Religion and the American Civil War
Randall M. Miller, Harry S. Stout, Charles Reagan Wilson (editors) with an afterword by James M. McP
Number of quotes: 6
Book ID: 186 Page: 23
Section: 3A4C
Both sides, therefore, predicted a victory for God’s nation and believed that they themselves become more godly while securing that victory. In both cases, the spiritual world triumphed over the material world, and by inference the dangers and the anxieties spawned by an industrial market-driven world would be controlled. {6}
Quote ID: 4105
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 186 Page: 24
Section: 3A4C
Soldiers and civilian relief agencies marched and sang as Christian soldiers to war. The hymns of the age are martial Christianity at its most militant. “Stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross,” the Presbyterian hymn proclaimed. But this refrain was bested by the hugely popular “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which, despite its title, says nothing about a republic and a great deal about the coming of the Lord. {7}On both sides, the intertwining of God and State was almost complete. It could be seen north and south as Lincoln and Davis both proclaimed days of fasting and/or thanksgiving in the name of God as the war progressed. Both men believed that God might be appeased, or at least that the public might be strengthened by such religious devotions. Davis even converted to Anglicanism in 1862.
Quote ID: 4106
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 186 Page: 25
Section: 3A4C
Sherman’s army on the march through Georgia saw themselves and were portrayed in the popular literature of the time as Christian soldier’s “marching as to war.” One of my favorite stories tells of the time when, on the march through Georgia, one of the regimental bands began to play the hymn known as “Old One Hundred.” Band after band throughout the army picked up the hymn and the soldiers joined in until five thousand voices could be heard singing “Praise God from whom all blessing flow.” Then they quieted down, broke camp, and proceeded through central Georgia to gather some of those blessings.
Quote ID: 4107
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 186 Page: 30
Section: 3A1,3A4C
There were a few minutes who acted as prophets, reminding Americans of how far from God’s perfection human nations still were. But the link between God and Union victory was almost complete. When it came time to choose who ought to speak for the North, at ceremonies in Fort Sumter in April 1865 again raising the nation’s flag, Lincoln selected the nation’s most prominent minister, Henry Ward Beecher. The choice seemed right.
Quote ID: 4108
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 186 Page: 36
Section: 3A4C
When Mark Twain linked religion and war, he was bitter at the hypocrisy of standing up for Jesus while condoning the slaughter of thousands. His “The War Prayer” asserts that when people pray for victory in war, they utter the following thoughts:"O Lord Our God, help us to tear [enemy] soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst… We ask it in the spirit of love, of him who is the Source of Love, and who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts."
Reid Mitchell has pointed out the irony, at least, of comparing Jesus to a soldier since the fundamental duty of the soldier is to kill, not to suffer. The “Battle Hymn of the Republic” might read, Mitchell says, “as He killed to make men holy let us kill to make men free.” {43}
[Footnote 43] Mitchell, Vacant Chair, 147; Mark Twain, “The War Prayer,” in The Portable Mark Twain, ed. Bernard DeVoto (New York, 1946), 579-583.
Quote ID: 4109
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 186 Page: 43
Section: 3A4C
A brief observation in Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address highlighted the greatest theological conundrum of the Civil War. Both North and South, he said, “read the same Bible.” The profundity of this statement was twofold. Most obviously, both North and South read the Bible, almost universally in the Authorized Version. More important for a theological understanding of the Civil War, both read the Bible in the same way. {1}
Quote ID: 4110
Time Periods: 7
End of quotes