Mennonites, Amish, and the American Civil War

Notes

Notes Introduction: Religion, Religious Minorities and the American Civil War 1. Brunk, ed., Life of Peter S. Hartman, 48. 2. Ibid., 49. 3. Virtually all leaders in major Protestant denominations who opposed slavery had left the slaveholding South by 1860, rendering churchly objection to the “peculiar institution” in that region all but voiceless; see Chesebrough, Clergy Dissent in the Old South, 72–79, 114–15; and Longenecker, Shenandoah Religion, 129–35, 142–50. On the relationship between evangelicalism and martial cultures of honor, which was tenuous in 1800 but entrenched by 1860, see Heyrman, Southern Cross, 242–49. 4.BishopJacobHildebrand’sdiariesfor1861and1867arelocatedinJHC.Here and throughout the book we have retained original spelling. 5. Some 350 to 400 Mennonite households lived behind Confederate lines in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, counties of Rockingham and Augusta, but a few AmishalsolivedinthepartofwesternVirginiathatbecameWestVirginiain1863. As for the Border States, Mennonites and Amish lived in western Maryland, and a handful of Amish were in Missouri. The large majority of both groups were in Union territory, especially in Pennsylvania, but also in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and New York. 6. John M. Brenneman to Jacob Nold, 21 Aug. 1862, Jacob Nold Collection, Hist. Mss. 1-873, MCA-G. 7. For statistics, see E. B. Long, with Barbara Long, Civil War, Day by Day, 700– 28. On reasons behind the high casualty rates in this particular war, see the new interpretation in Nosworthy, Bloody Crucible of Courage. 8. See, e.g., Blight, Race and Reunion, or Goldfield, Still Fighting the Civil War. 9. For historiographic commentary, see the Introduction (by the editors) and Afterward (by James M. McPherson) in Miller, Stout, and Wilson, eds., Religion and the American Civil War. The entire collection is essential, but see esp. the overview by Paludan, “Religion and the American Civil War,” 21–40. See also Noll, Civil War as a Theological Crisis, 1–16. 10. Hatch, Democratization of American Christianity; Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith, 225–96; Noll, America’s God, 53–364; Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America; Curtis D. Johnson, Redeeming America. 11. On slavery as central to the war, see Foner, Slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction ; Levine, Half Slave and Half Free; and Holt, The Fate of Their Country. Although religion and the Civil War has not garnered extensive historical attention, the relationship between antebellum slavery and Christianity has generated a sizeable literature. Representative examples include Raboteau, Slave Religion; Haynes, Noah’s Curse; Noll, Civil War as a Theological Crisis, 31–74; Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese, “The Divine Sanction of Social Order”; McKivigan, The War Against Proslavery Religion; and McKivigan and Snay, eds., Religion and the Antebellum Debate over Slavery. 12. Goen, Broken Churches, Broken Nation; Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics, esp. 279–323; and Snay, Gospel of Disunion. An insightful and detailed case study is Carwardine, “Methodists, Politics and the Coming of the Civil War,” 309–42. The Clay quote is from Goen, Broken Churches, 106. 13. Woodworth, While God Is Marching On; Faust, “Christian Soldiers: The Meaning of Revivalism in the Confederate Army”; Mitchell, “Christian Soldiers? Perfecting the Confederacy”; Paludan, “A People’s Contest”: The Union and the Civil War, 339–74; McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, 62–76; and Shattuck, A Shield and a Hiding Place. Armstrong, For Courageous Fighting and Confident Dying, shows that Northern chaplains preached abolition and helped convince Federal troops of the righteousness of emancipation. 14. Chesebrough, “God Ordained This War”; Moorehead, American Apocalypse; Faust, Creation of Confederate Nationalism; Mitchell, Vacant Chair; Faust, Mothers of Invention, on religion, esp. 181–87; Fredrickson, “The Coming of the Lord: NorthernProtestantClergyandtheCivilWarCrisis ”;andAamodt,RighteousArmies,Holy Causes. 15. Stout, Upon the Altar of the Nation; and Noll, Civil War as a Theological Crisis. 16. Few histories mention those who had “conscientious scruples,” and those that do give them little space. The major source remains Wright, Conscientious Objectors in the Civil War. Three overviews by Peter Brock, Pacifism in the United States (1968); Freedom from War (1991); and Freedom from Violence (1991), each give limited space to the Civil War era. Curran, Soldiers of Peace details the perfectionist 244฀ K฀notes to pages 4–6 L฀ pacifism of Alfred H. Love, a religiously inspired humanitarian pacifist who was not affiliated with any church. Although they are otherwise excellent treatments of the role of religion in the war, neither Stout, Upon the Altar of the Nation, nor...