He is also notable for his eyewitness accounts of his time as chaplain to one of the Unattached Companies Massachusetts Volunteer Militia during the American Civil War and for publishing his own New Testament "Hanson's edited New Testament" (1885), which was a revision of the English Revised Version with "baptism" changed for "immersion" and other changes.
[4] He then became minister of the Universalist New Covenant Church of Chicago, where he worked on his New Testament.
(1828)[8] His view of early church history was carried on by George T. Knight.
Hanson is cited as a primary source in the 1911 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, and New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (1908–14) articles on Universalism.
Hanson and Knight's reading of church history has been challenged,[9][10] but has also found defenders, such as Ilaria Ramelli.