A collection of the personal papers of George Shane Phillips, American Methodist minister and Civil War chaplain.

George Shane Phillips (1818-1865), Ohio Methodist minister and Civil War chaplain, author of "American Republic and Human Liberty Foreshadowed in Scripture" (1864). He joined the Methodist Episcopal Church when he was seventeen, and in 1840 attended Norwalk seminary; in the fall of 1841, the North Ohio Conference appointed him to Richwood Circuit. In September 1843, Phillips was appointed Deacon, and in August 1847, the Elder of the North Ohio Conference. In December 1851 he volunteered to join the newly organized Oregon-California Mission Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was transferred there in January 1852, and spent the next ten years in Northern California, serving in San Francisco, Stockton, Sacramento, and San Jose; from 1857 to 1861, he was Principal of Santa Clara Female College. In 1861, Phillips resigned and returned to Ohio. From May 1863 to July 1864, he served as chaplain of the 49th Regiment of Ohio. With his regiment, he was in the Chickamauga (Georgia) Campaign, including the battle of Chickamauga (September 19-20), the siege of Chattanooga, Tennessee (September 24 - November 23), the Chattanooga-Ringgold Campaign (November 23-27) and Atlanta Campaign, including the battle of Resaca (May 14-15). Also the advance on Dallas (May 22-25), and battles near Dallas, New Hope Church and Allatoona Hills (May 25-June 5), and the operations about Marietta and Kennesaw Mountain (June 10-July 2). In June 1864, Phillips was at a hospital, although he was able to follow the regiment, then fighting about Marietta and Kennesaw Mountains. In July 1864, Phillips resigned for reasons of disability and accepted the position of president of Colorado Seminary (later the University of Denver). His failing health caused him to resign this post and return to Ohio; he died March 30, 1865 at Brookdale, his home near Wooster, Ohio. In September 1843, Phillips married Elizabeth Kauffman of Millbrook, Ohio; the couple had three daughters, Frances Jane, Sarah Leora, and Miriam Elizabeth (Minnie). Minnie married Cary W. Kauke (approximately 1849-), the couple settled in Wooster, Ohio, but in the 1880s moved to Exeter, and then Tulare, California.

4.8 Linear Feet (4 boxes) 224 items

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