1 of 4

When the men in blue and the men in gray marched off to fight in 1861, they carried more than rifles and knapsacks. They took the blessing of ministers and other Christian leaders.

There were, of course, exceptions. Historic peace churches (Mennonites, Brethren, and other Anabaptist bodies) did not endorse participation in the conflict, and disaffected elements in each section of the divided country voiced dissent.

On the whole, though, clergy of North and South found scriptural grounds for ardently supporting their respective causes. They preached that message unabashedly. America in the mid-nineteenth century was a culture drenched in the images of the Bible. The ministers’ ability to justify war in the name of the sacred Book did much to mobilize popular support and to maintain that loyalty until bullets and disease had claimed more than six hundred thousand lives.

When the election of Lincoln in November 1860 prompted southern secession, many northern ministers initially advised caution. Those with strong abolitionist convictions argued that departure of the errant states might prove a blessing, freeing the United States from the taint of slavery. The more numerous conservatives, some of whom sympathized with the South, hoped that a show of forbearance would cause the disunion movement to collapse and bring the seceded states to their senses.

When Confederate batteries opened fire on Fort Sumter in April 1861, however, reluctance to coerce the South vanished. The Union had to be preserved. Lincoln’s call for volunteers to suppress the rebellion won nearly universal backing from ministers. The words of a Congregational minister in Northampton, Massachusetts, may fairly stand as the motto of countless other Protestant leaders: “If the crusaders, seized by a common enthusiasm, exclaimed, It is the will of God! It is the will of God!—much more may we make this our rallying cry and inscribe it on our banners.”

The Union possessed sacred meaning because the hopes of humankind rested on its preservation. The United States stood in the vanguard of a biblical civilization. Its twin pillars—a pure Protestant Christianity and republican institutions—served as a model for the renovation of the world. If this elect nation were destroyed, said Baptist minister and educator Francis Wayland, “crushed and degraded humanity must sink down in despair.”

Many Yankee ministers thought Union soldiers were preparing the way for the kingdom of God on earth. William Buell Sprague, editor of the famed Annals of the American Pulpit, predicted that northern success would usher in “a flood of millenial [sic] glory,” “the great Thanksgiving Day of the World.” When Julia Ward Howe, visiting Washington, D. C., in autumn 1861, awoke one morning near daybreak to pen the familiar line, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,” she expressed a widespread faith.

Southern clergy also viewed their cause as holy. Several noted ministers, including Presbyterians James H. Thornwell and Benjamin P. Morgan, played a prominent role in the drive for secession. When the conflict began, the clergy justified it as a classic instance of a just war—and more.

The citizens of the new Confederate nation bore a special mission: to set before the world the ideals of ordered liberty, states’ rights, and biblical values, all of which Yankees had perverted. Many religious leaders rejoiced that the Confederate constitution—unlike that of the United States explicitly recognized the nation’s dependence upon God. Accordingly, said one minister, “the Southern Confederacy will be the Lord’s peculiar people.” In the words of another, “the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night was not more plain to the children of Israel.”

next page... |  1 of 4

share this page

RSS Feed   RSS Help