God's Almost Chosen Peoples: A Religious History of the American Civil War (Littlefield History of the Civil War Era) [Hardcover]

At the time of the Civil War America was a Christian Protestant nation. Public religion is both accepted and expected at all levels. While religious freedom is the law, religious tolerance is not public policy. Catholics suffer from the idea that their allegiance is to the Pope not to America. There are very few Jews but they are subject to the standard discrimination against them. The physical attacks Mormons suffered drove them out of the United States. Westward expansion brought America and the Saints back into contact creating a series of problems for both sides. If you were not a religious person privately, publicly you accepted religion and were respectful of it. This was not a problem for the majority. If you were not a church member, you were a believer. God was a participant in the life of people and of the nation. The public request His guidance and seeks His blessing on all undertakings. While people might fail to be good Christians, the majority is aware of their failings and worry about their soul. These attitudes are common to both sides and carried by both sides into the war.
This is not "Church History" although the actions of churches are very important to the story. This is not a history of the revivals that swept the armies and the nation, although these revivals are important to the story. This is a comprehensive look at American's religious feelings. This book looks at how these feelings impact people's views on slavery, secession and the war's causalities. Religion sustained the both sides. They see victory as evidence of God's favor and defeat as a reason to pray for victory. Death is God's will and the dead are martyrs to the cause residing with God in Haven. National days of pray are common and the churches support the cause and war to the bitter end. Most of have never been involved in a nation fight for survival, this book looks at the role of religion in this type of war.
I have read several books on religion during the Civil War. This is without a doubt the most comprehensive. While well written and readable, this is not an easy read. The subject can be dry and controversial. I suspect that many people will find reasons to be upset with the author's presentation and conclusions. The religious may find an undercurrent of skepticism while others will feel the author excuses the churches. I feel the author made a real effort to present a fair balanced inclusive presentation. This is a very informative book and needs to be read by everyone interest in the subject.

George C. Rable says that during the American Civil War, "Loyalty to the nation could not be separated from loyalty to God." This was the case regardless of which "nation" one was part of. Both sides believed they were doing the Lord's work. A lack of patriotism equaled a lack of faith, or even atheism. "One could be a good citizen without being a Christian, an Indiana Baptist association conceded, but one could not be a Christian without being a good citizen." At the same time, in his address to the Georgia General Assembly, Confederate preacher Benjamin Palmer said: "Our cause is preeminently the cause of God himself, and every blow struck by us in defense of his supremacy."

During church services, it was common to "confess" the sins of the nation, though these sins were mostly attributed to the other side. While the North pointed to slavery and rebellion as the cause of God's wrath, the South blamed it on the Yankee's "atheism" and oppression:

"Lincoln, like the Egyptian Pharaoh, had hardened his heart against eleven states that sought to leave the house of bondage."

Preachers throughout the Union and Confederacy found no shortage of Old Testament stories to represent their plight: the Exodus, the division of the twelve tribes (used skillfully by both sides), Israel's battles with the Philistines, the Southern David fighting the Northern Goliath (less popular after Union victories), and so on.

Rable shows how religion was even used to justify slavery. In a sermon preached in Savannah, Stephen Elliott called slavery a "divinely guarded system, planted by God, protected by God, and arranged for his own wise purposes." Calls for abolition were clear displays of the godlessness of the North.

This assurance on the part of both sides that theirs was the righteous cause helped justify hatred. One Alabama preacher claimed a "deep Christian and inextinguishable hatred toward the demons of the north....it is doing God service to kill the diabolical wretches on the battlefield." Horace Bushnell, a Congregationalist Minister from Connecticut, asked a soldier whom he met on the road, "Killed anybody yet?" When the officer was not sure, Bushnell replied, "Time you had, that's what you went out for."

Though Rable records a lot of rhetoric and hypocrisy, he also gives plenty evidence of true religion, both on the battlefield and at home. There were some ministers who refused to be political and continued to preach nothing but the Gospel, while their congregations served in whatever way they could. Some, such as the Catholic Sisters of Mercy, tirelessly rendered aid and showed love to soldiers from either side. And though the war hardened some, it had a sanctifying affect on others. One soldier wrote:

"There is something irresistible in the appeal which the Almighty makes, when He strikes from your side, in the twinkling of an eye, your friend and comrade."

As mentioned above, others found the war not so sanctifying. When upbraided for swearing, one Baptist minister turned captain replied: "The Lord has given me a furlough until this damn war is over."

Most, however, were never Christians to begin with. Rable says estimates suggest that no more than 25% of Union armies and around 1/3 of the Confederate forces were Christians. But who can number the faithful? One thing is sure: there was enough drinking, gambling, cursing, and dancing on both sides to keep the tract presses running and the missionaries praying.

Rable examines every aspect of religion during the Civil War, showing both the good and bad without apparent bias. And if his book lacks in any area, it's not in the research; there are almost two hundred pages of bibliography and footnotes. This is a work that would be difficult to dispute, as we hear directly from those who were involved. Rable quotes letters, diaries, sermons, and speeches from soldiers, mothers, preachers, and nuns.

Whatever Rable's religious background, he shows an excellent understanding of church history, theology, and denominational distinctions. He also displays a thorough familiarity with the Bible. We can trust that he knows what he's talking about.

My difficulty with this otherwise great work is the repetition. Though there is a loose chronological progression, the writing is mostly made up of short anecdotes and quotes that, after a while, sound the same. In the first chapter we learn that both sides believed God was on their side, both saw their victories as favor and their defeats as judgment, both twisted Scripture to justify their cause, both looked for providence in every blink of a gnat. And, though illustrated in different ways each time, we hear the same themes throughout each chapter. But Rable throws in enough new material and interesting quotes to keep us reading; in the end we're glad that we did.

God's Almost Chosen Peoples will be most enjoyable to history lovers, and is essential for those who have an interest in the American Civil War. But it will also be valuable to students of religion, as it provides an in-depth look at the state of religion during the most difficult period in American history.

I received a complimentary review copy of this book from The University of North Carolina Press.

The title of George Rable's new book on the Civil War, "God's Almost Chosen Peoples" (2010) derives from a speech that Lincoln gave on February 21, 1861 to the New Jersey Senate en route to his inaugaration in Washington, D.C. Lincoln said: "I shall be a humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty and of this, his almost chosen people."
During the Civil War, religious Americans, North and South, had a strong sense of divine providence. They read the same Bible and prayed to the same God. They tended to think that God had a special providence for the United States which they analogized loosely to the ancient Israelites of the Old Testament.

Rable's book examines how people of faith tried to understand the Civil War in the years leading up to and including the conflict. He offers a complex, detailed, and thoughtful account of a subject that his received relatively little sustained attention in Civil War studies. Rable holds the Charles Summersell Chair in Southern History at the University of Alabama. He is best-known for his book, "Fredericksburg, Fredericksburg!" which was awarded the Lincoln Prize. His new book on Civil War religious history is dense and difficult. He offers important theological background for examining how people of faith viewed religion during the Civil War era. Rable has read an extraordinary range of original source material and religious texts, including sermons, denominational papers and statements, religious newsletters, diaries, among other sources. The bibliography and the end notes are massive. Rable examines both the Union and the Confederacy. He considers a variety of religious denominations, even though his focus is on American evangelical Protestantism. He considers the writings of ministers and theologians, of religious lay individuals, and of the soldiers in the field who fought the War.

As Rable points, out, the story of religion in the Civil War has many "zig-zags" and resists easy summarization. His study has the virtue of exploring the many divergent viewpoints that surfaced in both North and South. But much of the book concerns America's "Civil Religion", a term Rable might have considered more thoroughly. Religious Americans saw themselves within God's providence. They tended to read the Bible literally and as a blue print of sorts for the extremities in which they found themselves. Although they understood that American government (and the Confederate government as well) separated Church and State, many Americans tended to view their history and the Civil War in Biblically religious terms. The pervasiveness of religion was large but should not be over-estimated. Rable points out that between one American in six or seven was a church member during the Civil War Era, although the number of people who attended church with some regularity was considerably larger.

The book begins with a consideration of how various religious denominations responded to slavery prior to the outbreak of the War. Some individuals thought formal religion should take no position in an essentially political matter but focus instead on questions of personal salvation. Other people used religous beliefs to support strong committments to slavery or anti-slavery positions. This particular question about the role of religion in civil life remains, of course, much with us. Then Rable considers responses to Lincoln's election and shows a broad spectrum of religious views in both North and South, with some voices in both sections advocating conciliation. With the firing on Fort Sumter, religious views in both North and South hardened as denominational leaders on both sides urged the conflict forward and perhaps conflated patriotism with religious belief.

The larger portion of this lengthy book examines religion in the camps -- where there were a minority of strong religious believers even taking account of religious revivalism -- and on the political and on the home front. Religious leaders in both North and South seemed to move too quickly to the conclusion that God was on their side. Leaders in both sections proclaimed numerous fast days and days of Thanksgiving. Religious providential interpretations varied as respective battles were won or lost. Ultimately, many but not all religious leaders in the North became strong supporters of Emancipation as a religious end of the Union's war efforts. As the war dragged on and bloodshed increased alarmingly, the urgings of people of faith probably became increasingly important in keeping the commitment of both sides to battle to the last.

In the last chapter of the book, Rable examines closely Lincoln's Second Inaugural address which spoke in a more nuanced, complex manner than did the learned clergymen on either side of the difficulties of the conflict and of the ambiguities of providence. Over the years, Lincoln's Second Inaugural has become a primary text of what many scholars see as an American secular civil religion. Rable also examines the many responses of religious people to Lincoln's assassination.

Although it sometimes gets mired down in detail, Rable's book examines reflectively how many Americans in the mid-nineteeth Century understood religion together with the many different impacts of religion and religious believers on the Civil War.

Robin Friedman