T.S. thanks for your post. It is useful and confirming.

You indicated that as a group, the Masons did not participate in politics and War. That is consistent with what I have read in Masonic Lodge Minute Books recorded during the CW.

About all I could find as regards Masonic activities during the CW, I posted at

http://history-sites.com/mb/cw/nvcwmb/index.cgi?read=44340

Are you able to add anything to what I posted that might give us any better idea about how the Masons conducted themselves during the CW?

When I think about Masonic Lodges located in the war zone, with Brothers being KIA every day, widows in destitute circumstances and kids without food, it is almost incomprehensible that at least some discussion of the consequences of the War did not occur during regularly scheduled meetings, if not proposals on how to deal with occupying Union forces, travesties visited upon civilian members of the community, etc. But, as you say - perhaps such actions were indeed carried on outside the Lodge hall.

Maintenance of the separation between Masonic business and all non-Masonic business during regular meetings must have been very difficult at best.