Mounted on the wall of my home’s library hangs a wood framed shadow box holding the Civil War mementos from my great-grandfather’s time serving in the Union Army.

One keepsake behind the glass is a small, autographed photo of his regiment’s heroic chaplain sitting perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Tennessee River.

The carte de visite, taken on the summit of Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, was given to my great-grandfather during the winter of 1863-64 when he served with the 78th Pennsylvania Volunteers. The photographer’s lens captured no ordinary chaplain, but a heroic priest given the sobriquet “The Fighting Chaplain of the Army of the Cumberland.”

The Rev. Richard Calixtus Christy, born in 1829 in Loretto in Cambria County, had been encouraged toward the priesthood by Russian nobleman turned American catholic clergyman Prince Demetris Gallitzin. At age 26 in 1855, Christy was appointed to serve as the first permanent pastor of St. John’s Catholic Church in Coylesville. Until he left for the battlefields of the Civil War in October 1861, his congregation knew him as a “robust guy, a good horseman who owned some of the finest hunting dogs in the area.”

With less than 50 percent of the 1,000 men of the 78th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment being of the Catholic faith, there was much criticism and prejudice within the regiment and on the pages of the Pittsburgh newspapers for appointing a Catholic. One officer “wondered how he could ever go off and fight war with a Catholic priest as his chaplain” but soon became, due to Christy’s actions, not only a great admirer of the man but also one of Christy’s closest friends.

While most Civil War chaplains stayed well behind the lines, Christy would be in the thick of the fight. He shouldered a rifle and marched in the ranks with the common soldier. He was one of them.

Private A.J. Duff, a soldier in the 78th, described Christy at the Battle of Stone’s River in January 1863 in a letter home. He wrote, “He was in the hottest fight with his sleeves rolled up …. balls and shells were falling around him like hail. He was the last to leave the battlefield and the only Chaplain who done his duty as a man.”

During the Battle of New Hope Church in Georgia on May 27, 1864, the 78th Pennsylvania and 37th Indiana were at the far left of the battle line. The Confederates were overwhelming the two Union regiments and the boys in blue were under extreme rifle fire. There were no surgeons and no stretcher bearers to tend to the wounded.

Christy, undeterred by tremendous crossfire, continually moved along the battle line carrying the wounded in his arms to safety. Near sunset the regiments had made their way to an open cornfield expecting another attack and seriously low on ammunition.

Christy went and begged for ammunition from another regiment in the rear and returned with his pockets and handkerchief stuffed with cartridges. All along the line he handed them to those soldiers who needed them the most. This allowed them to hold off the attack and prevented dozens from being killed, wounded or taken prisoner.

Although he personally denounced the southern cause with “more soldierly words than pious,” Father Christy still had compassion for the wounded soldiers of the South.

When the army was at Rossville, Ga., fighting in the Sept. 18-20, 1863, Battle of Chickamauga, a young 14-year-old Confederate had been shot down in front of the 78th Pennsylvania. The boy rebel was barely alive when he was carried off the battlefield into Union lines. When the butternut clad soldier heard there was a priest nearby, he asked for Christy. Upon the chaplain’s arrival, the dying boy asked to be baptized.

Knowing the lad would soon number among the Civil War’s 640,000 dead, Christy desired to know “What is a boy so young doing fighting in the army?” The boy’s dying words to Christy were “My mother made me go!”

According to the History of 78th Pennsylvania Volunteers, at the Battle of New Hope Church Georgia on May 27, 1864, the chaplain, who the Pittsburgh newspapers had nicknamed “The Butcher” for being covered in blood following battles, cradled 19-year-old mortally wounded James Little, Co. A, 78th Pennsylvania in his arms.

Barely able to speak, the weakened fallen private looked into the eyes of the compassionate priest and faintly spoke his last earthly words “Tell mother I was in the front lines yet, in the front lines yet” and then breathed his last as Christy held him in his arms.

Following the Nov. 24, 1863, Battle of Lookout Mountain, Christy and the 78th Pennsylvania Volunteers. spent the winter above the clouds on its summit overlooking Chattanooga, Tenn. It was on top of this mountain that he saved soldier’s lives from their most frequent killer, disease.

These cold months saw his men to coming down with scurvy caused by the lack of Vitamin C. The men had no fruit or vegetables as part of their near-starvation ration of three to four hard crackers per day. When Christy became aware that his men could die, he mounted a mule and rode down the sheer cliff paths of Lookout Mountain to the town of Chattanooga. Returning two days later with 10 barrels of sauerkraut, the thankful men gave their “Fighting Chaplain” a roaring “huzzah” to celebrate his return.

No officer in the Union Army had easier access to Generals like Phillip Sheridan and William Rosecrans. Christy used this to help a desperate captain gain leave to be at the bedside of his dying wife.

Butler native Lt. Col. Archibald Blakely, 78th Pennsylvania Volunteers remembered “While resting in the valley before the Battle of Chickamauga and expecting an attack from the enemy, one of my captains rode up saying he had received a telegram from his wife’s physician in Nashville and that she was near death and would not survive but a few hours. He asked for a leave of absence, but I could not give it. I rode over to Father Christy and said ‘Now Christy, if there’s any virtue in the Catholic Church use it to help this poor fellow.’ He rode over to James Garfield, Gen. Rosecrans’ Chief of Staff, and after 10 minutes had the necessary permit.”

After three years of fighting in America’s bloodiest war, Christy and the men of the 78th Pennsylvania Volunteers returned from the battlefields in October 1864. They departed from Nashville on the steamboat Caroline traveling up the Cumberland and Ohio Rivers and back to Pittsburgh.

After his return, Christy took charge of St. Patrick Catholic Church in Ebensburg. On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse Virginia. After hearing the good news, Christy had the church bell rung over and over again to celebrate the end of a war in which he had served so heroically.

With the community outgrowing their present building, the Civil War veteran oversaw the building of a new larger church, which he renamed Holy Name. He also attended many of the reunions of his former comrades. His portrait was prominently displayed above the head table he often shared with the likes of Gens. Ulysses Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman at their request.

His health began to fail. Mercy Hospital records show a dozen stays in Pittsburgh. He retired from Holy Name in 1871 and at the invitation of Bishop Sylvester Rosecrans of Columbus, the brother of Gen. Rosecrans, he became the Pastor of Holy Family Church in Columbus, Ohio.

“The Fighting Chaplain,” suffering from severe congestion of the lungs and cirrhosis of the liver, could fight no longer. The valiant priest and soldier passed away at 9:15 a.m. on Oct. 16, 1878, in St. Vincent Hospital in Columbus, Ohio with his cousin and fellow priest Father J.C. Bingham at his side. A special train was provided free of charge by the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and St. Louis Railway to bring his remains back to Ebensburg.

Christy requested that he be buried at the site of the original alter of St. Patrick Church. Twelve clergy oversaw the largest attended burial mass in the history of Ebensburg with dozens of veterans of the 78th Pennsylvania Volunteers in attendance.

A few hundred yards south of Route 422 next to St. John Catholic Church on South Clearfield Road is a State Historical Marker honoring “The Fighting Chaplain.” I applied and paid for the commemorative plaque in 2004 to honor this heroic and humble man. But I believe the church’s first permanent pastor is best remembered by the words of two unknown boys of his regiment:

“Although an orator and a preacher of great ability, he came to us without ostentation in his quiet and childlike way. Instead of arrogance and displays in his office, he sat down beside us and talked as only a friend can talk, drew out our hearts to him and compelled us to love him.”

Bill May is an author and historian who lives in Butler.