Ella Elvira Hobart Gibson

Despite having died decades earlier, the tenacious spirit of Ella Elvira Gibson prevailed when at last, in 2001, she gained the presidential appointment she initially sought from Abraham Lincoln. Her named was buried in the 384-page National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002 signed by President George W. Bush. By signing, the president posthumously appointed Gibson to the grade of captain in the Chaplains Corps of the Army for service as chaplain to the first Wisconsin Heavy Artillery regiment during the Civil War.1 Gibson's appointment, which amounted to a long overdue legislative apology for service rendered to the United States more than a century earlier, largely escaped public notice. This oversight, although understandable given the brevity of the congressional recognition, does not diminish her contribution or unique historic role as America's first woman military chaplain and the only woman to serve in that capacity until 1973. Over the past four decades, Ella has momentarily captured the attention of students of military history, feminism, and groups that challenged traditional nineteenth-century American religious thinking. Although her unique role as the first women to serve as an American military chaplain is most frequently mentioned, there have also been brief references and a master's thesis on her unorthodox theological pronouncements.2 None of these treatments, however, have attempted to explore the totality of her life. Ella's exploits are worthy of our attention because they provide a rare insight into the struggles of a unique nineteenth-century Victorian woman who at various times was a teacher, lecturer, author, poet, feminist, Spiritualist, and free thinker, as well as a Civil War veteran. Although little of Ella's private correspondence has survived, her published writings and relevant military records furnish ample opportunity to sketch a meaningful portrait.

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