Unakceptable_views (@Unakceptabke_views)

**THE MILITARY AND FREEMASONRY** Yes…a definite pattern. >**“The first time we hear about Military Lodges is on the 7th of November 1732, when the First Regiment of Foot or “The Royal Scots” petition and receives Warrant No. 11 from the Grand Lodge of Ireland (Sharpe, 2004).** Let us remember that the Grand Lodge of Scotland had yet to be established and the Grand Lodge of England was mired in turmoil. With troops being quartered in Ireland enroute to mainland Europe, North America and West Indies, the Irish Grand Lodge became the primary choice for requesting charters and they were open to such a novel and inventive means to perpetuate Freemasonry by empowering these new military Lodges **to temporarily establishing local Lodges simply by making a copy of the Unit held warrant**, until that Lodge could procure a permanent charter directly with them. >**For the next ten years, the Grand Lodge of Ireland would have the monopoly in offering warrants to what will eventually become hundreds of British Military Lodges throughout the Empire.** • • • • • In Virginia, the Lodge at Fredericksburg was a Masonic Lodge that was established by a Scottish Military Lodge with an Irish Charter in 1752, but the officers of that Army Lodge made arrangements to have the Lodge procure a Charter from the Grand Lodge of Scotland, and not Ireland. It is also speculation that the first Masonic Lodge in Williamsburg was from another military Lodge because of reports that such members visited Fredericksburg during 1752 or 1753 but we cannot confirm this as the records are forever lost. >**For Freemasons during this era, these Military Lodges remained their only link with our gentle Craft and further assist in cementing Freemasons in brotherly love during these times of chaos and turmoil.** • • • • • In the French and Indian War, General James Wolfe, Commander of British forces mortally wounded at the Battle of Quebec in 1759, maintained a Military Lodge and regularly attended. >**If frontier roads were being forged by the British Army throughout Colonial America, then the Masonic Lodges became the network by which bonded communities beyond colonial borders.** Into the American Revolution era, we know that President James Monroe was initiated in Williamsburg but received his Fellowcraft and Master Mason degree in a military Lodge serving American Forces during the Revolutionary War. We also know that on several occasions, Lord and Brother Cornwallis maintained a military Lodge and permitted military and Masonic funerals for American brethren and even offered up the funeral oration for Baron and Brother Johann De Kalb, an American general who was killed at the Battle of Camden in 1780. • • • • • He also permitted Doctor Benjamin Rush and American Major George Lewis to attend General and Brother Hugh Mercer during the nine days that he lay dying after the Battle of Princeton in 1777 **and following his death, they were permitted to safely return to the Colonial army picket lines unmolested.** Brother Pollard also records that during the war, there were two occasions where warrants, jewels, tools and furniture from a British military Lodge were captured by American forces and that the records show that under a flag of truce and a procession of honor guards that these items were properly returned. >**So it is clear that Freemasonry held firm and supported both Colonial and British brethren and played a role in the development of our nation.** This legacy continues, and although there was no known military Lodges established during the War of 1812, we can account for due to so few ground attacks, **but during the Mexican War, history accounts for twelve military Lodges with two of them continuing across the border into Mexico with the American army.** One particular to give note was a Lodge known as Virginia Military Lodge No. 1 to support the Virginia Regiment of Volunteers. >**During the War against Northern Aggression, there were up to two hundred military Lodges; Virginia alone is recorded to have up to twenty-eight of these Lodges to support the Confederate armies throughout the South.”** https://alianzafraternal.org/military-lodges-of-freemasonry/