Robert Franklin Bunting

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

Robert Franklin Bunting
BornMay 9, 1828
DiedSeptember 19, 1891
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

Early life

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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

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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

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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

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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

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  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.  
  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. doi:10.1353/swh.0.0016. 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.  
  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.