New and Noteworthy: The Minds of the Soldiers

Psychological Consequences of the American Civil War,  R. Gregory Lande,  McFarland Publishing Company, 2017, pp. 256, $35.00. 

Review at Michigan War Studies, by R. Gregory Lande,

The American Civil War transformed the social and political fabric of the United States. It destroyed slavery, expanded the federal government, and mobilized over three million men for military service. In Psychological Consequences of the American Civil War, independent scholar R. Gregory Lande explores how a society fractured by war "confronted the lingering psychological consequences that followed four brutal years of deprivation, distrust, and death" (1), as its civilians and veterans struggled to make sense of the war's carnage and destruction. The book's subjects, including substance abuse, fraudulent physicians, depression, spiritualism, patent medicines, and crime, demonstrate the challenges facing postwar Americans.

Lande states that his "personal experiences in forensic psychiatry and addiction medicine have contributed insights that collectively informed my analysis of the social forces shaping America's postwar period." With an audience of general readers in mind, he uses a fluid writing style, short, punchy paragraphs, and extended narration. He takes little notice of previous scholarship on his subject, but promises a work different in "scope and analysis" from that of "many other eminent historians" (2). In the absence of any specific mention of those historians in his main text, readers are left to wonder just what makes his account distinctive.

The book comprises a preface and seven thematically organized chapters. Lande moves briskly from event to event and person to person, guided by a central theme that carries across several fronts. Chapter 1, "Sadness and Suicide," for example, describes how wartime homesickness morphed into debilitating nostalgia and a concomitant "rash of suicides" (34). Chapter 4, "Intemperance," concerns the spike in postwar alcoholism, while 5, "Carnival of Crime," explains how "Depression-driven dissipation" (151) drove up crime rates. The author maintains that "The riveting impact of a war now concluded left society rudderless, drifting toward a reflective introversion and anomie. Against this backdrop, brooding intensified, cynicism increased, and social outlets dried up. For an increasing number of individuals, the nihilistic spiral ended in suicide" (29).

This is not an argument-driven work but rather a broad investigation of a pervasive American postwar social malaise: "Emotional turmoil from four years of civil war contributed to decades of mayhem, misery, and malevolence on a scale unprecedented in America's short history" (193). To bolster such assertions, Lande canvasses census data, newspaper articles, personal correspondence, medical journals, and popular periodicals. While the resulting study contains interesting stories and makes some solid claims, it also postulates several tenuous connections between the Civil War and postwar upheaval. Chapter 4, for example, adduces census data showing that higher mortality rates in postbellum America were attributable to "venereal diseases, alcoholism, … diseases of the liver, … accidents of all kinds, and suicides" (100). Yet, as Lande himself notes, "the full impact of intemperance during the Civil War and in the following decades is nearly impossible" (99) to assess.
In this case, the inferred causal link between wartime and postwar alcohol abuse and higher death rates is entirely plausible. Lande's treatment of spiritualism in chapter 2, "A Loss of Faith," is less compelling. It dwells so long on antebellum-era spiritualism and famous practitioners like the Fox family and Cora Hatch as to overshadow the author's stated aim to show how the Civil War created "fertile ground for the rapid growth of Spiritualism" (39). Lande concedes that, though the war produced many easily preyed-upon "disillusioned victims" (75), "only skimpy evidence documenting Civil War soldiers' feelings about Spiritualism seems to exist" (59). Presenting a string of incidents and stories, however fascinating, does not effectively explain how the war changed Americans' spiritual thinking, a subject well elucidated by others.
 
Finally, certain claims suffer from lack evidence or ignorance of relevant scholarship. For example, Lande uses Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in his discussion of intemperance. Grant famously developed a drinking problem during his antebellum military service and the press often criticized him for drunkenness, correctly or not, during the war. Relying on a nineteenth-century biography, Lande describes Grant as too drunk to participate in the battle of Shiloh (6–7 April 1862), in order to set up his narrative of the general's conquest of his intemperance later in the war (113). In fact, Grant spent the night of the sixth with his troops in the field and personally coordinated the counterassaults that routed the Confederate forces the next day.

The gripping, often troubling tales told in Psychological Consequences of the American Civil War shed welcome light on the effects of the "furious forces unleashed by four years of war" (10) long after Appomattox. R. Gregory Lande's lively investigation of the world created by the Civil War will intrigue and instruct a wide general audience, if not specialist readers.

Review Source: Michigan War Studies

New and Noteworthy: Midnight During the Civil War--What Dreams May Come?

Midnight in America: Darkness, Sleep, and Dreams during the Civil War, Jonathan W. White, University of North Carolina Press, 296 pages, $34.95, publication date, March 24, 2017

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The Civil War brought many forms of upheaval to America, not only in waking hours but also in the dark of night. Sleeplessness plagued the Union and Confederate armies, and dreams of war glided through the minds of Americans in both the North and South. Sometimes their nightly visions brought the horrors of the conflict vividly to life.

But for others, nighttime was an escape from the hard realities of life and death in wartime. In this innovative new study, Jonathan W. White explores what dreams meant to Civil War–era Americans and what their dreams reveal about their experiences during the war. He shows how Americans grappled with their fears, desires, and struggles while they slept, and how their dreams helped them make sense of the confusion, despair, and loneliness that engulfed them.

White takes readers into the deepest, darkest, and most intimate places of the Civil War, connecting the emotional experiences of soldiers and civilians to the broader history of the conflict, confirming what poets have known for centuries: that there are some truths that are only revealed in the world of darkness.

The Author: Jonathan W. White is associate professor of American studies at Christopher Newport University.

Reviews: “Highly original, exhaustively researched, and compellingly written, Midnight in America makes a fresh and vital contribution to the essential Civil War literature. This is literally a dream of a book. And Jonathan W. White is one of the very best young historians in the field.” --Harold Holzer, winner of the 2015 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize.
 
“In a winning combination of marvelous research and creative analysis, Jonathan White examines how Civil War Americans experienced, thought about, and shared their dreams. Thick with clever arguments about war and society, Midnight in America illustrates how we might learn from the murky world of sleep and dreams and wartime.” --Matthew Gallman, author of Defining Duty in the Civil War

CWL---The Heart of General Lee's Army In Victory and Defeat

General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse, Joseph Glatthaar, Free Press, 624 pages, 19 maps, 41 photographs, appendix, notes, bibliopraphy, index, $35.00.

An exceptional history by professional standards and a thoroughly entertaining work! Glatthaar's General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse is a finely balanced match of statistics and story. Not driven by campaigns and chronology, but by the soldiers and their voices, Glathaar's effort opens the Army of Northern Virginia in a way unlike D.S. Freeman's Lee's Lieutenants. Recently, several battle studies have used soldiers' diaries in an intimate way; Rable's Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!; John Michael Priests' Antietam: The Soldiers' Battle, Tracey Power's Lee's Miserables: Life in the Army of Northern Virginia from the Wilderness to Appomattox and Noah Trudeau's Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage. Glathaar has managed in 472 pages of narrative (yes, there are 150 pages of appendix, notes, bibliography and index) to re-introduce both the scholar and the lay reader to the Army of Northern Virginia.

Those readers who enjoy Bell Irvin Wiley's Johnny Reb and Billy Yank, John Billings' Coffee and Hardtack or Sam Watkins' Company Atch should confidently approach General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse. Individual chapters focus upon religion and morality, arms and ammunition, combat, the homefront, medical care, desertion, and black Confederates. Campaigns and their battles are covered as they impact the soldiers in the ranks. Lee is treated honestly and without hagiography or disdain. Slavery is put in its place as a cause of the war, as a cause worth dying for and as a cause for regret.

CWL will place it on the Top Ten of 2008 and will return to General Lee's Army: From Victory of Collapse again. Most moving for CWL were three chapters 'The Grind of War', 'Spiral of Defeat' and 'The Final Days.' The collapse of the Army of the Northern Virginia, after a year of sacrifice beyond endurance by the men in the ranks, is nearly heartbreaking.

Forthcoming---Comrades In Arms: Loyalty, Betrayal, Heroism, Cowardice and Survival

Heroes and Cowards: The Social Face of War , Dora L. Costa and Matthew E. Kahn, National Bureau of Economic Research Publications, 304 pages, Princeton University Press, $27.95, January 1, 2009.

When are people willing to sacrifice for the common good? What are the benefits of friendship? How do communities deal with betrayal? And what are the costs and benefits of being in a diverse community? Using the life histories of more than forty thousand Civil War soldiers, Dora Costa and Matthew Kahn answer these questions and uncover the vivid stories, social influences, and crucial networks that influenced soldiers' lives both during and after the war.

Drawing information from government documents, soldiers' journals, and one of the most extensive research projects about Union Army soldiers ever undertaken, Heroes and Cowards demonstrates the role that social capital plays in people's decisions. The makeup of various companies--whether soldiers were of the same ethnicity, age, and occupation--influenced whether soldiers remained loyal or whether they deserted. Costa and Kahn discuss how the soldiers benefited from friendships, what social factors allowed some to survive the POW camps while others died, and how punishments meted out for breaking codes of conduct affected men after the war. The book also examines the experience of African-American soldiers and makes important observations about how their comrades shaped their lives.

Heroes and Cowards highlights the inherent tensions between the costs and benefits of community diversity, shedding light on how groups and societies behave and providing valuable lessons for the present day.

Text: from publisher

Other Voices---Early Review of Noswothy's Roll-Call to Destiny

Roll Call to Destiny: The Soldier's Eye View of Civil War Battles , Brent Nosworthy, Basic Books, 336 pages, March 2008, $27.95.

Reviewed by Bruce Trinque, Amston, CT on Civil War Discussion Group, Yahoogroups.com

Although in some ways Brent Nosworthy’s new Roll-Call to Destiny: The Soldier’s Eye View of Civil War Battle can be viewed as a companion to his previous, ground-breaking The Bloody Crucible of Courage: Fighting Methods and Combat Experience of the Civil War, fundamentally Roll-Call to Destiny is independent of that earlier volume, written from a quite different perspective. Thoroughly grounded in firsthand accounts, Roll-Call to Destiny provides a vivid examination of combat during the American Civil War: infantry, cavalry, and artillery (and even naval, or at least riverine, action), from the beginning of the war until nearly its end, both Eastern and Western theaters, Union and Confederate.

The focus is not principally upon the experiences of individual soldiers, but rather upon the activities of “small units” (usually, regiments or batteries, but also brigades or larger organizations, where appropriate) at several different battles, including First Bull Run, Gettysburg, and Missionary Ridge, but also lesser-known actions such as Arkansas Post and Darbytown Road. The author does not attempt to provide detailed accounts of the whole battles, but rather focuses upon one or more selected small units at those actions to illustrate numerous facets of Civil War warfare. He is particularly careful to link the theory and practice of such American combat to European military history and technical developments, showing how the American experience fit into a broader picture and that it is impossible to really understand the battlefields of 1861-65 without taking that broader picture into account. In several cases, the author challenges conventional wisdom and provides convincing new answers to old questions.

Besides this innovative and insightful assessment of Civil War combat, Roll-Call to Destiny offers plenty of more traditional military history in the form of stirring narratives of dramatic episodes peopled by soldiers whose courage and skill rose to the occasion – or sometimes did not. This is a book that should be of great interest and value to anyone seriously interested in the real nature of fighting during the American Civil War. Even those who think that they have already read everything there is to be said on the subject will come away with new information and ideas. This is definitely a book that deserves a strong thumbs-up.

Source: cwdg@yahoogroups.com

CWL--Sex in the (Wartime) City

Sexual Misbehavior in the Civil War: A Compendium of 1,036 True Stories, Thomas P. Lowry, Xlibris Press, 2006, Chapter 1, Prostitution in Virginia, pp. 15-25.

The following letter is imaginary but accurate.

Dear Wife,
Greetings from Alexandria, Virginia!
I won’t be sending you my pay for a couple of months.
I got drunk. Then the bartender took me to a house of ill fame and I had sex with a prostitute, who talked me into leaving the army (I missed you so much) and said she would help me do it. She sold me for $25 civilian clothes provided by the bartender. When I put them on the bartender came into the bedroom with the provost guard. I was arrested for desertion. The arresting officers got a reward of $30 that they split 50-50 with the bartender who split his share with the whore. I am losing $8 of my $13 a month pay for three months. Also, I am in Old Slave Pen jail and will be moved to the Prince Street Prison for three months and at hard labor.
Your husband,
The Private.

Thomas P. Lowry has discovered military court records that chronicle that sad story, with a several variations, many times. The amount paid for the clothes changes; it ranges from $25 to $80. On occasion, the arresting officers take a bribe from the deserter, but still arrest the offender. Several times, transportation out of Alexandria is to be provided for fees ranging for around $20.

In addition, Lowry presents some fairly frank information of the methods of whores acquiring customers in Alexandria. There were a pair of Southern ladies who sold heirlooms from their home; but a whiskey still was found in their basement by the provost guard. From the Potomac River docks, women would signal passing ship. The ship would come to the dock, drop the gangplank and a woman would get on board. The ship would pull away from the dock, idle in the current for a while and then return to the dock and discharge the woman. This event occurred so regularly that the woman that small crowds would come to a particular dock to cheer the women on and off the ship. When a ferry captain asked a woman who was going aboard a U.S. provost guard ship if she was going to fire a salute she replied she was going aboard to handle a gun.

The evidence from these trial shows that the U.S. authorities tolerated prostitution. There is evidence that only one whorehouse was shut down by the provost guard in Alexandria in the course of four years. Nearly all the cases Lowry has found are records of violence, desertion or noisy behavior. When men paid for sex and not sold civilian clothes, then prostitution went unnoticed by the provost. ‘Soiled doves’, ‘nymphs du pave ‘(girls of the pavement),’ frail but fair women’, ‘Cyprians’ who worked in ‘houses of ill fame, ‘houses of ill repute’, or ‘bawdy houses’ were terms used for whores and their domiciles in Victorian times and found in courts martial records. Much less frequently used, Lowry finds, are the terms whore’, ‘whorehouse’, and ‘bordello’. The term ‘parlor houses’ was a term reserved for the rich and well-to-do when the visited a whorehouse.

CWL --- Far From Heaven: Compromises and Conflicts of Faith By Yankee Soldiers

No Nearer Heaven Now But Rather Farther Off: The Religious Compromises and Conflicts of Northern Soldiers, David W. Rolfs, in The View From the Ground: Experiences of Civil War Soldiers, Aaron Sheehan-Dean, editor, University of Kentucky Press, 2007, pp. 121-144.

Religion was the prism through which many Northern soldiers viewed and interpreted many their wartime experiences. Noted historians Stephen Woodworth, Reid Mitchell, Earl Hess, and Edward Ayers have emphasized that a large number of Civil War soldiers were intensely religious. Personal identity and worldview were firmly rooted in a commonsense reading of the Bible and when their understanding of their place in the world collided with warfare, soldiers turned to God for strength to endure the crisis. (p. 138)

Like any soldier today, the terrible emotional burden of combat placed soldiers in a position to consider the errors of their lives and to also be courageous in the face of death. Yet, beyond this surface viewing of the religious life of the soldier issue, David W. Rolfs adds the dimension of the severe psychological suffering which soldiers experienced.

Even as soldiers became acquainted with cognitive dissonance, that is when beliefs and behaviors are mismatched, they also experienced moral dissonance, that is attitudes and behaviors are mismatched. Moral tension and guilt are, at times, dealt with by the soldier changing his perception of his identity. The evaluation by historians of a soldier's self-perception is risky business. Rolfs admits that "it may not be possible to properly diagnose a soldier's psychological state on the basis of a few letters, but one can certainly make a reasonable hypothesis based upon the evidence." (pp. 134-135)

Depression among soldiers who held Christian beliefs was likely states Rolfs. in soldiers' letters he has found deeper emotions than the feelings of a guilty conscience. Stereotypical explanations such as the failures of simplistic faith, a focus on other-worldliness, and one dimensional understandings of sin, just does not match up with the religious content primary source documents. "The common soldiers' faith was actually far more realistic and complex that previously portrayed--realistic, in that it was a practical faith that seriously addressed the everyday problems believers encountered living in a fallen world, and complex because it was a comprehensive faith that encompassed a wide range of changing religious sentiments, from the steadfast certitude of the seasoned saint to the despair of a less mature believer suddenly confronted with doubts.' (p. 139)

For a copy of this essay, request it via inter-library loan or email The Civil War Libarian.

CWL --- In A Strange Land: Christian Soldiers at War

Strangers in a Strange Land: Christian Soldiers in the Early Months of the Civil War, Kent T. Dollar, in The View From the Ground: Experiences of Civil War Soldiers, Aaron Sheehan-Dean, University of Kentucky Press, 2007, pp. 145-169, notes.

Court TV 1863 Tuesday July 10
7p Privates Gone Wild!
8p. Corporals Gone Wild!
9p Sergeants Gone Wild!
10p Lieutenants Gone Wild!
11 p Captains Gone Wild!
12a Chaplains Gone Wild!
1a Surgeons Gone Wild!
2a-6a Camp Revivals

7p-1:55a Written, Directed and Produced by Thomas Lowery, author of the Courts Martial Series, The Story Soldiers Couldn't Tell, and Sexual Misadventures During the Civil War

2a-6a Written, Directed and Produced by the Holy Spirit

"I have gone entirely wild and If I ever get back I shall have my name taken off the church book for it is a shame and disgrace to the cause of Christ to be there. . . .
. . . pray for me but look upon me no longer as a worthy member of the church," confessed Marion Fitzpatrick, 45th Georgia, December 15, 1862.

Wartime diaries of chaplains, both North and South, reveal that most soldiers showed little or no interest in religion at the outset of the war. Military campaigns, the meager number of trained chaplains and the general lack of interest among the enlisted men caused a decline in both the frequency and availability of religious services in camps. "Men who four months ago would not use a profane word can now out swear many others and those who would even shun a checker board now play cards for profit," reported Cyrus Boyd, an enlisted man from Iowa.

Drew Gilpin Faust and Steven Woodworth, scholars of the Civil War era, agree that camp life had a morally damaging effect on Northern and Southern soldiers. Kent Dollar, the author of this essay, has found many individuals who either resisted temptation or recovered after submitting to it. Usually, individuals with a kindred spirit managed to find each other, either in a neighboring company or in a neighboring regiment. Believing chaplains (and Thomas Lowery has shown that chaplains at times succumbed to temptations) were at many times scarce in the armies. Not finding a suitable chaplain exercising a gift for preaching, Allan Geer of the 20th Illinois decided to attend a Methodist and later an 'Ethiopian' worship service while campaigning in Tennessee.

During camp life, an enlisted man's time alone was a rare experience. Soldiers read their scriptures during guard mount or wandering away from camp. Over and over again, Dollar reports the importance of religious literature sent from home or distributed by the Christian Commission, which kept lending libraries in the camps. These portable book closets contained both the classics of literature and devotional materials.

By the early winter of 1862, in both the eastern and western fronts, revivals began to occur and continued to be launched in the early winters of 1863 and 1864. The impact of religion and revivals on soldiers' motivation to continue combat in the springs of 1863, 1864 and 1865 has been addressed by Peter Carmichael, Earl Hess and James B. McPherson. The seedbed for these revivals were the believing soldiers themselves. "Thousands of devout Christian soldiers were holding firm to their religious convictions and relying of their faith to get them through the first months of the Civil War," states the author.

To obtain a copy of this essay, ask your librarian or email the Civil War Librarian.

CWL --- Not a Brothers' War: How the Rebels Hated the Yankees

A Brothers' War?: Exploring Confederate Perceptions of the Enemy, Jason Phillips in The View From the Ground: Experiences of Civil War Soldiers, Aaron- Sheehan Dean, ed., University of Kentucky Press, 2007, pp. 67-90, notes.

As the remnants of the Army of Northern Virginia stood before Joshua Chamberlain's division in April 1865, his spirit welcomed back the Rebels into the Union. 'Thin, worn, and famished, but erect, and eyes looking level into our . . .' Confederates received a salute from Union troops. John B. Gordon, Confederate general, returned the salute. Authors, painters and filmmakers use this story frequently to suggest the notion of a Brothers' War. A second story, appearing immediately after the salute story in Chamberlain's memoirs, is much less frequently discussed and used.

The second story suggests that the Brothers' War is a creation of a post-war, post-Reconstruction mentality. The salute scene is followed by a scene in which an unrepentant Rebel pointed tells Joshua Chamberlain that he hates him. The identity of the Rebel is not disclosed by Chamberlain but the text gives enough evidence to suggest that it may have been Henry Wise. A former Virginia governor during the Harpers' Ferry Raid incident and a father mourning the death of his son during the war, Wise places a curse on Chamberlain and all Union soldiers.

Throughout the war caricatures of Northerners were predominant in the discussions and writings of Confederates. In diaries, private letters and newspaper columns Northerners were labeled as inept, inferior, evil, and barbaric. This way of imagining the foe shows that Rebels drained complexity and individuality from representations of their enemies. Jason Phillips, the author of this chapter, states that "unprecedented destruction of the war made any real notion of brotherhood across the lives contradictory and absurd." (p. 69)

What did the term 'Yankee' connote for rebels? Pathetic foe, hypocritical reformer, cold industrialist, money-grubber, self-righteous Puritan, and demonic or inhuman barbarian is the list provided by Phillips in reviewing Rebel primary sources. In particular, the Southern religious pressed heaped derogatory language on Northerners. In the Southern mind, restoration of the Union was not a Northern war aim in and of itself; this purported strategic goal covered a desire by Northerners to rape, pillage, burn and promote miscegenation throughout the South.

By 1864, Southern popular literature advanced the idea that 'the North was trying to erase Southern civilization and Southern manhood' from Dixie states Phillips. (p. 73)
He quotes lyrics of Southern popular music to make the point. Threats to "women and property, including slaves, pervades Confederate verses and soldiers' writings." (p. 76) Before, during and after the war, Southern culture retested on patriarchy, female submission, land ownership and racial superiority. In Confederate minds, to lose the war was to doom Southern culture of political slavery and personal subjugation. When the perceived barbarians conquered the pastoral homeland of Dixie, Confederates like former-Virginia governor Wise faced an desolate future. The effort to reconstruct the Union was challenged by not the memory of a Brothers' War but actual hatred of the conqueror by the conquered.

Help Note: This chapter can be obtained by using your local library's inter-library loan services or by contacting me.

CWL --- Writing History: Answers to the Name of 'Soldier'

"The Blue and Gray in Black and White: Assessing the Scholarship on Civil War Soldiers," Aaron Sheehan-Dean in The View From The Ground: Experiences of Civil War Soldiers, Aaron Sheehan-Dean, ed., University of Kentucky Press, pp. 9-30.

Accounts written by soldiers during the war are highly prized by researchers. Postwar memoirs and article length reminiscences on occassion substitute interpretations for how it actually was in the face of battle. Answers to questions, running the gamut from emancipation and race to family and masculinity, are being readily mined today from 1860-1865 primary sources. Sheehan-Dean traces this trend to the work of Bell Irvin Wiley during the 1940s and 1950s. The author also calls attention to Albert Burton, on CSA conscription, and Ella Lonn, on army desertions, as being forerunners of Wiley in his perusal of frontline soldiers primary sources.

The movement to rejuvenate soldier studies by using the primary sources of 1860-1865 was encouraged by a 1970s study of European soldiers, The Face of Battle by John Keegan. The emergence of this historiographic movement in the 1980s is due to the growth in the sophisication of social history, the immediacy of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement during the 1970s.

Sheehan-Dean surveys the work of Reid Mitchell, Gerald Linderman, Mark Grimsley, Earl Hess, Chandra Manning, Joseph Glatthaar, James McPherson, Drew Gilpin Faust and several others. In these authors' works the attitudes of families, communities, and soldiers are being explored in a manner unlike any previous effort during the 145 years of writing about the American Civil War. In particular these studies of Southern and Northern counties and the soldiers they provided are setting forth new understandings of the war. In this field the work of Peter Carmichael, Martin Crawford, and Ward Hubb are revealing.

Families set in the context of communities, as illustrated by the work of James Marten and others, provide a picture of men and women, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers that is not like the Victorian paintings that provide illustrations for book jackets. The bibliographic notes to Sheehan-Dean's chapter provide a wealth of book and article titles that any reader having an interest in soldiers should examine.

Help Note: This chapter can be obtained by using your local library's inter-library loan services or by contacting me.

CWL --- Unconquerable Rebels: Self-Deluded? Faithful to God?

Religious Belief and Troop Motivation: "For the Smiles of My Blessed Saviour," Jason Phillips, in Virginia's Civil War, Wallenstein and Wyatt-Brown, eds., Univesity of Virginia Press, 2005, pp. 101-113.

The movements of a soul can be glacially slow, covering years. Captain Joseph Manson, 12th Virginia Regiment, instead of detailing camp life and the movements of regiments, described his "search for God and salvation beyond the terrors of war." Many soldiers stated that they wished to die facing the enemy; conversely, Manson hoped to be found at the moment of death facing "towards the Celestial City & my Armor on." Beginning the chronicle of his soul while in the summer trenches of Petersburg, Manson like many others in those trenches pondered religion because it afforded to gifts: an explanation which made sense out of war and a code of behavior to guide them through vices of camp life and the mortal peril of combat.

In Jason Phillips' essay on CSA troop motivation, the conviction that God would deliver indendence to the South is considered. The belief was embedded deeply into the soil of Southern religious culture. The Confederate nation came to be viewed as being sacred, that is set aside for a special destiny. In part, this belief motivated Southern troops. Nineteenth century Christians understood that God was an active force in the affairs of the nation; these Christians believed that God governs the universe, constantly improving it until it reaches a conclusive end. For them all history is the progess of Providence toward a Judgement Day that marks the final triumph of good over evil.

Phillips cites literature of the time as presenting that the "only proper view of this Revolution, is that which regards its a a child of Providence." Wearing these worldview spectacles, religious Southerners understood the carnage to be directed by spiritual agents and felt that they were pawns in the hand of a higher power. This reader recalls several of Robert E. Lee's remarks that reflect these sentiments. CSA soldiers, to a degree, were fatalists. "In a world where God's hand touched everything, a person's conduct could have far-reaching consequences," states Phillips.

The notion that God would trick and forsake the Confederacy was unthinkable. Confederates believed that the work of Providence would ensure Confederate victory and that Confederates were holier than the Yankees. These beliefs fostered the conviction that CSA soldiers were invincible. For many pastors in the South, God was unknowable but Providence was evidence of his movement. Providence's progress would be aided by the repetentant hearts of the soldiers.

Posssessing this point of view, the Confederate soldier repented and followed Providence, even into their deaths. The Army of Northern Virginia passed through three revivals: autumn 1862, and the winters of 1863-1864 and 1864-1865. Many CSA soldiers persisted beyond the point of logical endurance and optimism. Was the "unconquerable mentality a product of wartime self-delusion" or a product of Southern religious beliefs? Historian Reid Mitchell has calls it "insane Confederate optimism"; historian Richard Beringer has labels it "unrealistic bravado." (p. 110)

Phillips sees Confederate religion encouraging self-delusion, escapism and unwarranted optimism. Was the Confederate acceptance of their own invincibility insane and unrealistic?
"Our knowledge of psychology and the war's outcome must not supplant the fact that Confederates had a worldview different from our own today." Phillips understands that the Confederate worldview ill prepared them for the war's outcome; but the worldview's optimism was consistent with their religion. The naval blockade, the disintegration of slavery, and the deficient of supplies and manpower could be overcome by Providence so as to meet Providence's goals.

For this reader, the Confederate faith is similar to the faith of John Brown of Harper's Ferry fame. David Reynolds' John Brown, Abolitionist (2005) and John Stauffer's The Black Hearts of Abolitionists (2002) thoroughly describe the worldview of the abolitionists. Historians, writing from 1900 to 1975 found John Brown to be insane; currently there is little academic doubt that Brown was sane and believed that Providence would find a way to free the slaves.
Confederates were sane and believed that Providence would sustain the Confederacy's independence. Currently, this reader is looking for an essay entitled God's Will and Northern War Aims.

Thinking about that topic, maybe the essay has already been written and it's entitled The Second Inaugural Address delivered in March 1865.