You have a pocket New Testament, which was developed by the American Bible Society, for the first time, in 1862, to literally fit into a shirt pocket. It was distributed to the Armed Forces in the North and the South during the Civil War. The “Soldier’s Testament,” as it was also known, was distributed to soldiers, Confederates and Federals, including POWs and those hospitalized. It was difficult to ship Scriptures from the Society’s headquarters in New York City to the South during the Civil War. First they were shipped to the Maryland Bible Society and the Washington City Bible Society, and they helped in getting them behind the front lines in the South. Our records show that when the war ended, ABS had distributed 5,297,832 Scriptures to soldiers and civilians.
BS has distributed Scriptures to the U.S. Armed Forces since 1817, when 65 Bibles were given to the crew of the USS John Adams, thus beginning a program of contributing Scriptures to the armed forces that continues today.