Twice Captured and Stripped: Father Stephan's Bad Day Among the Confederate Cavalry

While perusing issues of the Journal & Courier from Lafayette, Indiana recently, I came across this fascinating little story of a chaplain’s experience during the Battle of Stones River. It took a bit of digging to find out that the central character of this story was none other than Father Joseph Andrew Stephan, who at the time of the battle was leading St. Boniface Church in Lafayette.

“The adventures of our worthy friend Father Stephan in the recent battle of Murfreesboro furnish an interesting chapter in the history of the great fight,” the Journal & Courier reported in their January 20, 1863, issue. “On Wednesday morning, in company with two other gentlemen, he started out on a mission of mercy and unconsciously got into the Rebel lines and was made a prisoner. He was taken to the headquarters of the Rebel General [Joseph] Wheeler when, after stating his vocation, he was released and furnished with a mule to regain our lines.”

“While pursuing his way union-ward, the mule landed him gently into a middle puddle and upon examination he found that a cannonball from one of our batteries had deprived the quadruped of two of his pedestals,” the paper continued. “While deploring this accident, a party of concealed Rebels again made a prisoner of him by whom he was treated shamefully. They stripped him almost to a state of nudity, beat and kicked him most unmercifully, at the same time relieving him of everything in the way of valuables.”

Father Joseph Andrew Stephan of St. Boniface Parish in Lafayette, Indiana, shown here much later in life, was "very indignant" at the treatment he received from Confederate cavalrymen during the Battle of Stones River when the Hoosier priest was captured twice upon the battlefield. Rather than just live with the indignity, he threw his shoulder to the wheel and joined the army in May 1863. 

“Our troops coming in sight, the Rebels, forcing the worthy chaplain to accompany them, beat a retreat,” the story continued. “But upon Father Stephan giving out from sheer exhaustion, they mounted him upon a modern Rosinante without saddle or bridle and in this manner reached the Rebel lines. He was eventually released and his entrée into Nashville, minus several important articles of wearing apparel, is described as anything but agreeable. He was very indignant at the treatment he received which, however, is on par with their previous actions.”

A few days later, no less a personage that General William S. Rosecrans telegraphed the Bishop of the Diocese of Cincinnati asking that Father Stephan might be allowed to return to the army. “Father Stephan is not only an invaluable aid in the hospital but is a first-class civil engineer,” the Journal & Courier reported. “He was attached in this capacity to the staff of one of the revolutionary generals in Baden in 1848 and won some distinction.”

Joseph Andrew Stephan’s roots stretched back to the Gissingheim in the Duchy of Baden-Wurttemberg where he was born November 22, 1822, to Greek and Irish parents. Educated at Freiburg and Karlsruhe, he became an instructor in civil engineering at one of the universities but became seriously ill and emigrated to the United States after the failed revolution where completed his theological studies in Cincinnati. By the outbreak of the Civil War, he was leading St. Boniface Parish in Lafayette. An early supporter of the war effort, Father Stephan lent his influence and gave his support by both making speeches and encouraging enlistments, but also by visiting his parishioners in the field. That’s how he came to his misadventures at Stones River.

          Perhaps still “indignant” at his recent treatment by the Confederate cavalry and flattered by Rosecrans’ request (Rosey’s brother was also a Catholic priest in the Diocese of Cincinnati), Father Stephans was commissioned as a hospital chaplain on May 18, 1863, and served until the end of the war, mustering out July 15, 1865. His obituary stated that “during the Civil War, Monsignor Stephan served as chaplain with the forces of General Sheridan,” a fellow Catholic.

“He was one of the promoters of Catholic missionary work among the Indians and in 1884 was appointed Director of the Indian Mission by Cardinal Gibbons,” the obituary continued. “He was eminently successful in this work as is attested by the fact that during this period he secured for the maintenance and support of the mission between $4-5 million from the government and private sources. He was greatly loved by the Indians and his death will be mourned by them.” Monsignor Stephan passed away of pneumonia September 12, 1901, in Washington, D.C. at the age of 79. He is buried at the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament Cemetery in Bensalem, Pennsylvania.

 Sources:

“Father Stephans,” Lafayette Journal & Courier (Indiana), January 20, 1863, pg. 3

“Father Stephens,” Lafayette Journal & Courier (Indiana), January 24, 1863, pg. 3

“Funeral of Mgr. Stephan,” Washington Post (District of Columbia), September 16, 1901, pg. 8

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