Upon the Altar of the Nation

by Harry S. Stout

  12 Goodrich, Sermon on the Christian Necessity of War, 5.

  13 See Paluden, “A People’s Contest,” 339-74.

  14 See Perry Miller, Errand into the Wilderness; Miller, The New England Mind; and Bercovitch, American Jeremiad.

  15 Elsewhere I have traced the rhetorical transformation of the jeremiad from theocracy to democracy in New England Soul.

  16 See, for example, Hovey, Freedom’s Banner.

  17 Banner of the Covenant, May 4, 1861.

  18 Independent, January 1, 1861. On the development of the nineteenth-century religious press, see Nord, “Systematic Benevolence,” in Sweet, Communication and Change in American Religious History, 239-69.

  19 I have counted column space given over to religious and general news in a sampling of religious newspapers from 1860 to 1865 (cited throughout this book), and find that with the onset of war the ratio of general to religious news almost reverses, so that for every column of religious news there are three or four columns of general news.

  20 Christian Herald, April 18, 1861.

  21 Independent, April 25, 1861.

  22 Christian Herald, April 25, 1861.

  23 Ibid.

  24 American Presbyterian, April 18, 1861. See also the Christian Intelligencer, April 18, 1861.

  25 Hodge, State of the Country (reprinted from the Princeton Review, January 1861). For a summary of the issues raised by this pamphlet, see VanderVelde, Presbyterian Churches and the Federal Union, 33—36.

  26 United Presbyterian of the West, March 21 and April 21, 1861.

  27 Now published in Tennessee, the Christian Recorder is the oldest continually published black newspaper in the United States. See Williams, Christian Recorder, 12.

  28 Christian Recorder, April 27, 1861.

  29 Christian Instructor and Western United Presbyterian, July 10, 1861.

  30 Ibid.

  31 United Presbyterian of the West, May 2 and 16, 1861.

  32 Banner of the Covenant, April 20 and May 4, 1861.

  33 Presbyter, May 19, 1861.

  34 On the “Christianization” of the South, see Loveland, Southern Evangelicals and the Social Order, and Schweiger, The Gospel Working Up. In claiming Christianity as the most powerful cultural system in the antebellum South, I do not mean to imply it was the only one. Powerful competing systems emerged defined by the slaveholding elite, a cultural heritage of violence, and the culture of honor. For especially good summaries of these, see Wyatt-Brown, Shaping of Southern Culture; Stowe, Intimacy and Power in the Old South; and Genovese, Slaveholders’ Dilemma.

  35 Smyth, The Sin and the Curse, 11-12. The Reverend Benjamin Palmer issued an almost identical argument in New Orleans; see Slavery, a Divine Trust published in Fast Day Sermons. For an admirable summation of South Carolina clerical reflection on slavery, labor, religion, and morality, see Sinha, Counterrevolution of Slavery, and Snay, Gospel of Disunion.

  36 Joseph Ruggles Wilson, Mutual Relations of Masters and Slaves, 11.

  37 Thomas Smyth Papers, 1830—1861, Third Notebook, July 31, 1861, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University.

  38 Ibid. For similar sentiments, see Rees, Sermon on Divine Providence.

  39 James H. Elliott, Bloodless Victory, 11.

  40 See Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America, 38.

  41 A reading room on Eleventh Street in Richmond kept on file all the city papers and all available papers from every state, city, and town in the South. See Kimball, Starve or Fall, 74.

  42 Southern Churchman, April 25, 1862. Religious presses such as the Episcopal Southern Churchman and the Southern Presbyterian printed “a Religious Family Newspaper” on their mastheads. Virtually all religious weeklies registered a family focus with sections particularly directed at women and young readers. They also assumed that they were the only source of news. A writer for the Central Presbyterian responded on November 24, 1860, to criticisms that the paper included too much secular news with the observation that “many of our subscribers read no other paper. [Our] chief purpose, in this day, is to furnish instructive and useful reading, to discuss religious and ecclesiastical topics, to arouse and develop the Christian zeal and efforts of the church, and to help forward the cause of truth and righteousness.” A female writer to the same paper on December 18, 1862, however, informed the editors that her family had other sources of news: “We read the latest news through the week, the Bible and our own ‘Southern Presbyterian’ on the Sabbath.”

  43 Central Presbyterian, June 2 and 30, 1864.

  44 Ibid., December 15, 1860; Richmond Christian Advocate, November 14, 1861, and February 20, 1862.

  45 Richmond Christian Advocate, March 26, 1861. On the doctrinal underpinnings of secession, see Farmer, Metaphysical Confederacy.

  5. “TO RECOGNIZE OUR DEPENDENCE UPON GOD”

  1 The national motto was formally introduced on the Confederacy’s seal in 1863. See Bonner, Colors and Blood, 115—16.

  2 Nineteenth-century churchmen were acutely aware of the absence of God in the federal Constitution and the implications of this for Christian nationhood. See Stout, “Rhetoric and Reality in the American Revolution,” in Noll, Religion and Politics, 62-76. Southern interpretations of the significance and meaning of the Constitution in the context of new nation-forming are described in Coulter, Confederate States of America, and Emory M. Thomas, Confederate Nation.

  3 See Stout and Grasso, “Civil War, Religion, and Communications,” in Randall M. Miller et al., Religion and the American Civil War, 313-59.

  4 In Love’s calendar of printed fast and thanksgiving sermons, only 7 of 622 titles originated in the South. See Love, Fast and Thanksgiving Days of New England.

  5 In Confederate Morale and Church Propaganda, 64-65, James W. Silver lists the following Confederate fasts: June 13, 1861; November 15, 1861; May 16, 1862; September 18, 1862; March 27, 1863; August 21, 1863; April 8, 1864; November 16, 1864; March 10, 1865. In addition, Basil Manly lists February 28, 1862, “Day of Pub. humiliation, fasting and prayer, appointed by the President of the Confederate States.” See Hoole, “The Diary of Dr. Basil Manly,” 227. Abraham Lincoln proclaimed fasts for September 26, 1861, April 30, 1863, and August 4, 1864. In addition, Lincoln proclaimed four thanksgiving days and Davis two. I have recovered the texts of Davis’s proclamations from the Confederate newspapers. Lincoln’s proclamations are reprinted in Sickel, Thanksgiving.

  6 In Confederate Morale and Church Propaganda, 64-65, James W. Silver points to the ubiquity of fast sermons in the South, but by limiting his concept of religion to a form of “propaganda,” Silver misses the ritual power of the fast day to shape a people’s view of itself in war. More recently, Faust has summarized the fast-day jeremiad in Creation of Confederate Nationalism, 26-27, in terms that recognize its inclusive significance as “a recurrent occasion for clerical solemnization of this marriage of sacred and secular.” Also useful is Daniel, Southern Protestantism in the Confederacy.

  7 Davis’s proclamation was reprinted in virtually every Confederate religious and secular newspaper.

  8 Barten, Sermon Preached in St. James Church, 11. g. Before the Civil War, virtually all Southern Protestants agreed that the doctrine of the spirituality of the church precluded the sort of “federal covenant” on which public fasts rested and through which “political sermons” were preached. See Leith, “Spirituality of the Church,” in Hill, Encyclopedia of Religion in the South, 731, and Farmer, Metaphysical Confederacy, 256—60.

  10 See Farmer, Metaphysical Confederacy, 235-90.

  11 See Faust, Mothers of Invention, 179-95.

  12 Barten, Sermon Preached in St. James Church, 8-9.

  13 On the development of the nineteenth-century religious press, see Nord, Faith in Reading.

  14 Data calculated from Crandall, Confederate Imprints, and Harwell, More Confederate Imprints. Crandall and Harwell list 1,146 religious titles in 2,828 unofficial publications (these figures exclude periodicals, newspapers, an
d sheet music).

  15 Richmond Daily Dispatch, June 14, 1861.

  16 See Stowell, Rebuilding Zion, 1-48.

  6. “THE CHURCH WILL SOUND THE TRUMPETS”

  1 Lincoln, “Address to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois,” January 27, 1838, in Basler, Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings, 81.

  2 Quoted in ibid., 50, 225.

  3 Elliott, God’s Presence with the Confederate States, reprinted in Chesebrough, God Ordained This War, 314. See also Sledd, Sermon.

  4 On the transformation of antislavery from “gradualism” to “immediatism” once the category of “sin” was invoked, see David Brion Davis’s classic essay: “The Emergence of Immediatism in British and American Antislavery Thought,” 209-30.

  5 New York Tribune, June 3, 1861.

  6 Christian Instructor and Western United Presbyterian, July 10, 1861.

  7 Independent, May 2, 1861.

  8 Thomas Smyth Papers, 1830-1861, Third Notebook, July 31, 1861, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University.

  9 Hoge, Discourse Delivered, 18, 22-23.

  10 Charleston Daily Courier, July 4, 1861.

  11 D. F. Parker to the Reverend Alonzo Hill, May 4, 1861, Civil War Papers, Box 1, Folder 7a, AAS.

  12 Elliott, Silver Trumpets of the Sanctuary, reprinted in Chesebrough, God Ordained This War, 314. For similar sentiments see Gregg, Duties Grawing Out of It.

  13 Longstreet, Fast-Day Sermon, 6. See also Mitchel, Fast Day Sermon, and Henry Niles Pierce, God Our Only Trust.

  14 See Sprague, Freedom under Lincoln (Boston, 1965); Davis M. Silver, Lincoln’s Supreme Court; and Hyman, A More Perfect Union.

  15 On Claiborne Jackson and the creation of a Confederate identity in the Border West, see Christopher Phillips, Missouri’s Confederate.

  16 See Fellman, Inside War; Schultz, Quantrill’s War; and McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 292.

  17 On “conciliatory” strategies, see Grimsley, Hard Hand of War, 23-66.

  7. THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN: “A TOTAL AND DISGRACEFUL ROUT”

  1 On mobilization for war, see Bcnsel, Yznhee Leviathan.

  2 “Forward to Richmond,” which soon became the motto of the North, was coined in Greeley’s New York Tribune, June 26, 1861: “The Nation’s War Cry: Forward to Richmond!” See Stoddard, Horace Greeley, 213.

  3 Quoted in McWhincy and Jamieson, Attack and Die, 44.

  4 On the limitations of technology and the incompetence of untrained civilian amateurs, see Griffith, Battle Tactics of the Civil War, and Nosworthy, Bloody Crucible of Courage.

  5 There is a vast literature on the military strategies of the war and the devastating consequences they would produce. The classic text on war was Clausewitz, On War. Clausewitz was probably not read by any generals and Jomini by only a few. In their book Why the South Lost the Civil War, the authors use Clausewitz’s and Jomini’s categories to analyze Civil War battles, even while conceding they were not read by the participants; see Beringer et al., Why the South Lost the Civil War, 39-52. Major secondary studies include McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom; McWhiney and Jamieson, Attack and Die; and Hagerman, American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare. Two multivolume histories of the Civil War that deal fully with the military aspects are Foote, Civil War: A Narrative, 3 vols., and Catton, Centennial History of the Civil War: vol. 1, Coming Fury; vol. 2, Terrible Swift Sword; vol. 3, Never Call Retreat.

  6 In the end, as we shall see, frontal assaults largely ceased. Only then would the offensive tactics of siege and overland marches succeed in defeating the Confederacy.

  7 Quoted in Long with Long, Civil War Day by Day, 98.

  8 Quoted in Andrews, The North Reports the Civil War, 86.

  9 Christian Instructor and Western United Presbyterian, July 3, 1861.

  10 See McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 340-47.

  11 See William C. Davis, Battle at Bull Run, 193-98, 248—49.

  12 See Eaton, Jefferson Davis, 138.

  13 Burlingame, With Lincoln in the White House, 52, 209.

  14 Charleston Mercury, July 24, 1861.

  15 Presbyterian Synod of Virginia, Annual Report 1862.

  16 New York Herald, July 27, 1861.

  17 Martha LeBaron Goddard to Mrs. [Mary] Johnson, October 24, 1861, Manuscipts Collections, AAS.

  18 New York Evangelist, July 25, 1861.

  19 Ibid.

  20 Charleston Mercury, September 26, 1861. The “contraband” designation applied to slaves was invented in May 1861.

  21 For an excellent description of Britain’s response to the war, see Blackett, Divided Hearts.

  22 Russell’s report is reprinted in Commager, Civil War Archive, 108-11.

  23 Adams’s letter is reprinted in Masur, “The Real War Will Never Get in the Books,” 5.

  24 William C. Davis, Battle of Bull Run, 257. Because of McClellan’s reluctance to embrace total war (to say nothing of Lincoln and his policies), historians have been unkind to him and tend to see him the way Lincoln wanted him to be seen: as a timid, frightened commander who exaggerated enemy strengths to avoid open battle. See, for example, T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and His Generals; Kenneth Williams, Lincoln Finds a General; or Sears, George B. McClellan.

  25 Christian Intelligencer, July 25, 1861. See also the American Presbyterian, August 1, 1861, and the Christian Instructor and Western United Presbyterian, August 7, 1861.

  26 New York Evangelist, August 22, 1861.

  27 For a classic description of Bushnell’s “Christian interpretation,” see Clebsch, “Christian Interpretations of the Civil War,” 212-22, and Mullin, Puritan as Yankee.

  28 Bushnell, Reverses Needed, 10-11, 20.

  29 Ibid., 14. For a similar arguments see, for example, Christian Instructor and Western United Presbyterian, November 6, 1861, or Fisher, Sermon Preached in the Chapel of Yale College, 8. 30, On Puritan conceptions of the “meaning of America,” see Perry Miller, Errand into the Wilderness. By 1861 the term “Puritan” had lost much of its Calvinistic and theocratic content, but the notion of a “city upon a hill” governed by God remained deeply in place.

  31 In On Hallowed Ground, 19, Diggins lumps Lincoln, Bushnell, and de Tocque-ville together as Lockean liberals and misses the substantial differences between Lincoln and Bushnell.

  8. TRIUMPHALISM: “ADORNED BY THE NAME OF GOD”

  1 Quoted in Fredrickson, Inner Civil War, 74.

  2 Jackson’s letter is reprinted in Commager, Civil War Archive, 112.

  3 Butler, Sermon, 16.

  4 See, for example, Jacobs, Sermon for the Times.

  5 Reed, A People Saved by the Lord, 9.

  6 Ibid., 10. For similar sentiments, see also Armstrong, Good Hand of Our God upon Us, 14.

  7 Cooke, “The Sorrows of Fairfax,” Southern Illustrated News, March 7, 1863.

  8 William Gilmore Simms to James Lawson, August 20, 1861, reprinted in Masur, “The Real War Will Never Get in the Books,” 219.

  9 All of Lincoln’s fast-day proclamations are reprinted in Sickel, Thanksgiving, 145. This proclamation was most likely written by Secretary of State William Seward.

  10 Banner of the Covenant, September 21, 1861.

  11 Boston Telegraph, September 23, 1861.

  12 New York Tribune, September 23, 1861.

  13 On the disappearance of Bull Run from the secular press coverage, see Andrews, The North Reports the Civil War, 100.

  14 E. A. Adams, Temple and the Throne, 9.

  15 New York Evangelist, October 17, 1861.

  16 Scandlin, Diaries 1849-1864, entry for September 26, 1861, AAS.

  17 Weller, Two Firebrands, 5, 8, 11.

  18 Cheever, God’s Way of Crushing the Rebellion, 6, 11-12. For a contemporary affirmation of this perspective, see Reynolds, John Brown, Abolitionist.

  19 Dewey, A Sermon Preached, 8-9, 12-13.

  20 See Fellman, Inside War.

  21 Gray, The Warriors, 31. See also Ehrenreich, Blood Rites.

  9.
“WILL NOT THE MARTYRS BE BLESSED ... ?”

  1 Martha LeBaron Goddard to Mrs. [Mary] Johnson, October 24, 1861, Manuscripts Collection, AAS. In a later letter dated January 12, LeBaron still feared the future of emancipation: “Whether Freedom is to come thro’ our present government—or over its ruins I cannot tell—and I dread the failure of this experiment.”

  2 Banner of the Covenant, November 23, 1861.

  3 Ibid., January 2, 1862. Bullard’s sentiments were frequently echoed in soldiers’ letters. See McPherson, For Cause and Comrades.

  4 Woodward, Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, 222-23.

  5 Richmond Daily Whig, November 9, 1861.

  6 Charles C. Jones Jr. to Rev. C. C. Jones, October 11, 1861, reprinted in Myers, Children of Pride, 128.

  7 Mary Jones to Charles C. Jones Jr. in ibid., 138-40. On the role of women in promoting Confederate nationalism, see Faust, Mothers of Invention, 16-20.

  8 Woodward, Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, 198. On women’s fear of slave insurrections, see Faust, Mothers of Invention, 56-62.

  9 Woodward, Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, 228-30.

  10 Ibid., 233.

  11 Charleston Daily Courier, November 15, 1861.

  12 Richmond Daily Dispatch, November 15, 1861. This same theme was repeated. On January 2, 1862, the Dispatch cautioned its readers that “we are inclined to believe that it is not the intention of Providence that we should owe our independency to any agency but our own exertions.”

  13 Ibid., October 7 and November 30, 1861.

  14 For a discussion of the paradoxical denigration of Confederate chaplains, see Daniel, Southern Protestantism in the Confederacy, 54-81; see also Romero, “Confederate Chaplain,” 130. On Union chaplains, see Shattuck, Shield and Hiding Place.

  15 On the Confederate tendency to feminize chaplains, see Schweiger, The Gospel Working Up, 99.

  16 On manliness in the Civil War, see Berry, All That Makes a Man, 171-74; and McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, 78. On the tensions between Christianity and manliness in the antebellum South, see Wyatt-Brown, Shaping of Southern Culture, 102-5.