By Jessi Dodge · July 28, 2025
Photo Gallery: 250 years of U.S. Military Chaplaincy
Military chaplaincy in the United States dates back to 1775, when George Washington asked for chaplains for the Continental Army. Pictured here, Minister James Caldwell at the Battle of Springfield. (Painting by Henry Alexander Ogden)
John Hurt of Virginia became the first U.S. Army chaplain on March 4, 1791. He was one of 218 chaplains in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. (Painting by William A. Smith/Wikimedia Commons)
The “Four Chaplains” were, from left, Methodist minister George L. Fox, Reform Rabbi Alexander D. Goode, Roman Catholic priest John P. Washington and Reformed Church in America minister Clark V. Poling. (Photos courtesy of Creative Commons)
Jesuit priests John McElroy, pictured here, and Anthony Rey, not pictured, became the first U.S. military Catholic chaplains during the Mexican-American War in 1846. (Photo by Leopold Grozelier via Library of Congress)
Rabbi Jacob Frankel was the first rabbi to be commissioned as a chaplain in the U.S. military in 1862, and served during the Civil War at a military hospital. (Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
The Rev. Henry McNeal Turner was the first commissioned African American U.S. military chaplain in 1862. He was a bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. (Illustration courtesy Library of Congress)
