Old Hickory and Our Lady of Prompt Succor

Mosaic of the three times Our Lady of Prompt Succor saved New Orleans. General Jackson
and his men may be seen in the bottom right. I took this photo of the mosaic at the
Ursuline Convent in New Orleans in 2019. 

Andrew Jackson was a study in contrasts. By most accounts, he was hot tempered and had a tendency to violence. In his youth, he engaged in most of the vices common to young men of that time: drinking, carousing, and engaging in every form of gambling known to man. He apparently had a passion for cock-fighting. He got into brawls without number and fought duels, killing at least one man—though admittedly, that man had shot him first, hitting Jackson square in the chest. The bullet lodged too close to his heart to be extracted, and Jackson would carry it inside him for the rest of his life.

Jackson was a slave owner and an Indian fighter. He is perhaps most infamous today for his policy while president of removing tribes from the eastern states to Indian Territory in the present-day state of Oklahoma. This policy's most noteworthy and awful result was the removal of the Cherokee from Georgia along the Trail of Tears. At the same time, Jackson was compassionate, taking in an orphaned Creek boy named Lyncoya after the Battle of Tallushatchee in 1813. He would adopt Lyncoya as his son, and later took in two other Creek orphans, Theodore and Charley.   

If you read about Jackson in any of the earlier biographies, you get a sense that Old Hickory's contemporaries—whether friend or foe—struggled to pigeon-hole the man. Later in his life, Jackson apparently became quite religious, even helping to found Hermitage Presbyterian Church on land donated from his estate in Nashville, Tennessee. Indeed, even in Jackson's dissipated youth, it seemed that there was a latent tendency toward Christian piety to be found buried deep within him. Biographers struggled to reconcile these conflicting tendencies, resulting in awkward passages like this one from Cyrus Townsend Brady:

General Jackson was a thoroughly religious man during the greater part of his life…Now, when I say he was a religious man I do not mean that his religion was at first of the active, personal sort. On the contrary, it was originally intermixed with worldliness to an excessive degree. [The True Andrew Jackson (1906), p. 366]

Writing in 1888, another biographer, James Parton, recorded the following anecdote that exemplifies Jackson’s internal paradox in a concrete way:

After his wife had joined the [Presbyterian] church, the general, in deference to her wishes, was accustomed to ask a blessing before meals. The company had sat down at the table one day, when the general was telling a warlike story with great animation, interlarding the discourse, as was then his custom, with a profusion of expletives most heterodox and profane. In the full tide of this narration, the lady of the house interrupted her lord, “Mr Jackson, will you ask a blessing?” Mr. Jackson stopped short in the midst of one of his most soldier-like sentences, performed the duty required of him, and then instantly resumed his narrative in the same tone and language as before. [Life of Andrew Jackson, Volume 2 (1888), p. 655]

Many of us have known men similar to this. They are often individuals who have lived a harsh early life (Jackson was orphaned at 14) and find it nearly impossible to make that final conversion of heart to Christ, crying out with the young Augustine of Hippo, "Lord make me pure—but not yet!" 

I, for one, think Jackson's religious tendencies were sincere, even if he often consciously chose the course of worldliness and sin. Let's look at an incident during the Battle of New Orleans as an example. 

In January of 1815, at the age of 47, Jackson was placed in command of a rag-tag collection of regular army units, local militia, a squad of gunners from Jean Lafitte's crew of privateers, and even a detachment of Choctaws. Jackson's force numbered about 5,000 all told. 

These men were meant to defend New Orleans against an army of 10,000 British regulars under the command of General Edward Pakenham. Many of these men were veterans of the Napoleonic War in Europe and both officers and men had every expectation that they would brush aside Jackson's disorderly mob with little effort and capture New Orleans. 

Gambler that he was, Jackson must have known that the odds of survival were long, and the odds of victory even longer still. As Pakenham's redcoats advanced, Jackson came face-to-face with that old adage: there are no atheists in foxholes. Some accounts of activities prior to the battle include mention of Jackson visiting Abbe William DuBourg to request public prayers for the success of American arms. 

In New Orleans, that city of contrasts nearly as striking as those affecting Jackson, the 18,000 inhabitants were in a state of near panic. The mood at the Ursuline Convent, however, was markedly different. Writing in The Story of the Battle of New Orleans (1915) Stanley Clisby Arthur offers the following account of what went on among the nuns on that fateful eve of battle:

From the windows of the Convent, the Ursulines could see the smoke rising from the battle-field on the plains of Chalmette. The night of January 7th had been spent in prayer before their Blessed Sacrament. Everything seemed hopeless for the Americans; and Jackson himself had sworn that, should he be vanquished, the enemy would find New Orleans a heap of ruins.

The wooden statue of Our Lady of
Prompt Succor that was placed on the
altar during the Battle of New Orleans 

In order to assist in averting this imminent peril — for all was in consternation on the morning of January 8th — the Chapel was continually thronged with pious ladies and poor negresses, all weeping and praying at the foot of the statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor, which had been placed on the main altar; and the Community, through the Superioress, Mother Ste Marie (in the world, Marie Francoise Victoire Olivier de Vezin), made a vow to have a solemn Mass of thanksgiving sung every year, should the Americans gain the victory.

That morning, January 8, 1815, Very Reverend William DuBourg, the Vicar Apostolic (afterwards Bishop of New Orleans), offered up the holy sacrifice of the Mass before the statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor.

At the moment of communion, a courier entered the chapel to announce the glad tidings of the enemy’s defeat.

After Mass, the Abbe DuBourg entoned Te Deum, which was taken up and sung with accents of such lively gratitude that it seemed as though the very vaults of the chapel would open to allow this touching thanksgiving to ascend more freely to the throne of God. [The Battle of New Orleans (1915), p. 239). 

It is said that the battle itself was over within half-an-hour. The badly mauled British were forced to retreat and Jackson's riff-raff were left in possession of the field. Operating from a hastily fortified position, Jackson's troops inflicted over 2,000 casualties on the British. By contrast, the Americans had suffered only 13 killed in action, and 39 wounded. 

The latter group, along with the sick, were lodged in the schoolrooms of the convent and nursed by the gentle hands of the Ursuline sisters who had prayed so fervently for them. Shortly after returning to New Orleans, Jackson would visit the Ursulines. In a lecture read before the Louisiana Historical Society in 1901, Henry Renshaw described the scene:

In the period of the city's dread anxiety and peril, the Ursulines invoked Divine assistance that victory might be won by the soldiery of the Republic. Andrew Jackson, in the flush of brilliant triumph, visited the convent and thanked these pious women for their prayers for his success. What a scene was this — the victorious warrior expressing gratitude to these nuns for the petitions which they had offered for celestial aid in his behalf. What a subject to be represented in stone or in metal, or upon the painted canvas. 

And not alone by fervent supplication did the Ursulines evince their sympathetic patriotism. The sick and wounded soldiers were received at the convent and lodged in the class rooms of the day scholars where, for three months they were cared for by the nuns. ["The Louisiana Ursulines," Publications of the Louisiana Historical Society, Volume 2, Issues 3-4].

An even earlier historical record confirms the good offices of the Ursuline sisters:

The Ursuline nuns are also entitled to a particular notice. They gave admittance within the walls of their monastery to as many of the sick as could be conveniently lodged therein, and afforded them every aid, comformably to the dictates of true charity. [Historical Memoir of the War in West Florida and Louisiana (1816) Appendix, p. cxxviii]

Jackson also chose to express his gratitude publicly at the very center of Catholicism in the city:

In the old cathedral, burnished up for the occasion, a solemn service of thanksgiving was held at Jackson's request. [Crawford, Romantic Days in the Early Republic (1912) p. 383]

This was not merely a momentary episode of piety on the part of Jackson. Thirteen years later, during the bruising election campaign of 1828, Jackson would have occasion to visit New Orleans again. Though a man embroiled in the bare-knuckles brawl of a very contentious political battle for the nation's highest office, Jackson made time to visit the humble sisters who had prayed so fervently for him at the crisis of his life:

In 1824, the Ursulines removed to their present convent near the lower limits of the city. There, also, Andrew Jackson visited the nuns. This was in 1828. The political campaign which eventuated in his election to the presidency had opened. Jackson had come to New Orleans upon the invitation of the Louisiana legislature to participate in the thirteenth anniversary of the victory at Chalmette. He was accompanied to the convent by several of his staff and by some of the most distinguished men and women of the city. The convent’s cloistered precincts were opened to the renowned guest and to those who were with him. It may that among these surroundings the chieftains thoughts were diverted from the presidential contest, that the suggestions of ambition receded before the grateful reminiscence of the nuns who, thirteen years before, had prayed for victory to his battalions. ["The Louisiana Ursulines," Publications of the Louisiana Historical Society, Volume 2, Issues 3-4].

Here we find yet another example of how God Almighty uses very imperfect men as the instruments of His holy Will. 

Statue of Andrew Jackson in Jackson Square, New Orleans, with the Cathedral-Basilica of
Saint Louis in the background. I took this photo during a visit in 2016.

"To banish war, he must a warrior be" ~ Remembering Sgt. Joyce Kilmer on Veteran's Day

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In honor of Veteran's Day, let us remember a soul so brave and so brilliant whose brief life-course flared too briefly across the early 20th century firmament before he met his merciful Maker. To this day, he is best known for his familiar poem entitled Trees which begins: “I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree…”

Joyce Kilmer was of a breed of men that seems practically extinct today. He was a New Jersey Catholic husband and father of an artistic and literary bent who, nonetheless, was able to summon courage and charity in the superlative as enunciated by Our Lord in John 15:13.

Though married with four children and widely regarded as one of the outstanding poets of his generation, Kilmer enlisted in the U.S. Army when war was declared between the United States and the Central Powers in 1917. He requested to be assigned to the infantry and though he was recommended for promotion to officer status, he refused and was deployed at the front in France as a sergeant. He was given dangerous duty, often acting as a scout operating in no-man’s land.

His division, the Fighting 69th, was immortalized after the war in a film of the same name starring James Cagney. Kilmer was portrayed in the movie by Jeffrey Lynn, and his poem, The Rouge Bouquet, is featured in this poignant scene, based on an actual event:


Kilmer wrote numerous charming letters from the front to his wife, Aline, which may be found collected here. Writing in one such letter on May 18, 1918, Kilmer draws a distinction between pacifism and peacemaking as follows:

P. C. ought to know the distinction between peacemakers and pacifists. I wonder he didn’t include St. Michael in his catalogue of pacifists. We are peace-makers, the soldiers of the 69th, we are risking our lives to bring peace to the simple, generous, gay, pious people of France, who anyone (knowing them as I have come to know them in the last six months) must pity and admire and love. They are an invaded people—and invaded people always are right….

Here are nice old ladies, fat babies, jovial humorous men, and little girls just making their First Communions. They’ve been driven out of their pretty sleepy little villages. They want to get back and mend the shell holes in the roof and go to school and take their place drinking red wine of an evening according to their tastes and ages. Well, we men of the 69th are helping to give these people back their homes—and perhaps to prevent our homes from one day being taken from us by the same Power—of whom nothing at all worse need be said than that it is an invader. And St. Patrick, and St. Bridgid, and St. Columkill and all the other Saints are with us—they are no more pacifists than they are Roycrofters! [an arts and crafts guild in New York around the turn of the 20th century founded by self-styled anarchist, Elbert Hubbard] ~ Taken from Joyce Kilmer: Prose Works

Perhaps not coincidentally, Kilmer's last poem was entitled The Peacemaker which I present here in full:

The Peacemaker by Sergeant Joyce Kilmer

Upon his will he binds a radiant chain,
For Freedom’s sake he is no longer free.
It is his task, the slave of Liberty,
With his own blood to wipe away a stain.
That pain may cease, he yields his flesh to pain.
To banish war, he must a warrior be.
He dwells in Night, eternal Dawn to see,
And gladly dies, abundant life to gain.

What matters Death, if Freedom be not dead?
No flags are fair, if Freedom’s flag be furled.
Who fights for Freedom, goes with joyful tread
To meet the fires of Hell against him hurled,
And has for captain Him whose thorn-wreathed head
Smiles from the Cross upon a conquered world.

[Taken from Joyce Kilmer: Memoir and Poems]

While on a scouting mission in no-man's land on July 30, 1918, Joyce Kilmer was shot and killed by a German sniper.

For more about Joyce Kilmer, click here.

"Chaplain Ironsides" ~ Naval Chaplain Fr. William Henry Reaney (1863-1915)

Fr. Reaney in 1905.

Those who have died defending the country are worthy of remembrance. Those who died wearing the nation's uniform while at the same time serving Almighty God deserve special notice. Though he did not die in combat but of a stomach ailment, here is one such man who spent his whole life serving God while serving in the US Navy:

Father William Henry "Ironsides" Reaney was born in 1863, the son of a naval commander. He obtained the name "Ironsides" either because he was born aboard a steamer of that name, or because his father served on that ship -- the records are unclear. He was raised in Detroit, but heeding the call of the priesthood, he trained at Saint Mary's Seminary in Baltimore, MD. He was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1888.

Fr. Reaney's most noteworthy assignment was as chaplain aboard the USS Olympia, Dewey's flagship at the Battle of Manila Bay. The men aboard ship soon came to love him, as reported in the ship's newspaper, The Bounding Billow:

"The evening concerts inaugurated by Father Reaney of the OLYMPIA are a series of roaring successes (no pun is meant) and are working wonders on passing away the time, making everybody happy and the Father himself more popular if it is possible to do so. He has won the hearts of this crew as well as of all others with whom he has come in contact."

In Three Years Behind the Guns, a memoir of a sailor's life aboard Olympia during those years, John B. Tisdale describes an incident involving Fr. Reaney (whom he mistakenly calls Reamy):

Think of sailors taking a piano and carrying it for three miles after hoisting it over a stone wall! When we had landed it in shipshape at the water's edge, one of our officers came along and said, "Good! We will have it in our ward-room." 

In the ward-room! Not on your life! He was no sooner out of sight than the souvenir battle-axes were were bearing were wielded with a vim that reduced an upright Steinway to a condition that Frank May would have scorned as kindling for the galley-fire....

But back to the piano: its destruction engendered much feeling, but as the real name of its acquisition could only be spelled l-o-o-t, there was no complaint entered by the officer who would have appropriated it, and the sailormen's disappointment was solaced by Chaplain Father Reamy, who bought a piano and presented it to the gun-deck. That priest is truly paving himself a path to heaven by deeds of generosity. Every year he spends more than his pay on amusement for the boys.

Fr. Reaney between Lt. T. D. Griffin and Lt. Jr. Grade W. P. White
aboard USS Charleston ca. 1895.  

But Fr. Reaney wasn't merely a philanthropist or a social worker. He truly knew how to connect with the men, even if that meant occasionally connecting with a right upper-cut:

First and last, Chaplain Reaney was a priest. Therefore he took considerable umbrage when a sailor, Tom Sharkey, created a disturbance while he was saying Mass. After Mass, Father Reaney challenged the man to put on the boxing gloves with him, although he knew that Sharkey, who would have a distinguished career as a boxer, was formidable in the ring. Before a packed audience of sailors, Father Reaney, who was a great amateur boxer, defeated Sharkey. Ever afterwards he was known as “The Fighting Chaplain”, alongside his more regular nickname of Chaplain Ironsides. Throughout his career he organized boxing clubs for the sailors, and among his sparring partners was President Theodore Roosevelt, a personal friend of the Chaplain. [Taken from: The Fighting Chaplain.]

Father Reaney served aboard several other ships during his career, including the battleships Utah, Connecticut and Vermont. He was chaplain of the New York Navy Yard when he was rushed to the hospital suddenly in October of 1915. He passed a month later. An excerpt from his obituary, published in the New York Times, is offered below:

HISTORY REVEALED IN PRIEST'S EULOGY
—————
How Father Reaney's Diplomacy Served Admiral Dewey Made Known at His Funeral.
—————
THRONGS AT THE SERVICES
—————
Marines and Sailors as Guard of Honor for the Dead Chaplain of the Navy.

Thousands of the personal friends and associates of Rev. Father William Henry Ironsides Reaney, who was the son of the commander of the USS Ironsides, and Chaplain in the navy for twenty years, attended his funeral services yesterday morning in St. Patrick's Cathedral. There were many who could not get into the crowded church, but stood in the throngs of people on Fifth Avenue during the ceremony, where companies of marines and sailors from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, with arms draped, were posted as an honor guard.

The Rev. Father Lopez, a cousin of the late Chaplain, was celebrant of the mass, assisted by Rev. Thomas Duffy and the Rev. John J. Brady, Chaplain of the battleship Arkansas. Among the clergymen within the chancel were the rector of the cathedral, Monsignor M. J. Lavelle, Monsignors Mooney, Connolly, and McNichol, and Chaplain Vincent McGean of the Fire Department. A special choir was composed of thirty young priests from the Dunwoodie Seminary. Chaplain John Chidwick of the battleship Maine, in a eulogy of Fr. Reaney, said:

"The public does not know that this man brought together in the Bay of Manila the Commander in Chief of the American fleet, Admiral Dewey, and the Archbishop of Manila at a time when such an occurrence seemed impossible. Nor has the public ever heard the story of the night on the Pacific when, with a typhoon raging, the carpenter of the Charleston went overboard and Fr. Reaney was seen sneaking to the rear of the battleship to plunge into the water to save him from the furious sea. 

"There are some folk who would tear from the soldier or sailor the uniform they wear, who would demolish the statues of heroes, because that is their idea of peace. Those men may not look on Chaplain Reaney as you and I, but can there be anything more glorious, more eloquent, than a man who has two objects in life—one to work for God, and other for his country. For twenty-three years, Father Reaney did that."

A dog returning to his vomit

The Obama administration is already looking like Clinton redux, so one would expect that among the first things our fearless leaders will do is demand that our armed forces enlist "out and proud" homosexuals. Of course, they won't do it as ham-fistedly as Bill Clinton did in 1992, but if you put your ear to the ground, you can already hear the wardrums beating on this issue.

As our leftist overlords won't be able to resist this opportunity for institutional deconstruction, I'm am taking the moment to post the inevitable outcome of such a move. In a "gay friendly" military, expect many more incidents like this one: Colonel Discharged Over Homosexuality [NY Times, July 27, 1997].

In brief, according to this NY Times article, Lt. Col. Loren S. Loomis, a bronze star recipient then age 50, was dishonorably discharged after his house burned down. The discharge was enforced after firefighters discovered that Col. Loomis had videotapes of himself engaging in sex acts with other men.

Oh, the injustice! Right?

Not exactly. Col. Loomis's house was set on fire by a 19-year-old Army private. Why? Because Loomis had taken nude photos of the private and the young man had burned the house down in an attempt to destroy the pictures in Loomis's possession.

Does this sound like the kind of distraction/fraternization we need in the military? Does anyone doubt that allowing open homosexuals to serve will result in a proliferation of this kind of behavior?

If you do, you might want to refer your opinion to the Catholic Church. Not too long ago, our bishops thought it would be a good idea to allow homosexuals to become priests....