"Clouds of Glory: The Life and Legend of Robert E. Lee"

[Linda Anderson]

(07-04-2014 01:14 PM)L Verge Wrote:  As an Episcopalian, I would like to think that Dr. Minnegerode (one of the more prominent figures in history) did his duty as a servant of God and administered the Holy Eucharist in the proper manner and order. The fact that the congregation took Lee's lead should have inspired him to do likewise.

This is what the Stratford link Laurie provided above has to say.

"Note that neither report states that the black man was the first person to arrive at the "communion table." the newspaper account says he was "amongst those who first arose"; the Confederate Veteran hedges a bit by saying that "a negro in the church arose" when the minister was ready to administer communion. So Broun either could not remember whether the African-American man was the first to arrive at the communion table, or he considered his mere arrival there along with white communicants to be the problem."

"The point of the Confederate Veteran account is clearly not only that the "federal authorities" were using a black man in a sacred context to dominate the white ex-Confederates, but also that General Lee was not to be dominated and had saved his fellow ex-Confederates from humiliation. 'It was a grand exhibition of superiority shown by a true Christian and great soldier under the most trying [and] offensive circumstances,' both accounts declared...

"Note also that neither account tells us whether the minister administered communion to the black man. I assume he did."