Gettysburg Religion: Refinement, Diversity, and Race in the Antebellum and Civil War Border North

Introduction

Introduction S ome little town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg,” answered Rhett Butler when Scarlett O’Hara, anxious about her beloved Ashley Wilkes, inquired about the location of the great battle. The dashing Mr. Butler can be forgiven for insinuating the insignificance of this modest settlement of over two thousand residents, known primarily for a great collision of armies. Yet this “little town in Pennsylvania,” just seven miles north of the Mason-Dixon Line, remains among the strongest Civil War and American memories. In particular, religious sites such as Cemetery Hill and the Lutheran seminary belong to the core of this remembrance, and another Gettysburg memory, the Peach Orchard, though technically secular also has an intriguing religious story. A century and a half after the great battle, Cemetery Hill, the seminary and its ridge, and the Peach Orchard remain powerful memories, not just for three bloody days in July 1863, but for their embodiment of the small-town North and their ability to touch themes vital to nineteenth-century religion. This book argues that religion represented by these sites and within their famous community reveals much about American society during the antebellum and Civil War periods. Like so many small towns, Gettysburg’s religious life was vibrant but routine. As Christians nourished their souls on a daily and weekly basis, the priorities of congregational life, such as choir masters, fairs, debts, and pastoral placement, often preoccupied them. Historians want to know what the past teaches, and sometimes an honest resurrection of the past reveals that most persons in the pews were more interested in things small rather than large. Certainly , large political issues and grand reforms claimed attention, but, especially in their religious life, maintenance of the local societies was a very high priority. But despite the frequency of the humdrum, Gettysburg religion had direction, and during the period of this study three trends were particularly prominent: refinement, diversity, and war. Refinement—that is, the quest for improvement— became a groundswell, perhaps a tidal wave, among the American middle class through the nineteenth century and hardly distinct to a town in southern Pennsylvania . Books, print fabrics, shelf clocks, parlors, academies, inexpensive por- “ 2 Introduction traits, landscaped yards, and cast iron stoves were among the material marks of refinement, but attitudes, such as manners and beautification, were just as important in the reach for gentility. The religious version of refinement focused on improved facilities and polished worship. New buildings, often with steeples or cupolas, altered Gettysburg’s skyscape, and improvement of church interiors was unending. Carpets softened the steps of worshippers as they entered and departed, and gas-lit chandeliers brightened sanctuaries when the sun was reluctant . Choir masters taught harmony, meter, and pitch, and a new community cemetery with garden-like surroundings upgraded burial and mourning. Additionally , the town’s Lutherans bragged of a seminary to place polished men in their well-appointed pulpits, and Pennsylvania College (now Gettysburg College) prepared candidates for the seminary and sent other well-educated men into the secular world. As with worldly consumption, the components of religious refinement contributed to an image of conspicuous appreciation for dignity, polish , manners, and beauty. But paying for refinement stretched budgets, and the financial burden of dignity sometimes threatened to break the ties that bound, further evidence of refinement’s high priority. If improvement seems commonplace and unremarkable, it nevertheless claimed time and energy from many. The quest for sophistication particularly touched two denominations— Methodists and Dunkers—although much differently. Antebellum Methodists changed more than any other fellowship, deemphasizing discipline and emotional conversion as they assumed middle-class respectability. A dignified, rational version of evangelicalism, initially associated with Charles Grandison Finney, a Presbyterian, grew throughout the nineteenth century, and the antebellum period caught Gettysburg Methodists somewhere along this transitional path with the emotional Methodism of earlier generations still evident but fading. Dunkers, as Anabaptists, conspicuously resisted refinement, and they opposed the sinful world with rigor and detail, specifically resisting the material trappings of middle class gentility, such as stylish clothing, fashionable furnishings, and stately church buildings. Where others saw improvement or sophistication, Dunkers saw worldliness, thereby demonstrating that the hunger for dignity was not quite universal. In sum, with enhanced church buildings, heavy mortgages, one denomination (Methodists) more noticeably sophisticated, another (Dunkers ) conspicuously opposed to it, a college, a seminary on a ridge, and a new cemetery on a hill, refinement loomed large in this small town’s spiritual life. If refinement was routine in antebellum America, Gettysburg’s...