Memoirs of Chaplain Life ― Three Years With the Irish Brigade in the Army of the Potomac

On October 29, 1910, a bronze statue of William Corby, c.s.c., was dedicated on the battlefield at Gettysburg, the only one ever placed on that celebrated field to memorialize a chaplain. It commemorates the moment, fifty years earlier, when, in the din of battle, Corby granted general absolution to the soldiers of the Irish Brigade before they rushed to meet the enemy.
But Memoirs of a Chaplain Life is not primarily an account of battles and skirmishes, nor is it merely a religious tract. It is a very human account of what it was like to be in an army in the Civil War. One cannot fail to come away from this book with a more vivid picture of Civil War armies and a much deeper appreciation of the services of the Catholic chaplains who served them.
Humor and hope provide some leavening for the fearful scenes Corby recounts. Few have written with more good cheer about the problems of wood ticks, saddle soreness, or petty theft in the army. And Corby describes the boisterous fun of the St. Patrick's Day celebrations in the Irish brigade. Most important to Father Corby, however, was his ministering to the bodies and souls of men who frequently faced the prospects of their own deaths with an immediacy seldom experienced by men in civilian life. In his own unpretentious way, Corby narrates not only his own story, but also the stories of several fellow chaplains who served with other Catholic regiments in the Union army. The memoirs reveal the important role that these chaplains played in the war. Corby's own faith emanates from his pages and makes more bearable some of the tragic events - such as his attempt to console a young soldier about to be executed for desertion - that his narrative describes.

Lawrence Frederick Kohl is Associate Professor of History at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, and series editor of the Irish in the Civil War.