DOC The Gospel of Buddha by Paul Carus in History

Description

In the summer of 1862; as Union morale ebbed low with home front division over war costs; coming emancipation; and demoralizing battlefield losses; 24-year-old William White Dorr enlisted as a lieu- tenant in the 121st Pennsylvania Volunteers; a new Union regiment organizing in Philadelphia. His father; the Reverend Benjamin Dorr; rector of Christ Church; Philadelphia; strived to prevent divisions in his congregation from sundering that Episcopal church historically tied to the nation s founding.William F. Quigley Jr. presents a narrative that remarkably encapsulates much of the North s experience of the war. Reverend Benjamin Dorr was one of the most important clergymen of the era; who strived to hold his warring parishioners intact. His efforts paralleled Lincoln s far greater but comparable challenge to preserve the Union. The Nation s Church was torn apart from within between a faction of Pennsylvania s leading anti-emancipation Democrats and a faction of the city s and state s leading Republicans. Like Lincoln; Dorr invoked a temperate faith apart from the civil religion with which most Americans crusaded against each other. Dorr prayed that war might be avoided. But; when war came; he stood faithfully in support of the Union and of the war as Lincoln waged it; emancipation included; even unto the most grievous of losses.William White Dorr was a young officer in a storied Union infantry regiment whose brave stand at Gettysburg was pivotal in the Union s preservation. Ten months later; wearing the second bar of an army captain; the rector s son would lead his company once more into the Wilderness; one of the most brutal and bloody campaigns of the war.By war s end; many Philadelphians came to praise the spirit of charity and forgiveness exemplified by Reverend Dorr. He was their shepherd through that political; constitutional; economic; and religious crisis; and to honor his memory they erected stone monuments in The Nation s Church to him and to Captain Dorr; A Christian and a Patriot; Faithful unto death. Clearly and engagingly written; Pure Heart is unique in its narrative synthesis of home front political divisions and frontline infantry experiences. The emotional heart of the story lies in Reverend Dorr s relationship with his soldier son; poignantly revealed in a recently discovered collection of his son s wartime letters.