by Graham

Created on: May 28, 2008

Christianity in the Confederacy: God's Army
Looking back on the Civil War it is now clear that the primary force driving the South toward secession and ultimately war was slavery. For many years prior to the war the South believed that the United States government jeopardized the institution and economic system of slavery through a potentially unbalanced Senate and anti-slavery men in the white house. The South finally decided to secede from the Union when the "Black Republican" Lincoln took office. South Carolina was the first to break from the United States and then others followed. A strong force had pushed these men and states to make such drastic decisions. Americans in the 19th Century had deep rooted convictions backed by the bible and such an enormous movement had to have the backing of the divine in order for them to move forward. A minister from Boston, visited the South on occasion to gain a better understanding of slavery; in his accounts he wrote,

"Good men conscientiously persuaded of the truth and importance of their respective partial views of a great subject pleading for God, and therefore convinced each of them that the Most High is on his side cannot yield one to the other without doing violence to their consciences (Adams 7).
These words were spoken by Nehemiah Adams perfectly articulated the religious conflict that helped fuel the American Civil War. Since American society around the 1860s was quite religious it is safe to say that it was necessary for both the North and the South to be deeply convicted of their beliefs in order for them to move towards war. That is, both sides had to believe they were backed by God respectively.. In general, it was not enough for a Confederate or a Unionist to fight for the cause of the state. They had to have permission from the divine in order to move forward. John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was one example of how the religious sentiments of a man during this time could be turned toward violent action in order to preserve both his rights and conscience. In the Confederacy, the ministers acted as the spiritual officers to the lay people and the generals performed the same duty for their soldiers. The military powers and the clergy of the South preached the message to their respective congregations that they fought the war with the backing of God. This relation to the divine fueled the Southern war machine.
As the Union finally dissolved into the United States and the Confederate States of America, the

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