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During the American Civil War, Turner organized one of the first regiments of black troops (Company B of the First United States Colored Troops), and was appointed as its chaplain. Turned urged both fre-born blacks and "contrabands" to enlist. Turner regularly preached to the men while they trained and reminded them that the "destiny of their race depended on their loyalty and courage". It was not uncommon for the regiment to march to Turner's church to hear his patriotic speeches. In July 1863, the regiment had completed its formation and was preparing to leave for war. In November of that year, Turner received his commission as chaplain, becoming the only black officer in the 1st USCT. Turner discovered that the duties of a Union army chaplain in the Civil War were not well defined. Before the war, chaplains only taught school at army posts. During the war, the duties expanded to include holding worship services and prayer meetings, visiting the sick and wounded in hospitals, and burying the dead. Each chaplain had to work out his role in his regiment according to the expectations of the men in his care and his own talents. For Turner, this appointment allowed him to grow in influence among the African-American population. Turner was a chaplain for two years. Not long after reporting for duty, he caught smallpox and spent months in the hospital. He returned in May, just in time for his company to participate in its first Battle of Wilson's Wharf on the James River. From May through December, his unit participated in the fighting around Petersburg and Richmond. At the end of the year, they participated in the massive amphibious attack against Fort Fisher. Turner spent the spring of 1865 with his men as they joined Sherman's march through North Carolina. When the fighting ended, he was sent to Roanoke Island to help supervise a large settlement of ex-slaves. Discharged in September, he received another army commission as chaplain of a different African American regiment, which was assigned to the Fredmen's Bureau in Georgia. Shortly after arriving he resigned and left the army. He turned his attention to politics, civil rights, black nationalism, and the development among the Southern fredmen of the AME Church. In his role as chaplain, Turner developed some of the ideas, attitudes, and skills that became manifest in his later career, in which he became a Reconstruction politician, a powerful churchman, and a national race leader. While serving in the army, Turner refined his thinking about the African race and its future. Two specific activities propelled him to wide attention among both blacks and whites in both North and South. First, his newspaper letters from the battlefield attracted many readers and admirers in the North, and they launched him on a lifetime of journalism. Second, in the first months after the war ended, he used his position as army chaplain to lead emancipated fredmen into his all-black church; this represented a significant culture shift for the ex-slaves and