| dc.description.abstract | For most of American military history, military chaplains, or institutional support for them within the professional military establishment, was often an after-thought. Politicians and senior Army officials often only provided for chaplains on an ad hoc basis. Few military chaplains enjoyed permanent billets within the Army, and when war broke out, individual units were often left scrambling to recruit the local town priest, if they thought to take on a chaplain at all. However, the Spanish American War and Philippine War drew Protestant congregations’ attention to the lack of, and dire need for, Army chaplains to provide spiritual care for American soldiers. This paper explores the relationship between the War Department, the United States Army, and the American Protestant Churches’ Federal Council. It argues that the ultimate establishment of the modern U.S. Army Chaplain Corps came only through civil-military cooperation between these key stakeholders. This paper shows that interest in providing spiritual care for troops grew tremendously during the Preparedness Movement due to part-time military chaplains with firsthand experience of institutional shortcomings who petitioned home churches and the War Department for more support. Building on these petitions, the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America then unilaterally worked to provide the American Expeditionary Force with sufficient numbers of high-quality chaplains, whilst simultaneously lobbying the U.S. government to ensure they received proper training to minister troops across the battlefields of France. This massive undertaking on the home front, this paper argues, resulted in the creation of the modern-day U.S. Army Chaplain Corps, a permanent administrative unit within the U.S military, signaling the end of the ad hoc provision of chaplains only in times of war. | |
