[1] He resigned his journalistic position on his appointment as captain in the United States Volunteers in 1862, and served for one year, receiving brevets of major and lieutenant colonel.

[2] Church regularly called for a better standard of marksmanship amongst militia and National Guard soldiers.

[3] In August 1871 he wrote in The Army and Navy Journal that “An association should be organized in this city [New York] to promote and encourage rifle-shooting on a scientific basis.

With George Wood Wingate, he established the National Rifle Association of America that year,[4][5] and in 1872 he replaced its first president, the retired general Ambrose Burnside.

In one issue he criticized the living arrangements aboard USS Monitor, a vessel built by John Ericsson.