Freemasonry and the Military

Masonry has roots deeply tethered to the military and veterans. There are many stories that have been told about brother Masons, serving even in opposing armies, who spared each other from death upon being recognized as brothers. General George Washington is reported to have visited a lodge with his British adversaries while under the flag of truce.

During the infancy of the United States, clandestine lodges were all that could exist until a charter could be issued; a unique issue during the Revolutionary War. However, accommodations where made for the professional soldiers when Grand Lodges began issuing charters for regiments to have military (traveling) Lodges. The first English Military Masonic Lodge was established in Florida in 1750.

Freemasonry and the Military

Thirty-three of the men Washington picked to serve as general officers under him were Freemasons, as were such Founding Fathers as Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere, and John Hancock. There were 81 general officers in the Continental Army, and—33 or 41%—of them were Freemasons.

Commodore John Paul Jones, the father of the United States Navy, was a Mason.

Baron Friedrich von Steuben, a Prussian Freemason who joined Washington at Valley Forge, is considered by many to be the founder of the U. S. Army as an effective and disciplined fighting force.

Samuel Nicholas, who created the U. S. Marine Corps, was a Freemason.

Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, were Brother Masons, as well as explorers of the great American Northwest.

General Henry “Hap” Arnold, who was with the Air Force from its infancy and developed it into a separate branch of the Armed Services, was a Freemason.

William F. Reynolds, the first officer of the U. S. Coast Guard to become an admiral, was a Freemason.

And aslo: Gen. Omar Bradley, Admiral Arleigh A. Burke, Admiral Richard Byrd, General Mark Wayne Clark, Gen. Jimmy Doolittle, Gen. George V. Marshall, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier in World War II and from right up the road in Farmersville (his CMO can be seen at the Scottish Rite) , Eddie Rickenbacker, the leading American Ace of the first World War, Gen. John Joseph Pershing, John H. Glenn, Buzz Aldrin (and 11 other astronauts) and General Walter Boomer.

A total of 224 of the men who have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor have been Masons.

Sir Winston Churchill, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and President Harry S. Truman were all Freemasons. During the height of the Second World War, Truman made a special appearance in the newsreels being shown in movie theatres all over America.

He said, in part: “At this very moment, in foxholes and on shipboard, beneath the sea and in the air, countless hands are being clasped in fraternal recognition of each other in the darkness as well as in the daylight. And countless fathers, bravely wishing God-speed to their departing sons, are saying ‘Boy, when your hour of darkness and loneliness comes, find a Freemason, and tell him you are the son of a Freemason, and you’ll find a friend.'”

Gen. Douglas MacArthur once said: “Freemasonry embraces the highest moral laws and will bear the test of any system of ethics or philosophy ever promulgated for the uplift of man.”

As the Revolutionary War approached, the U. S. Marine Corps was organized in that same Tun Tavern in Philadelphia where the first recorded meeting of Freemasons had taken place in 1731. The Innkeeper of Tun Tavern, Samuel Nicholas, was a member of the Lodge and later became its Junior Warden. He was commissioned a Captain of Marines by the President of the Continental Congress in 1775 and directed to recruit two battalions of Marines. He set up his recruiting station in Tun Tavern and he is recorded in our history as the First Commandant of the Marine Corps with rank of Major.

When the Civil War broke out, Albert Pike was named brigadier general and was appointed a post in Indian Territory, where he continued to pass the tenets of Freemasonry to the tribes he encountered.

A Union soldier had passed through the Fellowcraft Degree before shipping out, and they wanted to see if a nearby lodge could test and raise him to a Master Mason. Within days, a detail of Confederate cavalry escorted the Fellowcraft Mason and several Master Masons of the north safely through the Confederate Lines and over 30 miles of Confederate defenses to Savannah and the local Masonic lodge. The records note that this Brother was proficient in the Fellowcraft Degree, and he was raised to the Degree of a Master Mason. After the ritual was complete, the Confederate cavalry returned their Brother to Hilton Head without incident.

Dr. Joseph Newton in his book, The Builders, A Story and Study of Freemasonry, tells that the Union Army Commander who attacked Little Rock, Arkansas, ordered a guard to be stationed around the home of Pike to protect his library. Dr. Newton also expresses gratitude for the kindness of a brother Freemason in the Union Army who spared the life of his father, a prisoner of war from the Confederate Army and himself a Freemason.

Three future Commandants of the U. S. Marine Corps became Freemasons in Overseas Lodge No. 40 during its short existence: General John A. Lejeune, probably the most outstanding Marine of the Twentieth Century for whom Marine Corps Base, Camp Lejeune NC, and John A Lejeune Lodge No. 350, Quantico, VA, were named.

It’s also true that you’ll find in Freemasonry something else that’s found in the military – men you can trust; men who will back you, no matter what; men who understand what it means to live lives of honor and integrity; men who won’t leave you to face the enemy, or the world, by yourself.