Abolition and Christianity

It is not well recognized by many today that the urgency felt by manyAbolitionists came from their fervent Christianity. James McPherason has written several famous books about the Civil War era and speaks about the motivation of many young Union soldiers.

Ferris: Now, the soldiers who fought in the Civil War were very religious. What role did religion play in their daily lives and on the battlefield?

McPherson: Civil War soldiers were a product of what has been called the second Great Awakening in American religious history, that wave of evangelical Protestant revivalism in the early part of the nineteenth century.

I think most Civil War soldiers were quite literal in their Christian beliefs. Many of them would say in their letters that they had put their fate in God's hands. They were religious fatalists on the battlefield. They would write home and say, "I'm under God's protection whether I'm on the battlefield or at home in front of my fireside, and if it is His will to take me home to his bosom, He can do that as easily at home by my fireside as He can on the field of battle."

I think this kind of fatalism and this sense that God's will would determine their fate, rather than their own will, made them better soldiers. They were willing to put their fate in the hands of God, willing to go forward in time of battle, whatever happened.

I found in looking at their letters that many of them held a literal belief in salvation, in a life after death, that this life here on earth is merely a preliminary to eternal life and to a much better life after the death of the physical corporeal body.

Many of them said that they were unafraid of death because death was not the end of everything, and they looked forward, if they died on the battlefield, to being reunited with their loved ones in a future life. I think that made them much more willing to face the possibility of their physical death.

Pray for a revival of conscience equal to that of the Union soldiers.