Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.

Sleep eluded the clergyman Daniel Waldo during the eve of his 100th birthday on Sept. 10, 1862. The former chaplain of the House of Representatives tossed and turned in bed at his home in Syracuse, lost in thought. What kept him awake were not reflections on his past, but concerns about the future of the Republic. Waldo had lived long enough to know firsthand that the leaders of the Southern rebellion were in deadly earnest, for he himself was once a rebel.

Eight decades earlier, the 16-year-old Waldo fought for freedom from British rule during the Revolution. He joined a company of Connecticut patriots that formed in his hometown of Windham. Captured by Tories while guarding the headquarters of his commander on Christmas Day 1779, he survived two months as a prisoner.

Waldo found religion after the war ended. He attended Yale and became a minister after graduation. Ordained under the auspices of the Congregational church in 1792, he embarked on a lifetime journey to serve flocks of the faithful across New England and the Northeast.

In December 1855, the 34th Congress replaced the congressional chaplaincy with a rotation system of unpaid local minsters. Representatives then turned their attention to the election of a speaker. Polarized by the question of slavery, they engaged in a bitter three-month debate, eventually electing Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts to the chair — an early and important victory for the Republican Party. On the heels of this struggle, the House revisited its decision to suspend the chaplaincy. Representatives still smarting from the fight for speaker sought a compromise candidate.

Library of Congress

Waldo’s service in the Revolution appealed to the members. “I hope,” said Representative Amos P. Granger of New York, who nominated Waldo, “the House will take this occasion to show its grateful respect for this venerable and goodly relic of the times that tried men’s souls.”

According to one scholar, “Although Mr. Granger is regarded as a thorough-going abolitionist, and therefore not very palatable to southern members; yet, said a leading member from a slave state, who had himself brought forward a candidate, ‘I’ll give my vote for the old soldier.’”

A majority followed suit and elected the nonagenarian as chaplain in February 1856. He came into the job with low expectations. “When a man has reached the ninety-fourth year of his age, it would not be regarded as a very unjust opinion, were we to assume that his day for preparing original discourses, to be delivered with the clear and distinct enunciation, which is necessary to convey what he would utter to the hearing of an audience seated in different parts of the great hall of the Capitol, had gone by,” noted a fellow preacher.

Waldo made his debut on April 3, 1856. The Daily National Intelligencer reported that he “hardly appears to be seventy. He has the presence and bearing of a gentleman, and speaks well and in a clear and agreeable voice. He was warmly and respectfully greeted and welcomed to the hall by a large number of members.” Waldo continued as chaplain for the remainder of the 34th Congress, and then returned to Syracuse.

Father Waldo, as he had come to be known by admiring friends, met Abraham Lincoln when the train that carried the president-elect and his entourage stopped in Syracuse on Feb. 18, 1861. A crowd estimated at 10,000 greeted Lincoln. A front-page report in The New York Times described the scene: “At the intersection of the street with the track, was erected a nicely carpeted platform, on which were the Committee, Rev. Mr. Waldo, and a bald-headed eagle. The immensity of the gathering was equaled only by its absolute order and good behavior. Mr. Lincoln was urged to go upon the platform, but having declined doing so elsewhere, he felt it his duty to treat all alike, and, therefore, did not go.”

The Times correspondent continued,

Rev. Mr. Waldo, who is so infirm as to be scarcely able to totter, but who, nevertheless, voted for Washington and Lincoln, was taken from the staging and brought upon the platform of the car, where he shook hands with Mr. Lincoln, and came very near being pushed off the car by the crowd of the people. After the speech there were loud cries of ‘Take the platform,’ and the Mayor, with divers Committeemen, urged him to leave the car and ascend the platform that the people might see him, but Mr. Lincoln said, ‘No, Sir, I cannot; that was decided some time since’ — and he did not go. ‘That’s right, old man,’ said some one in the crowd, ‘stick to it — you’ve got your stake, now don’t take it up.’ This excited laughter and created good humor, during which the train moved off, followed by thousands of cheering men and boys.

After Lincoln took office and the Civil War started, Waldo was visited by an enterprising pair of photographers, brothers Nelson and Roswell Moore of Hartford. Inspired by a wave of nostalgia for the glory days of Washington and Lafayette, the two photographers made portraits of Waldo and five other veterans of the Revolution. According to the Moore brothers, “President Lincoln he deemed honest, but not decided enough,” and he added “that the leaders of the rebellion should be dealt with in such a manner that no one would dare, in the future, to repeat the experiment.”

Related Disunion Highlights Explore multimedia from the series and navigate through past posts, as well as photos and articles from the Times archive. See the Highlights »

Despite his concerns, Waldo told the brothers that he “had implicit faith in the ultimate success of the Union arms and the re-establishment of the authority of the National Government over all the states,” and that “he was intensely loyal, greatly desiring to live till the rebellion should be suppressed.”

Waldo did not make it. A fall down stairs around Independence Day 1864 resulted in a serious injury. Elias B. Hillard, a minister who had traveled to Syracuse to interview him for a book to be published by the Moore brothers, described the centenarian on his deathbed. “His look was as peaceful and pleasant as when in health; and upon his wasting features there rested the serene and sweet expression of gentle goodness, breaking, for the moment, into a smile, as, on being addressed, he roused to answer, and then sank again into his dreamless sleep.”

Father Waldo breathed his last at 1:30 p.m. on July 30, 1864. He had lived 101 years, 10 months, and 20 days. Later that year the Moore brothers published the portrait of Waldo and his life story in “The Last Men of the Revolution.”

Follow Disunion at twitter.com/NYTcivilwar or join us on Facebook.

Sources: The Salem (Massachusetts) Register, Oct. 2, 1862; Daniel Waldo military service record, National Archives and Records Service; Daniel Waldo pension record, National Archives and Records Service; Waldo Lincoln, Genealogy of the Waldo Family, Vol. 1; Congressional Globe; Lorenzo D. Johnson, “Chaplains of the General Government, With Objections to Their Employment Considered”; Christopher C. Lund, “The Congressional Chaplaincies,” William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal (2009); Daily National Intelligencer, April 4, 1856; The New York Times, Feb. 19, 1861; Rev. Elias B. Hillard, “The Last Men of the Revolution.”

Ronald S. Coddington is the author of “Faces of the Civil War” and “Faces of the Confederacy.” His new book, “African American Faces of the Civil War,” will be available in the fall. He writes “Faces of War,” a column for the Civil War News.