Our Country: Northern Evangelicals and the Union during the Civil War Era by Grant R. Brodrecht (review)

In recent years numerous works have appeared examining religion during the Civil War era. Grant R. Brodrecht gives us another fine addition in this field that helps better understand the role of evangelical religion in the North. He focuses on the concept of the Union, which for evangelical Protestants "connoted a country formed by the providential hand of God, in addition to the idea that it should remain whole and filled throughout with evangelical Protestantism" (15). This definition suits Brodrecht well in making his argument that evangelicals sought to use the Civil War and Reconstruction to preserve and strengthen their vision of the Union. While not disregarding the role of freedom in the Civil War and Reconstruction narrative, by emphasizing the Union, Brodrecht seeks to continue in the footsteps of those, like Gary Gallagher and Rogan Kersh, who argue for the Union's centrality in the minds of Civil War Americans. Brodrecht amplifies this unionism as he follows the lead of Mark Noll in viewing the nation as having a primarily evangelical ethos.

Brodrecht examines evangelical views of the Union and concerns for its future during the war and Reconstruction. He organizes his work chronologically, beginning in the Civil War and taking things through Reconstruction in the 1870s. While it would have been interesting to see how this evangelical view of the Union played out during the sectional crisis, especially as Brodrecht argues in his introduction that this conception was in place prior to the war, this focus still serves his inquiry well. Critical to this work is the evangelical understanding of the Lincoln, Johnson, and Grant presidencies. Brodrecht argues that its relationship to the president played a role vital to forming this evangelical conception of the Union. While Brodrecht has successfully shown the importance of the presidency in the evangelical perception of the Union within his work, it does seem that the occupant of the White House is overemphasized at points, as the Union is more than the chief magistrate to these men and women.

For most of the evangelicals in Our Country, the Union supersedes considerations of racial justice. Brodrecht consistently supports his argument in using examples of those whose theology centered around the Union. For instance, toward the end of chapter 5, Brodrecht explains that evangelicals saw Ulysses S. Grant's election to the White House in 1868 as a saving event for the Union, especially after the disappointing Johnson presidency. But he includes the notion that many evangelicals decried the radicals who sought to implement an agenda that featured racial justice. He does, however, differentiate this viewpoint throughout his pages with some evangelicals who were radicals—primarily New York Congregationalist minister George Cheever.

As Brodrecht's focus is national, his source base is made up of archival and published materials from throughout the North. Many parts of his book focus primarily on printed sermons, autobiographies, and evangelical periodicals, which is logical, given the book's emphasis on religious thought. At the same time, most of the sources cited within the text come from ministers and important laymen in these denominations. To that point, in his introduction Brodrecht explains that he began his project by looking at representative evangelical ministers such as George Peck, Henry Boardman, and George Cheever. While these men and the other evangelical leaders cited played a major role in the evangelical thought in this era, it would have been interesting to see what a few more of their followers thought of the Union. Additionally, throughout his book Brodrecht employs archival sources from the presidents and other governmental leaders as an additional lens. But, while it is always clear what evangelicals thought of their leaders, it is not always apparent what these leaders, especially the presidents, thought of their evangelical followers or how they were influenced by them. This issue is a problem, especially as Brodrecht asserts, in his...