.”

          Towards midnight, his sufferings increased and he sent for me, as he said, to speak to him again of Christ. “I want you to tell me of Jesus,” he asked. “I can’t speak much, but I can hear. Tell me of Jesus.”

          In the midst of low moanings and sharp, short screams, I bent over him and repeated parts of the 14th chapter of John’s Gospel and the 23rd Psalm. Beside that lowly pallet, in the midst of suffering and death, the Lord was found to be “as a little sanctuary.” The gloomy scene was irradiated with the sunlight of Christian hope and joy. For the time being, the horrid scenes of war and tumult were forgotten amid the peaceful triumphs of Christian faith.

          It was noticed that he had a hair bracelet on his left wrist and that he was holding something in his hand, attached to which was a small cord which passed around his neck. As he seemed to be anxious about this, I asked him what it was. With great effort, he raised his hand to his face and looked at something with a long, yearning look. It was a small gold locket. Closing it tightly in his hand, he whispered, “This bracelet is a lock of my lady love’s hair.”

          “Would you want it and the locket taken off and sent home?”

          “No, I want to be buried with them. I wish you to see that this bracelet is not taken off my arm.”

          This was the last request he made.

          I watched him as he neared the shores of eternity and it seemed as if his joys were momentarily increased. “I’m going home to heaven,” were the last words I could hear and, in a few minutes, he peacefully fell asleep in Jesus.

Before the 11th Ohio went into action at Chickamauga on September 19, 1863, Chaplain Lyle led the regiment in prayer. "It is but little I can do for you in the hour of battle, but there is one thing I will do," he said. "I will pray for you. And if this is the last time I shall ever speak to you, or these are the last words of Christian comfort you will ever hear, I want to tell you, dear comrades, that God loves you. I pray God to cover your heads today in the battle storm and that he may give you brave hearts and strong hands. And if any of you feel uncertain as to your future, look to the Savior who died for you and if any of you fall this day in battle, may you not only die as brave soldiers for your country, but die as soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ!" It was an impressive scene made equally poignant when division commander General Joseph Reynolds uttered a hearty 'amen' with the rest of the troops. This story will be the subject of a future post.

 In Chaplain Lyle’s experience, not all soldiers were so well-prepared to meet the end as he describes in the following passage:

 

While dressing the wounds of Captain Weller, a brave and efficient officer who was wounded at the stone bridge, an incident occurred which, although by no means uncommon, will help give an idea of the circumstances in which a minister in the army has often to try and preach Christ.

          Two men staggered into the crowded house with a stretcher on which was a wounded man. Laying him on the floor gently and adjusting a handful of straw under his head, one of them turned to me and asked if I would attend to his wounded comrade as quickly as possible. I immediately went to him and found that a musket ball had penetrated his stomach and bowels. Indeed, he was in a dying condition.

He told me that he had been lying two days and two nights in a cornfield before he was found and that he suffered greatly from hunger and thirst. He said he the wound did not pain him and that if it was dressed and he had something to eat, he would be better. Taking his hand into mine and speaking to him as soothingly as possible, I told him he was very near eternity and that he had but a short time to prepare to meet his God.

He would not believe it and insisted that he felt better and was sure he would not die. I plead with him to think of his position as a dying man and pressed upon his attention the solemnity of death and judgment. But it seems unavailing. In 20 minutes, he breathed his last. As I looked upon his lifeless body, I think of the long, lonely hours of suffering he passed in the cornfield and wonder whether he tried to lift up his heart to God, and whether he had found pardon. And the answer is only a doubt. How many souls, unwashed in the fountain of redeeming mercy, unprepared to meet God, are being ushered into eternity? And I turned away with saddened feelings.

Source:

Lyle, William W. Lights and Shadows of Army Life, or Pen Pictures from the Battlefield, the Camp, and the Hospital. Cincinnati: R.W. Carroll & Co., 1865, pgs. 169-173

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