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 South continued to believe in God's favor upon them. Jefferson Davis took office as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Confederacy in Montgomery, Alabama and issued his first inaugural address. The last words of the address asked of the people,
Reverently let us invoke the God of our fathers to guide and protect us in our efforts to perpetuate the principles which, by his blessing, they were able to vindicate, establish and transmit to their posterity, and with a continuance of His favor, ever gratefully acknowledged, we may hopefully look forward to success, to peace, and to prosperity (Davis).
The way that Davis viewed the fight of the South was similar to that of the Revolutionary War. God granted freedom from the tyrannical and unjust crown of England, so Davis believed God would set the South free from the tyranny of the United States government. Joel W. Tucker preached a sermon a year later in North Carolina drawing the same comparison. Tucker explained that God fought with the Revolutionary fathers much like he would fight with South and any defeats served for the sake of character and humility.
On July 21, 1861 Union forces entered into battle for the first time at Manassas with hopes of reaching Richmond. They were defeated by Confederate forces including some under the direction a religiously pious "Stonewall" Jackson. After the defeat of the Union at Manassas, the Southern morale spiked greatly. A preacher in Augusta County, Virginia wrote in his diary on July 21, 1861, "Reading chiefly of the wonderful victory that God has given us" (McFarland). One can imagine the general sentiment around the South after news of the first battle of the war had been fought by Confederates and won by Confederates. Many prayers, sermons, and quotes in petition to God had been raised and had seemingly been granted to the South. Consequently, since prayer worked in the favor of the South before, President Jefferson Davis issued a day of fasting, prayer, and humiliation throughout the Confederacy on Friday November 15, 1861. The proclamation
issued by Davis thanked God for the victories given to them and beseeched the people of the Confederacy to send up supplication for more victory. On that day, many across the Confederacy entered into chapels and churches to hear the clergy preach their sermons. A certain Presbyterian minister in Richmond, Virginia spoke to his congregation about the current war and declared, "I believe, that there has never been an army since the time of Cromwell, in which there was a more pervading sense of the power of God than our own" (Moore 13). This continued to be the general feeling across the South as more victories were added under their belt; especially since the Confederate Army was significantly smaller and less equipped than the Union Army.
The ministers in the South, especially Presbyterian ministers, preached that God directed the arms of the soldiers on the side of the South. The lay people believed it, their Commander-in-Chief believed it, and many of the predominant, Confederate generals of the war believed it. As mentioned before, Stonewall Jackson had a reputation for being pious and disciplined in spiritual matters. As accounted by one of the Chaplains to Lee's Army John Granberry, on one occasion a man approached Jackson in the woods only to find him walking around muttering incoherent words and gesticulating wildly. Come to find out later that Jackson was praying with his eyes open. Even during battle Jackson would lift his hands and pray for victory. Prior to the battle of Fredericksburg Jackson rode out in front of his men and led them in praying for the day's victory. Furthermore, after a victory Jackson would require of the men to give thanks and prayer to God for the battle (Jones 88-89). Jackson's commanding officer General Robert E. Lee shared in some of the piety. Lee issued an order in 1864 that on the Sabbath no duties should be completed except for those that are absolutely necessary and that the men should attend a church service as well in reverence to the God that helped them in their victories (Lee). The Army of Northern Virginia took their duties and their religion quite seriously and continued to thank God for each and every victory. After the victory at Chancellorsville, Lee wrote to Jefferson Davis "We have again to thank God for a great victory" (Jones 55). Again, he wrote in a General Order stating,
The general commanding takes this occasion to express to the officers and soldiers of the army his high appreciation of fortitude, valor, and devotional displayed by them, which, under the blessing of the Almighty God, have added the victory of Fredericksburg to the long list of their triumphs" (Lee).
The order asserted to the men that the victories won before and that were being won, should be attributed to God.
As history accounts, the victories did not last. The South lost a great battle at Gettysburg and eventually the war. So what justification did the South have as to why "the Lord's Army" had suffered great defeats? A couple months after the major defeat of the Army of Northern Virginia in Gettysburg, Jefferson Davis issued another day of fasting and supplication to plead to God on behalf of the Confederacy: "a people who believeth that the Lord reigneth and that his overruling Providence ordereth all things-to unite in prayer and humble submission under his chastening hand, and to beseech his favor on our suffering country". Davis still asked God's help, but the defeats suffered were seen as chastisements and not defeats. In reaction to the proclaimed day, a minister named Stephen Elliot in Savannah Georgia preached a sermon declaring the intention of the Confederacy. He quotes a psalm which reads "The Lord of Hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge". According to Elliot, this declaration soaked through each part of the Confederacy from President Davis and down to his officers, from the soldiers to the citizens, from "the man of the sword to the man of the gown". Elliot beseeched his congregation to fervently seek God in hopes that "The hand of OUR GOD is upon all them for good that seek him; but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him" (5-6). The spiritual responsibility of the lay people was to turn their hearts towards God and seek him in hopes that the tides of the war would be turned back in their favor. That same year the Confederate Army issued a book of devotions that contained scriptures pertaining to God's favor and protection as well as prayers to pray prior to battle and after a victory. The prayer of thanksgiving after a victory dedicates the very work of the war ultimately to the gospel: "the whole glory whereof we do ascribe to thee, who art the only giver of victory. And, we beseech thee, give us grace to improve this great mercy to thy glory, the advancement of thy Gospel, the honor of our country, and as much as in us lieth, to the good of all mankind" (Devotion 7).
On March 10, 1865 just one month before the Confederate defeat at Richmond and the surrender at Appomattox Jefferson Davis issued one last day of fasting, prayer, and humiliation across the Confederacy. A headline in the New York Times on that day read, "SOUTHERN NEWS.; FAST DAY IN CONFEDERACY. A Faint Attempt to Cheer the Southern Heart (query.nytimes.com). The Northern newspaper wrote from a biased point of view but the point remains. The religious encouragement at this point in the war kept an expended people running on fumes. Peculiarly enough, sermons, diary entries and letters on Southern defeats and how they related to God in the later years of the war are quite difficult to find. The South seemed to have taken up silence on the issue of God backing their side of the war. They believed in God's providence, that is God's judgment and choice on the outcome of matters. So what more could they say about the defeats except that it was God's will. The religiosity of the South did not stop but was merely redirected towards personal and local matters. On April 4, 1865 five days prior to the surrender at the Appomattox Courthouse Jefferson Davis made a final address to the people of the Confederacy in which his last words seek to encourage the faith of the people of the South: "Let us not, then, despond, my countrymen; but, relying on the never-failing mercies and protecting care of our God, let us meet the foe with fresh defiance, with unconquered and unconquerable hearts" (Davis).
In conclusion, both the North and the South fought the Civil War with the backing of God in their minds. The society of the Antebellum South highly prized honor, chivalry, biblical principles, and an idealized America. When the North jeopardized these values the South lashed out not as the aggressor but as a defender. To the Confederates, fighting for the South meant fighting for God and the rights he had given men in the bible specifically to own slaves. At the onset of the war and throughout the first couple of years, the religious sentiments in the Antebellum South acted as a catalyst for the war. The engraving of the seal of the Confederacy was given to South Carolina as the first to secede from the Union. The engraving carried the motto of the Confederacy: Deo Vindice which means God will defend or as it became more appropriately interpreted at the end of the war God will vindicate. The religious justification eventually solidified and the men took up arms against their neighbors to the North in order to fight a war against a tyrant that to them was trying to take away their God given right of slave ownership. As the war continued and battles were won, the idea that the South was the Lord's Army only grew stronger which fueled the fight against the North. However, after the Confederates began to wane they still continued their petitions to God for his favor in arms, but the belief that the South's cause and fight was given to them by the Almighty began to change. Many of
the ministers, generals, statesmen and laypeople believed in God's providence. By the end of the war the silence in the letters, diaries, and sermons on the defeat of the South spoke loudly of the acceptance that God had judged rightly and given the war to the North. At his second inaugural address Lincoln spoke very similar words to those of Nehemiah Adams saying, "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other" (Lincoln). The people of both the North and the South turned their eyes towards heaven in hopes that God would give aid to their cause. Lincoln continued in his address saying that neither side could declare that God aided them but rather the entire war had been a judgment of God's for the oppression that the American's had put on the backs of the slaves: "He now wills to remove [slavery], and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came." (Lincoln). From a religious perspective, during the war the generals and the clergy preached to their respective congregations that God fought for them on the battlefield as well. Strangely enough though, as Lincoln explained, the war was not given in victory to either side since in a certain light the war acted as a chastisement to the United States and a purging of slavery from the land.