CWL --- Unconquerable Rebels: Self-Deluded? Faithful to God?

Religious Belief and Troop Motivation: "For the Smiles of My Blessed Saviour," Jason Phillips, in Virginia's Civil War, Wallenstein and Wyatt-Brown, eds., Univesity of Virginia Press, 2005, pp. 101-113.

The movements of a soul can be glacially slow, covering years. Captain Joseph Manson, 12th Virginia Regiment, instead of detailing camp life and the movements of regiments, described his "search for God and salvation beyond the terrors of war." Many soldiers stated that they wished to die facing the enemy; conversely, Manson hoped to be found at the moment of death facing "towards the Celestial City & my Armor on." Beginning the chronicle of his soul while in the summer trenches of Petersburg, Manson like many others in those trenches pondered religion because it afforded to gifts: an explanation which made sense out of war and a code of behavior to guide them through vices of camp life and the mortal peril of combat.

In Jason Phillips' essay on CSA troop motivation, the conviction that God would deliver indendence to the South is considered. The belief was embedded deeply into the soil of Southern religious culture. The Confederate nation came to be viewed as being sacred, that is set aside for a special destiny. In part, this belief motivated Southern troops. Nineteenth century Christians understood that God was an active force in the affairs of the nation; these Christians believed that God governs the universe, constantly improving it until it reaches a conclusive end. For them all history is the progess of Providence toward a Judgement Day that marks the final triumph of good over evil.

Phillips cites literature of the time as presenting that the "only proper view of this Revolution, is that which regards its a a child of Providence." Wearing these worldview spectacles, religious Southerners understood the carnage to be directed by spiritual agents and felt that they were pawns in the hand of a higher power. This reader recalls several of Robert E. Lee's remarks that reflect these sentiments. CSA soldiers, to a degree, were fatalists. "In a world where God's hand touched everything, a person's conduct could have far-reaching consequences," states Phillips.

The notion that God would trick and forsake the Confederacy was unthinkable. Confederates believed that the work of Providence would ensure Confederate victory and that Confederates were holier than the Yankees. These beliefs fostered the conviction that CSA soldiers were invincible. For many pastors in the South, God was unknowable but Providence was evidence of his movement. Providence's progress would be aided by the repetentant hearts of the soldiers.

Posssessing this point of view, the Confederate soldier repented and followed Providence, even into their deaths. The Army of Northern Virginia passed through three revivals: autumn 1862, and the winters of 1863-1864 and 1864-1865. Many CSA soldiers persisted beyond the point of logical endurance and optimism. Was the "unconquerable mentality a product of wartime self-delusion" or a product of Southern religious beliefs? Historian Reid Mitchell has calls it "insane Confederate optimism"; historian Richard Beringer has labels it "unrealistic bravado." (p. 110)

Phillips sees Confederate religion encouraging self-delusion, escapism and unwarranted optimism. Was the Confederate acceptance of their own invincibility insane and unrealistic?
"Our knowledge of psychology and the war's outcome must not supplant the fact that Confederates had a worldview different from our own today." Phillips understands that the Confederate worldview ill prepared them for the war's outcome; but the worldview's optimism was consistent with their religion. The naval blockade, the disintegration of slavery, and the deficient of supplies and manpower could be overcome by Providence so as to meet Providence's goals.

For this reader, the Confederate faith is similar to the faith of John Brown of Harper's Ferry fame. David Reynolds' John Brown, Abolitionist (2005) and John Stauffer's The Black Hearts of Abolitionists (2002) thoroughly describe the worldview of the abolitionists. Historians, writing from 1900 to 1975 found John Brown to be insane; currently there is little academic doubt that Brown was sane and believed that Providence would find a way to free the slaves.
Confederates were sane and believed that Providence would sustain the Confederacy's independence. Currently, this reader is looking for an essay entitled God's Will and Northern War Aims.

Thinking about that topic, maybe the essay has already been written and it's entitled The Second Inaugural Address delivered in March 1865.

CWL --- A Thin Line: Christian Love, Christian Hate

Christian Love and Marital Violence: Baptists and War--Danger and Opportunities, Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh, in Virginia's Civil War, Wallenberg and Wyatt-Brown, eds., Univesity of Virginia Press, 2005, pp. 87-100.

Of all Virginians who were church members, 42% were Baptists; Virginia Baptists represented a substantial segment of white popular opinion during the war. Reconciling Christian love with state sanctioned violence was a delimma that fostered both despair for the cause of Christ and hatred for Northerners. The Army of Northern Virginia's religious revivals during winter encampments helped Baptists set aside their despair but not their hatred.

Before, during and after the 1860 presidential election, Baptist clergy were extremely reluctant to to engage in open political activity. During this season, pastors offer jeremiads, the style and content of which harkened back to sermons preached in colonial New England. Special destinies were linked to special obligations. Unfulfilled obligations merited punishments. Punishments led to penitance; penitance led to awakenings. From Baptist pulpits, jeremiads supported the cause of Unionism during 1860 and early 1861. The political faith of the Virginia Founding Fathers was the cause of Unionism. Falling away from this political faith would bring about punishments.

Despite their avoidance of politics before Lincoln's April 17 call for troops, the pastors embraced the rebellion the President's line in the sand. "Evangelicalism and Confederate nationalism were intertwined in a complex braid of meaning and causality . . . ." states the author. He dismisses Charles Royster's contention that Southerners had a Bible-generated tendency toward the acceptance of violence. Royster sees violence being moved forward by the Biblical notion of atonement, "a sacramental mystery, the central act of which is bloodshed." What Royster proports, Virginia Baptists deny. They do not exalt military slaughter as a necessary religious sacrafice states Hsieh.

Baptist clergymen did not call "for destructive and patriotic warfare but for a cautious recognition that the ends of God and man" may be vastly different. Did Virginia Baptists see the war as a means for atoning for sin? No. Did the Virginia Baptists see the war as a "stimulant for sin and demoraliztion? Yes. The occassion of war was an occassion full of temptations.
Drunkeness, gambling, immoral sexual behavior, and swearing were soldier's vices. The influence of hearth and family for moral behavior was absent in soldiers' camps. Separation from the home community was a separation from the affections, sympathies and influences of the Christian family.

Baptist authors feared that Southerners at war would fail to keep half of the Golden Rule. Love your enemy, even though he was a Federal soldier. Christians would have to be careful while striking the enemy; it must be done in the spirit of the Master. If this spirit was lacking, then hope for the Master's help would be disappointed. Conversely, some pastors would embrace the bloodlust of the war. F. McCarthy, a civilian minister who joined the CSA army possibly as an enlisted man, wrote to a Baptist newspaper in Richmond, "if any Southern man lacks the anger
. . . to march to the battlefield and butcher the monsters that have invaded our soil . . . [he should sit and reflect uopon the] putrid qualities of the Northern heart and their base designs upon us and ours . . . [and] no chain will be strong enough to keep him from their throats."

Most ministers understood salvation would not be enhanced by destructive bloodletting, but would be advanced though revival in the camps. In the late fall of 1962, and during the winters of 1863-1864 and 1864-1865, revivals swept through the Army of Northern Virginia. Though spiritually revived, did the Rebel army begin to lose battles because it had lost divine favor?

Historians Drew Gilpin Faust, Harry Stout, and Richard Grasso show that the answer is No. Revival buttressed Confederate nationalism, even during days of defeat. The author believes that Virginia Baptist pastors never wavered in support of the Confederate cause and deeply mourned its destruction. After the war, he finds no pastor declaring that God had judged the South, the arm of the Lord was the Federal army, and that punishment occured when Southern property was destroyed and Southern slaves were freed.