General William S. Rosecrans (1819-1898)

Today marks the death of General William Starke Rosecrans (1819-1898), Civil War general and Catholic convert. An 1842 graduate of West Point, the Ohio-born Rosecrans converted to Catholicism while teaching at his alma mater. Rosecrans became an extremely devout Catholic who, in the years before the Civil War, even considered editing a Catholic newspaper. As a general he had his own personal chaplain travel with him, Irish-born Father Patrick Treacy, who served as the general’s unofficial right-hand man. An inveterate talker, the general kept his staff officers up late at night arguing theological questions with them. While he was at West Point in the 1840’s, he told his brother Sylvester about his decision to become a Catholic. Sylvester did some investigating of his own, and he also became a Catholic. In 1852 he was ordained a priest and he was named first Bishop of Columbus, Ohio, in 1868. (Founded in 1950, Bishop Rosecrans High School in Zanesville, Ohio, is named for him.) The general’s son Adrian joined the Paulists and traveled around the country preaching parish missions before his early death in 1876.