Robert Hale Ives, Jr., was born in Providence on April 3, 1837. The Ives family was part of the mercantile aristocracy of nineteenth century Rhode Island. He graduated from Brown University in 1857 at the age of twenty. During the following two years, he twice visited Europe for study and travel, as was the fashion among cultured young gentlemen of the time. On his final return in 1860, he went into business as a partner in the firm of his cousins, the Goddard brothers of Providence.
Ives was confirmed at S. Stephen’s Church in June of 1859 – perhaps in between his two European trips. From that time forward, he adopted S. Stephen’s as his spiritual home, regularly attending worship and devoutly receiving Holy Communion. Then located on Benefit Street in the building now occupied by the Barker Playhouse, S. Stephen’s was about to embark on the construction of the Gothic revival church in which we’re now sitting. From the beginning, Ives enthusiastically involved himself in the project and was a member of the committee appointed to raise funds.
When the Civil War broke out in the summer of 1861, Ives desperately wanted to volunteer. But family and business obligations deterred him from doing so. In particular, he was his parents’ only son, and the family was already bereaved by the death of his older sister the previous year. During the summer of 1862, however, after a series of Union defeats and Confederate forces preparing to invade Maryland and encircle Washington DC, Ives made the decision to volunteer. Some of his friends tried to persuade him that he could do as much for his country in other ways, and that as the only son of his parents he ought not to leave them. Ives had no military ambitions or desire for adventure; his decision proceeded purely from a religious sense of duty.
On August 19, 1862, the Governor of Rhode Island commissioned Ives a first lieutenant with orders to report for duty to serve as an aide to General Isaac Rodman. On September 1, Ives departed from Providence to join Rodman in Washington. Rodman was then in command of the third division of General Ambrose Burnside’s ninth Army, about to move into Maryland which had now been invaded by the Confederate forces. The army departed Washington on September 7, and on September 12 reached Frederick, Maryland, where they engaged the enemy and drove them from the city. The Confederates retreated to South Mountain, where they made a stand, and a bloody battle was fought on September 14. General Rodman’s division was fully engaged in the fighting; it was the first time that Lieutenant Ives saw action, and his coolness and courage under enemy fire earned him the respect of his general and fellow officers.
The Confederates then retreated towards Sharpsburg and occupied the heights near the Antietam River, pursued by the Union forces who took up position to engage them. The battle began at sunrise on Wednesday, September 17. At about three o’clock, having crossed the Antietam River, General Rodman’s forces were ordered to attack a battery of enemy guns on the heights to the left of the Union line. In the charge that followed, both General Rodman and Lieutenant Ives were mortally wounded. A cannon ball hit Ives in the right thigh, killing his horse underneath him. He was taken to a field hospital where it was initially thought that he would likely recover.
His father and two companions arrived at the hospital tent four days later, in the evening of Sunday, September 21. They decided to move Lieutenant Ives to Hagerstown, Maryland, some sixteen miles away. Although Hagerstown had been stripped of virtually all supplies and left in a shambles by two succeeding occupying armies, a lady of the town received the wounded officer into her home, and saw that he was made comfortable.
After about a week, however, it became clear that Ives was not going to recover. Most likely, infection had set in. Ives was told that he was dying. By all accounts he received the news calmly, in a spirit of humble submission to God’s will, and spent the remaining hours of his life in prayer and also in naming the gifts to be made in the distribution of his estate. A local Episcopal priest celebrated the Eucharist at a makeshift altar erected at his bedside and gave him Holy Communion. Ives died on September 27, at the age of twenty-five. His body was brought back to Providence and his funeral took place here in S. Stephen’s Church on October 1, exactly a month from the day of his departure from home.
On the day before his death Ives requested his father to offer $5,000 towards paying off the $20,000 debt that S. Stephen’s had incurred in the construction of this building – provided that the remaining $15,000 be raised within one year of his death. It was, in effect, a deathbed “challenge grant.” The parish corporation voted on October 23 to accept the gift; and by April 5, 1863, the $15,000 had been raised and the debt was cleared. (By the way, $20,000 in 1862 would be equivalent to about $460,000 today; and $5,000 would be about $115,000. So, Ives bequeathed the equivalent of $115,000 on condition that the parish raise the equivalent of $345,000 within a year.)
Although these events happened a hundred and fifty years ago, it’s important for us to know this story, because we’re the beneficiaries of the legacy left to us by Robert Hale Ives, Jr. and all the other founders and benefactors of this parish. Their generosity and sacrifices made possible what we have here today. Our calling, likewise, is to serve as stewards of this legacy in our own time so that we may faithfully hand it on to the future generations who will come after us. In just over a month, at a dinner to be held at the Hope Club on Tuesday, November 13, we shall kick off a capital fund drive to address some urgent needs for renovation and repair of the fabric of our buildings – including but not limited to the stained glass windows in the north aisle where Robert Hale Ives, Jr. is memorialized. I invite us all to reflect on the gifts that we’ve received from those who’ve gone before us in this place. How fitting it is, a hundred and fifty years on, to have this opportunity to put into practice in our own time the virtues of generosity and self-sacrifice that they exemplified in theirs.
As a Civil War buff, I especially enjoyed this sermon.
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