History Commons^™

A Religious Interpretation Of The American Civil War As Evidenced By Biblical Language In Songs And Hymns, Alyson J. Punzi

Channels: Where Disciplines Meet

Both Union and Confederate soldiers claimed the same moral confidence about being on the right side of the American Civil War. Significant studies have evaluated the religiosity of the Civil War, but the religious content of songs and hymns, namely their use of biblical language has not been studied for the insight into a religious interpretation of the war they provide. Because the moral claims appear in songs and hymns and utilize biblical language to interpret the conflict, their role in the war, and the expected outcome, this research is important to provide a full understanding of religion’s role in …

The Relationship Between The Methodist Church, Slavery And Politics, 1784-1844, Brian D. Lawrence

Theses and Dissertations

The Methodist church split in 1844 was a cumulative result of decades of regional instability within the governing structure of the church. Although John Wesley had a strict anti-slavery belief as the leader of the movement in Great Britain, the Methodist church in America faced a distinctively different dilemma. Slavery proved to be a lasting institution that posed problems for Methodism in the United States and in the larger political context. The issue of slavery plagued Methodism from almost its inception, but the church functioned well although conflicts remained below the surface. William Capers, James Osgood Andrew, and Freeborn Garrettson …

John H. Vincent: The Other Co-Founder Of Chautauqua, Timothy S. Binkley

Bridwell Library Research

This address, delivered at the Chautauqua Institution Hall of Philosophy on July 20, 2018, reviews the life of John Heyl Vincent (1832-1920) and his relationship to the Chautauqua Institution. Vincent was an American Methodist clergyman and bishop and a leading figure in the Sunday School movement. In 1874 Vincent and businessman Lewis Miller (1829-1899) established an innovative, trans-denominational Sunday School teachers’ training event on the shores of Lake Chautauqua in southwestern New York state. Under the leadership of Vincent and Miller, that event developed into the Chautauqua Institution: an annual summer-long celebration of the arts, religion, education, and recreation, and …

“Confederate Soldiers In The Siege Of Petersburg And Postwar: An Intensified War And Coping Mechanisms Utilized, 1864- Ca. 1895”, Matthew R. Lempke

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis crafts a narrative about how Confederate soldiers during the siege of Petersburg experienced an intensified war that caused them to refine soldierly coping mechanisms in order to endure. They faced increasing deprivations, new forms of death, fewer restrictions on killing, dwindling fortunes, and increased racial acrimony by facing African American soldiers. In order to adjust, they relied on soldierly camaraderie, Southern notions of honor, letter writing, and an increasingly firm reliance on Protestant Christianity to cope with their situation. Postwar, these veterans repurposed soldierly coping mechanisms and eventually used institutional support from their states. Camaraderie, honor, literary endeavors, …

"Puritan Hypocrisy" And "Conservative Catholicity" : How Roman Catholic Clergy In The Border States Interpreted The U.S. Civil War., Carl C. Creason

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes how Roman Catholic clergy in the Border States—Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland—interpreted the United States Civil War. Overall, it argues that prelates and priests from the region viewed the war through a religious lens informed by their Catholic worldview. Influenced by their experiences with anti-Catholicism and nativism as well as the arguments of the Catholic apologist movement, the clergy interpreted the war as a product of the ill-effects of Protestantism in the country. In response, the clergy argued that if more Americans had practiced Catholicism then the war could and would have been avoided. Furthermore, this thesis illustrates …

The Oatmeal Brigade: Quaker Life During The Civil War, Anika N. Jensen

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Quakers in the Civil War seems like an inherently contradictory idea; the Society of Friends practices pacifism and nonviolence, and, for many, putting money or resources toward war efforts goes against the faith. But tensions were high in 1861, and deviations from Quakerism were made when Friends, both Northern and Southern, had to choose whether to prioritize the sanctity of union, support abolition, or remain neutral. Each of these decisions had its share of repercussions within the religious community, and the Quakers themselves found their mindsets changing as the tide of the war rolled on, whether they chose to fight, …

The Saint Patrick’S Battalion: Loyalty, Nativism, And Identity In The Nineteenth Century And Today, Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Two decades before the Irish Brigade covered itself with glory, an earlier unit of Irish immigrants had won renown for its service during the Mexican American War. Calling themselves the Saint Patrick’s Battalion, these men marched under a flag of brilliant emerald decorated with Irish motifs: a harp, a shamrock, and the image of Saint Patrick [excerpt].

Did Religion Make The American Civil War Worse?, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

If there is one sober lesson Americans seem to be taking out of the bathos of the Civil War sesquicentennial, it’s the folly of a nation allowing itself to be dragged into the war in the first place. After all, from 1861 to 1865 the nation pledged itself to what amounted to a moral regime change, especially concerning race and slavery—only to realize that it had no practical plan for implementing it. No wonder that two of the most important books emerging from the Sesquicentennial years—by Harvard president Drew Faust, and Yale’s Harry Stout—questioned pretty frankly whether the appalling costs …

Gettysburg College Journal Of The Civil War Era 2015

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

No abstract provided.

The War Justified, Margaret T. Kidd

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

This article explores how Methodist ministers, particularly Richmond Christian Advocate editor Rev. James A. Duncan, justified their support of the Confederacy and slavery. Also discussed is the Address to Christians Throughout the World, written by Duncan and signed by ministers of various denominations. It was billed as the "Christian response" to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.

William Vandever: Presbyterian, Congressman, General, Douglas Firth Anderson

Faculty Publications

What happens to Dutch ethnic identity after several generations in America? William Vandever (1817-1893) illustrates at least one path of acculturation. He was a Congressman twice--first from Iowa, later from California. During the Civil War, he raised a Union regiment from Iowa and was a general by the time the war ended. In the 1870s he was a U.S. Indian Inspector. His Dutchness, though, persisted through his self-identification as a devout Presbyterian--in the greater Reformed tradition of his Dutch ancestors of the 17th century.

The Formation Of An Evangelist: D. L. Moody's Experience During The American Civil War, Cooper Pasque

Cooper Pasque

D.L. Moody was 24 when the Civil War began. Throughout the conflict, he played a complex role that traversed many different settings. He ministered to wounded soldiers on several major battlefields, to Union recruits in a training camp outside Chicago, and even to Confederate prisoners-of-war. Despite all this unique wartime activity, Moody maintained his urban ministry in Chicago and somehow found time to get married. Except for brief chapters in a handful of biographies, historians have produced little work on this phase in Moody’s life. This study, which largely draws upon Moody’s wartime correspondence and the records of the United …

Sins Of A Nation, Margaret T. Kidd

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

This article explores how Methodist clergy in Virginia tended to the spiritual needs of their congregations in the context of war. It also discusses the way that clergy worked to make their ideas on the war and its progression known through newspapers, sermons, addresses, and government-recognized days of fasting and prayer. As the largest religious denomination in the South during the war the Methodist Church was in a position to not only offer support , but to shape the opinions of the Confederate people.

Sunday Does Not Come In Camp, Margaret T. Kidd

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

This article explores how the Methodist Church tended to the spiritual needs of the soldiers in the Confederate Army. The church supplied 448 chaplains to the Army, but there were never enough to meet the needs of the troops. The church worked to mitigate this problem by establishing the Soldiers' Tract Association in 1862 and by sometimes working with churches of other denominations to support the soldiers.

Whitaker, Francis J., 1916-1994 (Mss 406), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 406. Correspondence, research notes and manuscript articles of Frances J. “Thomas” Whitaker, a Benedictine monk who lived and worked at St. Maur’s Priory, formerly the South Union Shaker Village in Logan County, Kentucky, from 1954-1988. He amassed a large collection of photocopied research material on the South Union community as well as other Shaker villages and museums in the United States. Also includes his research on various Catholic topics.

"Sore Vexation," The Utah Saints And The Gentile War: The Development Of The Lds Church During The Civil War, Rebecca Ann Hawks

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The Mormons, who prefer to be called members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, tried to build a nation during the Civil War. In 1832, their prophet, Joseph Smith, prophesized that a war between the Northern and Southern states had been pre-ordained because of the Gentiles’ sins against the Saints. Mormons thought this war would be the beginning of the end times. They believed the Civil War would cause the ruin of all nations—except for the Mormon nation of Zion. Mormons held fast to the promise that God would protect their land. Early members tried to build …

Adams County History 2005

Adams County History

No abstract provided.

Ms-043: George Washington Beidelman Collection, Kevin D. Luy

All Finding Aids

The George W. Beidelman Collection holds its most significant information in letters written by George to his father, Jacob. In these letters, George shares his political opinions, religious beliefs, and camp-life descriptions. The core of the collection is the correspondence from August 1, 1862 until November 18, 1862, in which George writes diary-like entries to his father, recounting each day’s activities. Accounts of the fighting at Ball’s Bluff and Fredericksburg are the most detailed battle descriptions. However, the collection’s strength is in George’s astute observations regarding camp life and the political aspects of the war.

In addition to letters written …

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 37, No. 3, Mary Lou Robson Fleming, Richard Matthews, William B. Fetterman, Erick D. Slazinski, N. F. Karlins, Leland D. Baldwin, Edward W. Chester

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• Folk Artist Jacob Maentel of Pennsylvania and Indiana
• Up Another River: Fourteen Days on the St. Johns
• An Appreciation of Russell Wieder Gilbert
• Holy Images: A Brief Study of Folk Religious Belief
• Lamont Alfred "Old Ironsides" Pry, Contemporary American Folk Artist
• Synopsis of the Penburne Quintet

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 37, No. 2, Ned D. Heindel, Linda H. Heindel, Karl J. R. Arndt, Terry G. Jordan, Lois J. Groff

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• The Junior Republic Movement in Pennsylvania: Youth Care in Grove City and Redington
• Brechloch, or Rapp's Harmony Society and the Production of Flax, Hemp, and Linen in Pennsylvania and Indiana
• Some Neglected Swiss Literature on the Forebay Bank Barn
• "Hoping for the Best, Yet Fearing the Worst": An Overview of Civil War Medical Care Until the Battle of Gettysburg
• Aldes un Neies

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 36, No. 1, Carolyn J. Mattern, Terry G. Jordan, Matti Kaups, Richard M. Lieffort, Hilda Adam Kring, Helen Bradley Griebel

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• A Pennsylvania Dutch Yankee: The Civil War Letters of Private David William Mattern (1862-1863)
• New Evidence on the European Origin of Pennsylvania V Notching
• Sem Kaufman's "Instructions to my Children"
• Worldview on the Landscape: A Regional Yard Art Study
• Aldes un Neies / Old & New

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 35, No. 3, Karl J. R. Arndt, Donald Graves, Michael Colby, Paul Mcgill, Nancy K. Gaugler, Harry E. Chrisman, William T. Parsons

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• The First German Broadside and Newspaper Printing of the American Declaration of Independence
• An Overview of Flax and Linen Production in Pennsylvania
• A Civil War Soldier's Tale
• Samuel W. Pennypacker's Translation of the Haslibacher Hymn
• An Autobiographical Sketch of Mrs. Sarah Hunter
• In Memoriam: Earl F. Robacker, 1904-1985
• Aldes un Neies / Old & New

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 28, No. 3, William T. Parsons, David H. Rapp, Phyllis Vibbard Parsons, Alfred L. Creager, Alvin F. Kemp

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• Lebenslauf of John Nicholas Schaefer
• Philip Jacob Michael: Ecclesiastical Vagabond or "Echt Reformirte" Pastor
• Drum! Drum! Drum!
• Kartz G'dichte (Short Poems)
• More Dialect Stories
• Aldes un Neies

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 26, No. 5, Leo Schelbert, Sandra Luebking, Richard H. Hulan, Edith Von Zemenszky, David A. Rausch

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• Swiss Mennonite Family Names: An Annotated Checklist
• The Dogtrot House and its Pennsylvania Associations
• A Letter from Pastor Johann Friedrich Ernst
• Civil War Medicine: A Patient's Account
• Soups, Stews, Broths, and Porridges: Folk-Cultural Questionnaire No. 48

Letter From J.S. Lemont To Frank L. Lemont, January 3, 1863, J. S. Lemont

Paul W. Bean Civil War Papers

Letter from J.S. Lemont to her son Frank L. Lemont, January 3, 1863. In it she imparts rather depressing news from home and about the war especially about death and sickness plaguing their community. She desperately wishes the war would end so her son might come home and be with them but she knows that he has to make those decisions for himself.

Taken from the Paul W. Bean Collection, Box no. 277, f.8