Michael A. Halleran - The Better Angels of Our Nature: Freemasonry in the American Civil War (Audiobook)

Michael A. Halleran - The Better Angels of Our Nature: Freemasonry in the American Civil War (Audiobook)

Listening Length: 5 hours and 55 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook - Narrator: Jack Chekijian
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: University Press Audiobooks
Audible.com Release Date: March 7, 2012

The first in-depth study of the Freemasons during the Civil War

One of the enduring yet little-examined themes in Civil War lore is the widespread belief that on the field of battle and afterward, members of Masonic lodges would give aid and comfort to wounded or captured enemy Masons, often at great personal sacrifice and danger. This work is a deeply researched examination of the recorded, practical effects of Freemasonry among Civil War participants on both sides.

From first-person accounts culled from regimental histories, diaries, and letters, Michael A. Halleran has constructed an overview of 19th-century American freemasonry in general and Masonry in the armies of both North and South in particular, and provided telling examples of how Masonic brotherhood worked in practice. Halleran details the response of the fraternity to the crisis of secession and war, and examines acts of assistance to enemies on the battlefield and in POW camps.

The author examines carefully the major Masonic stories from the Civil War, in particular the myth that Confederate Lewis A. Armistead made the Masonic sign of distress as he lay dying at the high-water mark of Pickett's charge at Gettysburg.

Michael Halleran's "The Better Angels of Our Nature," is an outstanding, in-depth study of interactions between Freemasons during the American Civil War. Halleran's title comes from Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address on March 4, 1861, as he argued passionately before his audience and the nation to keep the Union together.

It accomplishes what few books about Freemasons are able to do: it explores the legends and long-told tall tales of the fraternity in an academic fashion, with both dispassionate analysis of the facts, and an obvious passion for the subject. Personal accounts from the Civil War have the effect of humanizing the experience, instead of being able to hold it at a polite distance, perhaps because it was the first war that had, not just commanders, but so many enlisted men educated enough to write letters and diaries. Along the way, Michael shatters several longstanding and cherished Masonic fables, but he reinforces and illuminates far more than he buries. And he finds the humanity and real truth behind events in the war that pitted brethren against each other more than any other.

http://michaelhalleran.com/