Religion, Civil War
Religion was central to the American Civil War experience. It gave Americans at war a vocabulary through which to understand life and death, a rationale for fighting (or not fighting) for one's country, a moral compass, and an institutional means of providing relief to soldiers in the field and people suffering on the homefront. Before the war, religious ideas informed the debates on slavery and the character and destiny of the Union. After the war, religious institutions and imperatives gave substance to African-American aspirations for freedom and autonomy; helped rebuild the defeated South and explain defeat to white Southerners; and spurred Northern interest in Reconstruction.
Background
Although much variety existed among Americans regarding culture and class, the men who served in the armies, especially those who rallied to the flags in 1861 and stayed for the duration of the conflict, were remarkably homogeneous in their backgrounds and beliefs. In both North and South, they came largely from farms or small towns in which family and church formed the basic cement of community. If they were not ardent believers or churchgoers, they at least accepted the basic tenets of nineteenth-century American Protestantism. Theirs was a faith still deeply rooted in the Old Testament, with a God of judgment who demanded discipline and devotion from His people.
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