Best of Civil War Memory (3)

November 13, 2009

in Best of CWM, Civil War Culture, Civil War Historians, Lost Cause, Memory, Religion, Robert E. Lee, Slavery, Southern History

Battlefield Prayer, by John Paul StrainSome of my favorite posts over the past four years address themes of religion. While the last few years have produced an impressive amount of new scholarship on religion in the nineteenth-century our popular memory of the war continues to be mired in overly-simplistic and narrow assumptions about the subject. Much of it revolves around images of “Christian Cavaliers” in contrast with a godless North.

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  • toby
    One of the most evocative pictures of Irish-American military history is that of the Irish Brigade receiving a general absolution from Chaplain William Corby before advancing into the Cornfield on the second day at Gettysburg. You can see one version here .... there are many, even one on a t-shirt.

    http://irishcatholichumanist.blogspot.com/2009/...

    This was one of the rare moments when a Catholic priest is allowed to give absolution without hearing a confession. However, I do find it hard to believe that Croby delivered the long speech he is supposed to have made, but we underestimate the religious impulse of the era, North and South.

    Feel free to use this picture whenever you hear talk about "godless Yankees".
  • toby
    A recent blog by Andrew Sullivan. And another reminder that there were Christian gentlement on both sides.

    http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily...
  • Thanks for the link to Sullivan's blog. The only problem with the post is that black soldiers did not serve as citizens of the United States. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 was still on the books. Sullivan should have known this. Even the men in the clip that is included in the post does not make mention of citizenship as a motivator. The men in the scene talk about manhood.
  • toby
    Yes, that is true. It always seemed to me that Glory was about black soldiers struggling to be considered as men, not just as citizens. Ir was a bit more visceral than being able to serve on juries.

    Sullivan is wrong in a strict sense, but he feels so strongly about gays in the military and the repeal of DADT that I would give him a pass on the history.

    The main point of the post (of course Lincoln got there first!) is that the "Gravedigger" character in the movie (played by Morgan Freeman), Robert E. Lee & Stonewall Jackson as represented in the (Kunstler?) painting, and the Irish Brigade in the Gettysburg absolution pictire, are all praying to the same God.
  • msimons
    Now Kevin you know Grant was a Drunk , and a Slave holder till the 13th amendment and Sherman was an out and out racist Butcher. ;>) Nothing Christian bout either one of those 2. :>)
  • Let's get our facts straight re Grant and slavery: http://www.nps.gov/ulsg/historyculture/slaverya...

    I have no idea what point you are making re: Sherman. The point of the post is not to challenge whether someone should be considered a Christian.
  • msimons
    Sorr you didn't notice my ;>) it was my febel attempt at Sarcasm.
  • msimons
    Kevin have you ever read Christ in the Camp ? It was written by the Chief of Chaplins for the CSA. It is quite detailed in its recording of Revivals, Spritual Awakenings and services held by Chaplins across the South during the CW I know that it has been out print for a long time. I was given a copy about 1o years ago by a retired Army Chaplin.
  • margaretdblough
    I don't know of anyone who denies the importance of religion to soldiers in the Confederate armies, including the ANV. The biggest objection is to those accounts that make it sound like it was not simultaneously occurring in the Union armies as well. One of the two major soldiers' relief organizations was The U.S. Christian Commission. The 19th century abolition movement drew strength and recruits from religion. Well before the Civil War, major Protestant denominations split over the issue of slavery (that the Catholic Church didn't appears to be more a matter of how it was organized than that slavery was not a divisive issue). The Southern Baptists emerged out of one of these splits. Gen. Longstreet's uncle Augustus Baldwin Longstreet was a leader of the pro-slavery forces in the schism in the Methodist Episcopal Church. As for leaders, whatever criticism one has of Union General O.O. Howard as a military man (and there are many), he was widely known for his deep religious views and the probity of his personal character.
  • I can't tell you how many times I've read through Christ in Camp. It is one of the more important books out there on the social and religious experience of Lee's men. It is especially important re: the 1863-64 winter revivals in the Army of Northern Virginia. That said, it is a primary source and not a critical study of Lee's army.
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