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1 INTRODUCTION Ben Wright and Zachary W. Dresser O n February 2, 1864, a group of dignitaries met in the hall of the House of Representatives to honor the U.S. Christian Commission, a philanthropic organization formed for the relief of soldiers after the First Battle of Bull Run. Rev. Charles Cardwell McCabe, a liberated prisoner of war and fund-raiser for the commission, rose to sing before an audience that included Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax, Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, and the guest of honor, President Abraham Lincoln. McCabe had famously led Union captives of Richmond’s Libby Prison in a celebratory rendition of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” upon hearing of the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg, and after a series of speeches, McCabe was asked to perform the song that had gained him modest fame. In writing to his wife later that night,McCabe reveled in his execution of Julia Ward Howe’s recently penned ballad.The song resonated with the assembly, including its most valued guest. McCabe reported that “the mighty audience sang in exact time. Some shouted out loud at the last verse, and above all the uproar Mr. Lincoln’s voice was heard: ‘Sing it again!’”1 From its first lines proclaiming “the glory of the coming of the Lord”to its final verse assuring that “He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,” “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” trumpets the millennial faith that echoed in the hearts of men and women, North and South, during an era of apocalyptic turmoil. In her diary, Lucy Larcom described the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 as “glorious!” and rejoiced that “the millennium is not so far off as we feared.”2 Three years later, and many miles south, Mary Anne Webster Loughborough, working at a makeshift hospital during the siege at Vicksburg, wrote of a wounded soldier from Illinois sharing his breakfast with a Confederate. She joked with the two men that their cooperation marked “the Ben Wright and Zachary W. Dresser 2 dawn of the millennium,” but her belief in Providence was too strong and the horrors of war were too great for her to stop at irreverent humor.She continued with a sincere wish that “the dawning was indeed with us; that brave and noble men should no more suffer,bleed,and die,but live; and in their lives grow more thankful and worthy of the Divine blood that has been shed for the removal of the fearful suffering and warfare that is all around us.”3 The sight of a young boy marching to war in February 1865 inspired William M. McLain to reflect, “I do not strain my mental vision to be able to see away yonder, in the ages that are to come, ere the millennium dawns—in the distance, and dimly foreshadowed , but yet discernible without a prophetic eye—a nation free, vigorous, educated, virtuous, religious.”4 Millennialism and providentialism have discrete theological meanings, but popular usage of these concepts spilled over definitional boundaries and soaked into the cultural consciousness in the nineteenth century. Sharp contrasts between pre- and postmillennialism and between the prewar and postwar periods obscure the flexible nuances of American religion. By examining several case studies of how Americans understood God’s intervention in reform, war, and emancipation, this volume demonstrates the variable yet pervasive role of providential thinking as Americans made meaning of the national apocalypse. As avid readers of the Bible, many nineteenth-century Americans were certain that history was approaching an end point.The sacred text did not specify the duration of that journey, but believers understood that humans were the main actors in a dramatic contest between God’s forces of good and the powers of evil led by Satan. As foretold especially in the Book of Revelation, Jesus would eventually return to establish a new kingdom on earth, inaugurating a new epoch of history. For nearly all Christians, this thousand-year period known as the millennium represented the final victory of God over evil,but the timing of that eschatological era was heavily debated. Premillennialists, a small portion of Christians in the early nineteenth century, held that Christ’s return would occur before the final period of history.These believers cast humanity as sinful and depraved, pointing to rampant moral failings as signs that the forces of Satan were winning the battle for this world.The severe and condemning language of premillennialism struck fear in...

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