Religion and the American Civil War

The sixteen essays in this volume, all previously unpublished, address the little considered question of the role played by religion in the American Civil War. The authors show that religion, understood in its broadest context as a culture and community of faith, was found wherever the war was found. Comprising essays by such scholars as Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Drew Galpin Faust, Mark Noll, Reid Mitchell, Harry Stout, and Bertram Wyatt-Brown, and featuring an afterword by James McPherson, this collection marks the first step towards uncovering this crucial yet neglected aspect of American history.

- Preface
- Introduction
- Overview
- 1: Philip Shaw Paludan: Religion and the American Civil War
- Ideas
- 2: Mark A. Noll: The Bible and Slavery
- 3: Eugene D. Genovese: Religion in the Collapse of the Union
- 4: Bertram Wyatt-Brown: Church, Honor, and Secession
- 5: George M. Fredrickson: The Coming of the Lord: The Northern Protestant Clergy and the Civil War Crisis
- 6: Kurt O. Berends: "Wholesome Reading Purifies and Elevates the Man": The Religious Military Press in the Confederacy
- 7: Paul Harvey: "Yankee Faith" and Southern Redemption: White Southern Baptist Ministers, 1850-1880
- 8: Daniel W. Stowell: Stonewall Jackson and the Providence of God
- 9: Ronald C. White: Lincoln's Sermon on the Mount: The Second Inaugural
- 10: Elizabeth Fox-Genovese: Days of Judgement, Days of Wrath: The Civil War and the Religious Imagination of Women Writers
- 11: Drew Gilpin Faust: "Without Pilot or Compass": Elite Women and Religion in the Civil War South
- 12: Randall M. Miller: Catholic Religion, Irish Ethnicity, and the Civil War
- 13: Reid Mitchell: Christian Soldiers?: Perfecting the Confederacy
- Places
- 14: Harry S. Stout and Christopher Grasso: Civil War, Religion and Communications: Richmond as a Case Study
- 15: Samuel S. Hill: Religion and the Results of the Civil War
- Comparisons
- 16: Charles Reagan Wilson: Religion and the American Civil War in Comparative Perspective
- Afterword
- Contributors
- Index