U.S. Christian Commission - Army of the Cumberland

04/14/2026

The USCC coffee wagon in action this past weekend at Appomattox National Historical Park.

04/22/2025

07/11/2024

Reverend Nathan Brackett served in the U.S. Christian Commission during Sheridan's Shenandoah Valley Campaign. Following the war, Brackett would establish an all African American college in Harpers Ferry, called Storer College. Brackett would have an interesting encounter following the Battle of Cedar Creek in 1864, here is how he described this event:

“It was the second day after the battle of Cedar Creek. I happened to be wandering on the battlefield. A groan from nearby arrested my attention, and turning I saw in a secluded spot a moving form. I hastened up and saw a wounded soldier in the suit of a rebel captain. He was just on the point of dying but was able to sob feebly for help. It mattered not what was the color of his suit. Of course I wanted to save his life. I found he had been severely injured by a bullet shot in the thigh and it seems that in the hurry of removing the dead and wounded he had been overlooked. I doubted much whether he was within human aid but I speedily got water for his dried lips and tenderly carried him home. With the help of another I dressed his wound and he at once was better. Soon I found out that he was the son of a woman who lived in Wi******er and I took him home. For months I had not seen or heard of my rebel captain but I supposed he lived. In the following year I was sent to Charles Town West Virginia, to raise a mission school for the colored. The feeling was bitter and the southerners opposed strongly every move whose tendency was to enlighten the negroes. I was deemed a foe and citizens of the town threatened to shoot me if I proceeded to organize a school there. One day things reached a climax and I doubted whether my life was safe. Suddenly there appeared on the streets a man whom I recognized as the rebel captain I saved. He was a strong, powerful man with arms at his side and in determined he announced to all the inhabitants of the town that whoever harmed a hair on my head had him to fight, ‘for,’ said he, ‘that man saved my life at the battle of Cedar Creek.’ The warning was heeded and I was unharmed. I have no doubt that he saved my life."

Image: Nathan Brackett via Harpers Ferry NHP

07/11/2024

While traveling with Sheridan's Army in the U.S. Christian Commission, Rev. Nathan Cook Brackett helped both soldiers and freed slaves. Brackett noticed that most of the freed slaves did not know how to read or write, and he soon set out to create primary schools to educate former slaves. By 1867 Brackett supervised 16 teachers and schools for 2,500 students in the Shenandoah Valley. One of these schools in Harpers Ferry would develop into Storer College, one of the first African American colleges in the south.

Image: Rev. Nathan Brackett via Harpers Ferry NHP

08/06/2023

A LETTER FROM FREDERICKSBURG, 1864.—It may be fairly stated that paper trails left behind by people pictured in old photos varies greatly. In some cases, reams of information are available in the form of letters, journals, books, newspapers and other documents. In others, only a few scattered documents remain.

The man pictured here falls into the last-named category. He is James A. Martin of Brooklyn, N.Y., according to an ink inscription on the back of the image. A pencil inscription below his signature, also period, notes he is "Agent of Christian Com." This is the United States Christian Commission (USCC), formed in 1861 and composed of about 5,000 volunteers. These individuals provided supplies and religious support working in conjunction with the U.S. Sanitary Commission. The USCC operated at its peak in 1864 and 1865.

A tax stamp on the back of Martin's portrait indicates the photo was produced between August 1864 and August 1866. Also of interest is Martin's straw hat with a pinked ribbon, cloth haversack with leather trimmings and buckles, and a comfortable coat with a generous pocket. It is easy to imagine he wore this during his time as a USCC agent.

Scant references indicate a longtime connection to the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in New York City and Brooklyn. The national leadership of the YMCA met in New York City following the loss at the Battle of Bull Run and formed the U.S. Christian Commission. Martin is listed as a volunteer, or "delegate" in 1864, mentioned in connection with the USCC in Brownsville in 1865, and, in 1880, with the YMCA in Honolulu, Hawaii. I lost his trail at this point.

The most substantial piece of information is a letter he wrote to a Mr. H.E. Mathews dated Fredericksburg, Va., May 18, 1864. At this place and time, massive waves of Union casualties from the Overland Campaign rolled into the city for treatment and transport to military hospitals in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. The letter was published in the May 25, 1864, edition of the "Brooklyn Union" and is worthy of sharing in full:

Fredericksburg, Va., May 8, 1864

I have been very actively engaged since I have been here attending to the sick and wounded. Last evening I should think there must have been six hundred arrived here who had to be attended to. I worked until 12 1/4 o'clock last night. I have to live on soldiers' fare, and have to sleep on the floor, as accommodations cannot be got for us. I sleep with about eight or ten others in the garret of the Commission building. This is a great work, and I am willing to wear myself out in so good a cause. I feel that I am doing good. The men whom I have in charge, I can assure you, appreciate the kindness shown them, and they say to me quite often, "You treat us the same as though we were your brothers." I tell them in every way that I can, and it is a great privilege to aid them.

We are quartered in the house of a rebel physician who is in the rebel army. I arrived here last Sunday. I walked here from Belle Plain, which is the place where the Government takes the wounded to be sent to Washington, from which place it is forty-five miles. Fredericksburg is twelve miles from Belle Plain and the road is infested with guerrillas. Two gents who started the day before us were gobbled up by them, it is thought, as they have not been heard from since. A party of forty of us came together. The whole country is a complete waste. The inhabitants seem to have deserted this place. The churches are all more or less "holy" from cannon balls, and you can hardly find a house that has not a hole in it.

One of our men last night saw a man who was lying wounded in one of the hospitals, with a son also wounded, and another son dead by his side, and yet he said he felt that he had not given too much for his country. I saw a rebel boy who seemed about sixteen years of age, who had had his leg amputated—a beautiful boy. I think he is now dead.

I saw 9,500 rebels at Belle Plain.

The soldiers were passing through here nearly all day yesterday. It is thought there could not have been less than thirty-five of forty thousand, who came from the fortifications around Washington. Twenty-six batteries of eight guns each were ordered to the front day before yesterday. Another battle is supposed to be progressing to-day.

Carte de visite by an unidentified photographer. Ronald S. Coddington

Watch the most recent episode of Research Rabbit Hole for more about this photograph: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuG_FT5sNzQqTN-R2G5EiZQ
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08/06/2023

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the 151st anniversary of the Battle of Murfreesboro or Stones River...by the end of Januray 3rd, there would be nearly 25,000 casualties and both armies would be locked in combat that became known as the Tullahoma Campaign, then Chattanooga/Chickamauga, and culminating the fall of Atlanta.

One of my favorite stories from Murfreesboro is not about the battle itself, but the aftermath. Then little known United States Christian Commission Volunteer/Delegate Dwight L. Moody (later a world renown evangelist and father of Moody Bible Institute and Moody Radio Network) was volunteering his services with the Army of the Cumberland and was heavily involved in minstering to and caring for the wounded during and after the battle. Accounts from the battle state that Moody was moving among the wounded while "under fire". The following account comes from Moody about a soldier he spoke with following the battle: " After the battle of Murfreesboro' I was in a hospital at Murfreesboro'. And one night after midnight, I was woke up and told that there was a man in one of the wards who wanted to see me. I went to him and he called me "chaplain"—I wasn't a chaplain—and he said he wanted me to help him die. And I said, "I'd take you right up in my arms and carry you into the kingdom of God if I could; but I can't do it; I can't help you to die." And he said, "Who can?" I said: "The Lord Jesus Christ can—He came for that purpose." He shook his head and said, "He can't save me; I have sinned all my life." And I said, "But He came to save sinners." I thought of his mother in the North, and I knew that she was anxious that he should die right, and I thought I'd stay with him. I prayed two or three times, and repeated all the promises I could, and I knew that in a few hours he would be gone. I said I wanted to read him a conversation that Christ had with a man who was anxious about his soul. I turned to the third chapter of John. His eyes were riveted on me, and when I came to the 14th and 15th verses, he caught up the words, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life." He stopped me and said, "Is that there?" I said "Yes," and he asked me to read it again, and I did so. He leaned his elbows on the cot and clasped his hands together and said, "That's good; won't you read it again." I read it the third time, and then went on with the rest of the chapter. When I finished, his eyes were closed, his hands were folded, and there was a smile on his face. Oh! how it was lit up.! What a change had come over it! I saw his lips quivering, and I leaned over him and heard, in a faint whisper, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life." He opened his eyes and said, "That's enough; don't read any more." He lingered a few hours and then pillowed his head on those two verses, and then went up in one of Christ's chariots and took his seat in the Kingdom of God.

03/16/2022

March 16. Doing the Father's Will

"My food is to do the will of him who sent me." John 4:34

Thus Jesus explained to His disciples how He had been nourished during their absence. He had been laboring in His Father's work, and this labor had revived Him. There is for all of Christ's people a wonderful secret of hidden blessedness in these words. There is a life higher than mere bodily existence. As our Lord elsewhere said, "Man shall not live by bread alone — but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." It is only the lower physical life that can be nourished by bread, and this may be well fed while the true life is famishing: the higher existence is sustained by communion with God, and this communion is maintained by doing God's will.

Obedience secures the Divine presence and companionship. It was this communion with the Father that sustained Christ in all His sufferings. At one time He said, "He who sent me is with me: the Father has not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him." The simple joy of doing the Father's will was another element in the "food" on which Christ here fed. There was also the joy of saving a lost soul. We do not begin to realize the joy that it gives Christ, to see penitents coming home. It was this same "food" that sustained Him in all the sorrows of the cross, "who for the joy set before him — endured the cross, despising the shame."

These are but a few of the many deep and rich suggestions of truth which lie in this one divine sentence. We should learn the lesson for ourselves, for it is true for us as it was for Jesus — that doing the will of God nourishes our souls. Complete and loving submission to the Divine will in time of suffering, lifts the spirit above its pain. Entire devotion to God's work, brings a Christian into such living communion with his Lord that he even rejoices in toil and sacrifice. To do God's will brings us into living communion with Him — and that is life indeed.

03/15/2022

March 15. Bread from Heaven

"I have food to eat that you know nothing about." John 4:32

The disciples had left Jesus hungry, when they went away to buy bread; they came back to find His hunger departed, and in these words we have the reason He gave for it. He was intently engaged in His Father's work, doing His will — and in this He found perfect satisfaction. He had found spiritual refreshment — and His bodily weariness and hunger had vanished. His joy in saving a poor lost soul was so great that it made Him forget His hunger. But the joy was not the only food which Christ had; while doing His Father's work special divine grace was imparted to Him from Heaven, which nourished and strengthened Him. He literally fed on bread from heaven — spiritual bread.

We have other examples of the same. When He had gone through His sore temptation and was "hungry," we are told that angels came and ministered unto Him. In Gethsemane also, after His bitter agony, we read that an angel appeared from Heaven strengthening Him. May we not suppose that always when He had any special service, costing Him an outlay of strength, spiritual refreshment was imparted to Him in some secret way by His Father?

Certainly we have the promise of this in our lives. When Paul asked that his trouble, His "thorn in the flesh," might be removed, the answer was," No: my grace is sufficient for you; for my strength is made perfect in weakness." When we are united to Christ, our weakness is united to His strength, our emptiness is united to His fullness, for all our need — there flows to us from Him a supply adequate to our want.

We see constant illustrations of this in our homes, where frail ones called to nurse the sick are sustained in a wonderful way through long, wearisome days and sleepless nights of vigil, as if nourished with supernatural food. They have food to eat that others know not of. There flows strength for their need, from Christ's fullness

03/14/2022

March 14. True Worship

"God is a Spirit: and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." John 4:24

God loves to be worshiped — to have the praise, the adoration, and the homage of His children. In the olden days, burning incense was the symbol of worship; its fragrance rose up toward Heaven, and God smelled a sweet savor. What the fragrance of flowers coming up from dew-anointed fields and gardens is to us — the breath of true worship as it ascends from earth's believing hearts is to God. God is well pleased with it. He is not satisfied with bare, cold obedience. What parent would be content with mere dutifulness, such as a slave might render to a master — without affection, confidence, regard? God cannot be pleased with the most scrupulous external obedience if there is no heart in it. We must obey Him — because we love Him.

This word tells us also how we may worship God, if our worship is to be acceptable. It must be spiritual worship which we render Him. Stately forms please Him not in themselves. The music of splendid choirs and the repeating of creeds and prayers, do not make worship. Worship is heart-adoration, and the only true homage that rises from an assembly or from a private closet where one bows alone — is just the love and praise and prayer and devotion of hearts ascending in the words of human lips. No mere forms of worship are acceptable; the form must be breathed full of love and life. No offerings or gifts avail in worship — unless they are the expression of holy affections.

The teaching is not that we are not to use forms of worship; we cannot worship well without forms. The most basic ritual and the simplest ceremony will be pleasing to God — if heart's love fill them. But the most magnificent ritual will be empty of real worship, and will be an abomination to God — if there is no true worship of the spirit in it. All depends upon what we put into the forms.

03/13/2022

March 13. A Living Spring

"But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again — ever! In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up within him for eternal life!" John 4:14

The soul was made for God, and when it returns to God — it finds peace and satisfaction. It is not meant, of course, that the Christian has no more natural desires; for longing is the very condition of more blessedness. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled." If there is no thirst — there really is no life.

The dove that flew away from the ark went on weary wing everywhere — but found only a wide waste of desolate waters, with no place to alight. Then she flew back to the ark, and was gently drawn inside, where she found warmth, safety, and rest.

The story of the dove illustrates the history of the soul that wanders everywhere seeking rest, at last returning to God. How much better if men believed this truth of universal experience — and went at once to God! An immortal soul, from its very nature, cannot find what it needs anywhere, except in God Himself.

This word of Christ tells us also what true religion is. It begins in the heart. It is not something external — a mere set of rules or laws to be obeyed, a guide to be followed, an example to be copied. It is new spiritual life in the soul. It is Christ Himself coming into the heart and dwelling there. It is a fountain of life, not a mere cistern — but a living spring open and ever flowing. It is fed from Heaven, and no matter then how dry this world may be — this living fountain in the heart shall never be exhausted, for its connection is with the river of life, which flows out from under God's throne.

Wherever we go — we have our religion with us, in us — if we are true Christians. We are not dependent upon circumstances. Trouble does not destroy a Christian, because the fountain of his joy is within. This new fountain of life when opened in the soul — is the beginning of eternal life!

03/12/2022

March 12. Earthly Joys

"Whoever drinks of this water — shall thirst again!" John 4:13

That is just as true of all of earth's springs of joy — as it was of Jacob's well. Men and women drink of them today — and find a measure of satisfaction for a little while — but soon they are thirsty as ever again!

The human soul cannot be satisfied with any of earth's good things. This is not the fault of the things of earth; they are good and beautiful in their way and in their place. But the soul is spiritual and immortal, and cannot be filled with any good which is not also spiritual and immortal.

Money and fame and power, can never be food for a soul made in the divine image; nothing less than God Himself can answer its cravings.

We could not make the angels happy — by giving them gold and diamonds, and building them fine marble palaces to live in, and putting crowns and fine clothes on them. No more can we satisfy our own souls with such things! Men try to do so — but their thirst is only momentarily quenched, and soon they must drink again! Gratification only intensifies desire!

There is said to be a strange plant in South America which finds a moist place and sends its roots down. It then becomes green for a little while, until the place becomes dry — when it draws itself out and rolls itself up and is blown along by the wind until it comes to another moist place, where it repeats the same process. On and on the plant goes, stopping wherever it finds a little water — until the spot is dry. Then, in the end, after all its wanderings — it is nothing but a bundle of dry roots and leaves!

It is just the same with those who drink only of this world's springs. They drink — and then thirst again. They thus go on from spring to spring, blown by the winds of passion and desire, and at last their souls are nothing but bundles of unsatisfied desires and burning thirsts! We must find something better than this — or perish forever! "Whoever drinks of this water — shall thirst again!" John 4:13

03/10/2022

March 11.

"As for the other events of Solomon's reign—all he did . . . are they not written in the book of the annals of Solomon?" 1 Kings 11:41

They are all written! They are not all written in the Bible—but they all went down in the chronicles of the kings. Nor was that all. When their ancient paper was used, the impression of the writing goes through and is traced on underlying sheets.

Just so, our life makes its records in the chronicles of the times; but the writing also goes through, and every line and word goes down on pages invisible to our eyes the pages of God's book. We read in the Bible, that the books will be opened for final judgment; and Solomon himself tells us that "God shall bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."

Solomon is gone, and his record cannot now be changed; but we are concerned with our own lives. The young have the chief portion of their life yet before them. It is important that they remember that all their acts are written; that things which are hidden from the eyes of the world—are yet written down on the Book within the veil; and that some day—all secret things shall be manifested, brought fully to the light, before all the universe. It is important, therefore, that they do, along the common days, only the things which they will be glad to see revealed when all secret things shall be uncovered. When the day of judgment comes, we shall be asked how holy were our lives—and not how fine our words!