By the Grace of God: as the nation spiraled through rancor and discord to the Civil War, Americans both North and South experienced a miraculous and unprecedented revival of religious devotion.

"Christmas! Christmas! resounded through the camp this morning, the young artilleryman wrote in his diary, a smile on his face as he thought back upon the happiness of the day. Stifling a cough for he had come down with a terrible cold, he counted his blessings nevertheless. Christmas Day, 1862, had a been a fine, quiet day at the Union camp at Lumpkin's Mill, Mississippi, and that day had ended with a simple Christmas meal of Uncle Sam's best dumplings and unleavened bread.

As he sat in his tent reviewing the day and considering what else to write in his diary, Jenkin Jones, a 19-year-old volunteer from the tiny farming community of Spring Green, Wisconsin, thought about his family and friends back home, warming themselves by the hearth and exchanging modest gifts. In his imagination he envisioned the landscape surrounding his home, where the rolling hills of southwestern Wisconsin sparkled and shimmered under a mantle of brilliant white snow. He smiled again and put pen to paper. Everyone at the camp this Christmas had forgotten, for a time, about the war and about marching and rations and mud, turning instead, Jones wrote, "the gay reminiscence of the past in their minds and hoping again to enjoy."

The scene witnessed by artilleryman Jones that Christmas was repeated in all the camps, both Confederate and Union, across the warring nation, wherever hostilities permitted. Jones knew that in the cities and towns of both North and South, civilians, worried though they may be about loved ones engaged in the war, nevertheless faithfully and prayerfully attended church services that Christmas. Though the nation was rent asunder by war, both sides saw the present low state of the nation and the future hope of freedom as inescapably bound to the ineffable wisdom of the Creator.

Both North and South, the participants in the war, even those who before the advent of hostilities were largely irreligious, ended up looking to God for guidance. As a result, the titanic struggle of the era was a test of faith as well as arms, and it led to a great revival of Christian religious faith and feeling that in its splendor and glory was as unique and noteworthy as the war itself was divisive and bloody.

The Second Great Awakening

The first half of the 19th century, those six decades that preceded the Civil War, were a time of great ferment in religious belief in the fledgling United States. The thrust of the nation to the West was accompanied by a tumultuous exploration of religious faith that has come to be known as the Second Great Awakening.

This revival of religious feeling started out, in many cases, with the effort of individual Christians who, moving west, brought their faith with them. "Many clergymen moved West and, without support from the East, took up farms, worked on them six days a week for a livelihood for themselves and their families, and preached on Sundays," wrote Yale historian and theologian Kenneth Scott Latourette. Gradually their work bore fruit as more and more of the population of the expanding country picked up the banner of Christ. By the 1820s, individual pastoral and evangelical efforts were being supplemented by organized efforts as many faith-based organizations were created.

All of this was the outgrowth of a population with a passionate commitment to faith. For the most part, Latourette notes in his History of Christianity, the movement "had little patience with what it regarded as theological subtleties. Largely from the Evangelical background of the revivals, it respected, studied, and taught the Bible, sought to win individuals to a personal Christian commitment, was activist, and was generous in giving time and money." And even in the already long history of Christianity, it was unique. It affected and changed the lives of millions, bringing them to camp meetings where sermons were preached by eloquent and powerful pastors and where hymns were sung with joy and passion. "Probably nothing of this kind of similar dimensions had previously appeared in the history of Christianity or of any other religion," wrote Latourette.

The immediate result of the Second Great Awakening of the first half of the 19th century was the creation of a citizen population that felt keenly that religion was the indispensable support of liberty. "The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other," Alexis de Tocqueville observed in Democracy in America after visiting the United States in 1831.

In popular opinion, both sides viewed the hostilities through a religious lens as a fight to preserve liberty. The South held that the Federal Government in Washington had no constitutional authority to force a state to remain in the Union at gunpoint, while many in the North felt a moral imperative to defeat the South in order to preserve the Union (Lincoln's rationale for going to war in the first place) and/or abolish the evil of slavery (an issue that became more important as the war dragged on). Partisans on both sides felt they held the moral high ground, and both sides believed, or hoped, that Providence would smile upon their cause.

Christian Soldiers

And so the mighty hosts of North and South joined in bloody battle in a conflict in which, on either side, both man's most heinous moral shortcomings and most admirable hopes and dreams of faith and righteousness stood in stark and clear relief. The war had a terrible majesty that made even Lincoln, a nonbeliever at the start of the war, conscious of the influence and majesty of a higher power. The condition of the nation, he wrote in his 1864 letter to Albert G. Hodges, editor of the Frankfurt, Kentucky, Commonwealth, "is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God." When in despair over the war's depredations, the president admitted: "I have often been driven to my knees by the realization that I had nowhere else to go."

The feeling that the whole of the war was somehow beyond the limited control of man, that every person involved was held in the tight grip of Providence, led to an incredible surge in faith on both sides, but particularly so in the Southern armies. There it was led by Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, exemplars of Christian manhood.

That Stonewall Jackson was a master tactician and fearsome warrior is without question. But though he earned fame in war, he was a religious man through and through, and his faith was a prominent catalyst of the great revival of religious feeling that swept the Southern armies, and particularly Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. As a chaplain in that army, the Reverend J. Wm. Jones had the opportunity to witness firsthand the faith of Lee and of Jackson. As for Jackson, Jones notes that he was misunderstood by his critics at the beginning of the war. One of these critics told Rev. William Brown, editor of the Central Presbyterian, that he thought Jackson was crazy, saying: "Why, I frequently meet him out in the woods walking back and forth muttering to himself incoherent sentences and gesticulating wildly, and at such times he seems utterly oblivious of my presence and of everything else."

Later, Rev. Brown discovered what Jackson was really doing out in the woods. When Brown asked him about his strange behavior, Stonewall replied: "I find that it greatly helps me in fixing my mind and quickening my devotions to give articulate utterance to my prayers, and hence I am in the habit of going off into the woods, where I can be alone and speak audibly to myself the prayers I would pour out to God."

Jackson's great devotion to God never left him, and he prayed fervently even in the heat of battle. This had a tremendous effect on the faith of the troops around him. Rev. Jones quoted the recollections of one soldier who witnessed Jackson's faith while under fire. "I saw something to-day which affected me more than anything I ever saw or read on religion," the soldier recalled. "While the battle was raging and the bullets were flying, Jackson rode by, calm as if he were at home, but his head was raised toward heaven, and his lips were moving, evidently in prayer."

Jackson believed that the terrible war that wrought death and destruction on the South was a sign that the nation was not nearly Christian enough. In winter quarters at Corbin's Farm in December 1862, he wrote to his close friend John Preston of his desire for peace: "I greatly desire to see peace, blessed peace, and I am persuaded that if God's people throughout our Confederacy will earnestly and perseveringly unite in imploring His interposition for peace, that we may expect it.... We call ourselves a Christian people.... Let the framework of our government show that we are not ungrateful to Him." Christmas Day, 1862, found Jackson writing to his beloved wife, lamenting again that the country needed faith so that the war would end. "Oh! That our Country was such a Christian, God fearing people as it should be," Jackson wrote. "Then might we very speedily look for peace."

As a leader, both on the field of battle and of the religious revival that swept the Southern army, perhaps only the incomparable Robert E. Lee surpassed the great Stonewall Jackson. Like Jackson, Lee was a man of deep and abiding faith, and felt it his duty as a leader to see that his men received every opportunity to exercise their own faith. In 1862, Lee had issued a general order suspending all duties within the army, except for inspection, on the Sabbath, in order "to afford the troops rest and to enable them to attend religious services." Lee reiterated this command in stronger terms in General Order No. 15, dated Feb. 7, 1864:

   The attention of the army has already
   been called to the obligation of
   a proper observance of the Sabbath;
   but the sense of its importance, not
   only as a moral and religious duty,
   but as contributing to the personal
   health and well-being of the troops,
   induces the commanding general to
   repeat the orders on that subject. He
   has learned with great pleasure that
   in many brigades convenient houses
   of worship have been erected, and
   earnestly desires that every facility
   consistent with the requirements of
   discipline shall be afforded the men
   to assemble themselves together for
   the purpose of devotion.

When once the great general was informed that the chaplains of the Army of Northern Virginia often prayed for him, he was visibly affected. According to Rev. Jones, who was there, "The old hero's face flushed, tears started in his eyes, and he replied, with choked utterance and deep emotion: 'Please thank them for that, sir--I warmly appreciate it. And I can only say that I am nothing but a poor sinner, trusting in Christ alone for salvation, and need all of the prayers they can offer me.'"

Nowhere was General Lee's faith more evident than in the beautiful and eloquent Christmas message he sent to his beloved wife Mary in 1862. "I will commence this holy day by writing to you," Lee began, continuing:

   My heart is filled with gratitude to
   Almighty God for his unspeakable
   mercies with which he has blessed us
   in this day, for those he has granted
   us from the beginning of life, and
   particularly for those He has vouch-safed
   us during the past year. What
   should have become of us without His
   crowning help and protection? Oh, if
   our people would only recognize it
   and cease from vain self-boasting and
   adulation, how strong would be my
   belief in final success and happiness
   to our country! But what a cruel thing
   is war, to separate and destroy families
   and friends, and mar the purest
   joys and happiness God has granted
   us in this world; to fill our hearts with
   hatred instead of love for our neighbors,
   and to devastate the fair face of
   this beautiful world! I pray that, on
   this day when only peace and goodwill
   are preached to mankind, better
   thoughts may fill the hearts of our enemies
   and turn them to peace.

The Great Revival

The simple and powerful faith of Generals Jackson and Lee was matched by the unwavering faith of most of those in the ranks. And the number of believers grew throughout the war, with chaplains reporting numerous conversions in the camps. In his book Soldiers Blue and Gray, historian James I. Robertson, Jr. of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute pointed out that in the West, "a chaplain in [Confederate] General Braxton Bragg's army reported forty conversions nightly over a two-week period." Religious zeal extended to building churches. According to Robertson, "Forty chapels were ... built along Virginia's Rapidan River in the space of a few weeks." Likewise, troops from the Northern armies also threw up new houses of worship.

The churches were not the only manifestations of the strong religious inner life of the soldiers. Writing to his wife, a Confederate surgeon noted: "You who have never seen it cannot imagine such scenes as are daily transpiring here. From daylight until the late hours of the night nothing is heard but hymns and prayers."

Not even the dangers of battle could divert the soldiers from their prayers and Christian work. Like Stonewall Jackson, they lifted their hearts and prayers to Heaven while bullets whizzed by on their deadly errands. Christian ministers, both North and South, tending to the spiritual needs of the soldiers, worked close to the front lines. According to one Northern soldier who had high praise for this bravery, the ministers worked "close to the rear of the battle line, often amidst the crashing of shells and the smoke of battle." According to this soldier, "These priests of God, Catholic and Protestant, asked no questions of the sufferer, but simply obeyed the divine precept to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and bind up the wounds of both friend and foe alike."

It was the same in the South. Professor Robertson notes that the religious devotions of the soldiers often could not be disrupted even by heavy cannon fire. During a religious service at the front in 1862, a witness described one such incredible scene. The men were on their knees in prayer when a Federal artillery barrage began. "Faith and devotion were not strong enough to prevent my opening my eyes and glancing around," the witness admitted. To his surprise, the other soldiers continued in prayer, even as the shells fell closer to the gathering. Finally, when the shells got too close, the soldiers "felt it would be wise and well to supplement the protection of heaven by the trees and stumps of earth, if they could find them, and so they were actually groping for them with arms wide extended but eyes tight closed, and still on their knees."

It is striking that the participants in the great and terrible war between the states felt keenly the hand of Providence upon them and that in the midst of the awful carnage and frightening bloodshed, when it would be expected that the baser elements of mankind would be supremely manifest, the wondrous hand of God wrought the opposite outcome, prompting instead a truly miraculous, unprecedented, and unequaled revival. "God is reviving his believers," a Southern soldier wrote triumphantly to his sister back home in Georgia. "The Soldiers amid hardships and privations are now more zealous for the Cause of Christ, Than our Christian friends at home."