Robert Franklin Bunting

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Robert Franklin Bunting
BornMay 9, 1828
Hookstown, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedSeptember 19, 1891
Gallatin, Tennessee, U.S.
Alma materWashington College
Princeton University
Princeton Theological Seminary
Hampden–Sydney College
OccupationClergyman
Spouses
  • Nina Ella Doxey
  • Chrissinda Sharpe Craig
Children6
Parent(s)John Bunting
Margaret Moody

Robert Franklin Bunting (1828–1891) was an American Presbyterian minister and Confederate chaplain.

Early life[edit]

Robert Franklin Bunting was born on May 9, 1828, in Hookstown, Pennsylvania.[1][2][3] His father was John Bunting and his mother, Margaret Moody.[2] One of his maternal uncles was a Presbyterian minister, while another one was a Presbyterian elder.[1] His mother encouraged him to become a Presbyterian minister.[4]

Bunting graduated from Washington College in 1849.[4] While in college, he joined the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.[2] He received a master of arts degree from Princeton University, and a bachelor of divinity degree from the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1852.[2][4] He later received a doctor of divinity degree from Hampden–Sydney College in 1867.[2]

Career[edit]

Bunting became a Presbyterian missionary in Texas in 1852.[2] He planted churches in La Grange, Texas, Columbus, Texas, and Round Top, Texas.[2][3] He planted the First Presbyterian Church of San Antonio in San Antonio, Texas, in 1856,[3] and served as its minister until 1861.[4]

Bunting was a co-founder of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America.[2][5] During the American Civil War of 1861-1865, he served as a chaplain in the Terry's Texas Rangers of the Confederate States Army.[2][3][5] Bunting believed the Texas army would win against Union troops because it had been victorious against the Mexican republic in the Texas Revolution.[6] When two colonels died, he explained that God had wanted to warn the soldiers about idolatry, suggesting they should only look up to God.[7] During the war, Bunting was also a war correspondent to two newspapers,[3] the Houston-based Daily Telegraph and the Tri-Weekly Telegraph.[2] He established a courier system for families of CSA members in Texas.[3] Additionally, he established the "Texas Hospital", a Confederate hospital in Auburn, Alabama, in 1864.[2][3]

In the postbellum years, Bunting was the minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee.[2] From 1869 to 1882, he served a Presbyterian church in Galveston, Texas.[2] He was a pastor in Rome, Georgia, from 1882 to 1883.[2] He was a "fiscal agent" for Rhodes College in Memphis, Texas, from 1885 to 1889.[2] He also served on the board of trustees of Daniel Baker College in Brownwood, Texas.[4] He returned to the ministry in 1889, when he served a church in Gallatin, Tennessee, until 1891.[2]

Bunting was a member of the Knights Templar.[8] He was also a member of the Odd Fellows.[2]

Personal life[edit]

Bunting married Nina Ella Doxey in 1853.[2] After she died he married Chrissinda Sharpe Craig in 1860.[2] They had six children.[2]

Death and legacy[edit]

Bunting died on September 19, 1891, in Gallatin, Tennessee.[1][2] He received a Masonic funeral in Gallatin.[8]

His papers are held at the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.[4] Additionally, his diaries are held at the Princeton Theological Seminary.[9] In 2006, the University of Tennessee press published Our Trust is in the God of Battles: The Civil War Letters of Robert Franklin Bunting, Chaplain, Terry's Texas Rangers, edited by Thomas W. Cutrer, a Professor emeritus of History and American Studies at Arizona State University.[10]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Cutrer, Thomas W. (October 2008). "Bunting, Robert Franklin". American National Biography. Retrieved December 28, 2015.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Marks, Paula Mitchell (June 12, 2010). "BUNTING, ROBERT FRANKLIN". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved December 28, 2015.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Bishop, Curtis (May 9, 1954). "This Day In Texas". Waco Tribune-Herald. Waco, Texas. p. 20. Retrieved December 28, 2015 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  4. ^ a b c d e f "Robert Franklin Bunting collection, 1846-1947". Texas Archival Resources Online. Retrieved December 28, 2015.
  5. ^ a b "Presbyterians and the American Civil War". The Journal of Presbyterian History. 89 (1): 27–34. Spring 2011. JSTOR 23338138.
  6. ^ Lang, Andrew F. (July 2010). "Memory, the Texas Revolution, and Secession: The Birth of Confederate Nationalism in the Lone Star State". The Southwestern Historical Quarterly. 114 (1): 33. JSTOR 25745919.
  7. ^ Rable, George C. (2010). God's Almost Chosen Peoples: A Religious History of the American Civil War. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press. p. 147. ISBN 9780807834268. OCLC 607975631. Retrieved December 28, 2015.
  8. ^ a b "Attention, Knights Templar". The Tennessean. Nashville, Tennessee. September 20, 1891. p. 2. Retrieved December 28, 2015 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  9. ^ "The Robert Franklin Bunting Manuscript Collection". Princeton Theological Seminary. Retrieved December 28, 2015.
  10. ^ "Our Trust is in the God of Battles: The Civil War Letters of Robert Franklin Bunting, Chaplain, Terry's Texas Rangers". The University of Tennessee Press. Retrieved December 28, 2015.
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