“Methodist Religion Among the Soldiers of the American Civil War,” Aldersgate Papers vol. 7 (September 2009): 90-105 (original) (raw)

This article gives a description of the religious experience of the ordinary Methodist soldier during the American Civil War of 1861-1865. The “holy war” rhetoric that issued from home pulpits, along with the model of the pious Christian warrior provided through Christian officers and generals, enabled him to retain a distinctively Christian character in the midst of the stresses and moral dilemmas of war. From his chaplains he heard preaching that was simple, direct, focused squarely on spiritual concerns, and called for urgent decision. His expression of religious devotion, even given the differences along this line which existed between Northern and Southern revivals, was of a less emotional type than that in evidence in earlier frontier revivals. His devotion was marked by prayerful dependence upon God and a reliance on the bonds of Christian fellowship, as brothers fought side by side against a common enemy. The battlefield tended to reduce the theological conflicts that arose out of the relative luxury of a peace-time situation. The survivors of the war would go on to face an increasingly more religiously and ethnically diverse America, in which the relative monopoly of Methodist revivalism would crumble in the religiously diverse world of the “gilded age.”

Sign up for access to the world's latest research.

checkGet notified about relevant papers

checkSave papers to use in your research

checkJoin the discussion with peers

checkTrack your impact