Making War and Minting Christians: Masculinity, Religion, and Colonialism in Early New England

Chapter 11. “The God of Armies”

z 177 c h a p t e r 11 “The God of Armies” For A nglo A mer ica ns, war was imbued with religious and gendered significance: God’s hand shaped events big and small in ways, Puritansassumed ,thatsinful,imperfecthumanscouldnotfullydiscern,however mightily they tried. Writing in the 1650s, for example, Edward Johnson reported that New England military preparedness was part of a larger struggle that demanded Christian manliness. “thus are these people with great diligence provided for these daies of war,” he explained, “hoping the day is at hand wherein the Lord will give [the] antichrist the double of all her doings,” by employing soldiers “nursed up in their artillery garden” for this special work. Johnson thus cast pagan Indian warriors as a manifestation of the antichrist, at once demonic and unmanly in opposing Christ’s presumablymanlysoldiers .LikethecosmicbattlebetweenamanlyChurchMilitant and a feminized antichrist, temporal warfare was also full of gendered and religious significance. Johnson boasted, “Let all people know that desire the downfal of New-England, they are not to war against a people only exercised in feats of war, but men who are also experienced in the deliverances of the Lord. . . . [t]he same God that directed the stone to the forehead of the Philistine, guides every bullet that is shot at you, it matters not for the whole rabble of antichrist on your side, the God of armies is for us a refuge high.”1 reminiscent of the importance of manitou, or spiritual power, to Native americans in battle, English warriors saw God’s influence in the unfold- 178 y chapter 11 ing of the minutest of battlefield details. Having watched a nearby soldier take an arrow in the neck during a Pequot War skirmish, for example, John Underhill “received an arrow through [the] coate sleeve,” which was followed by another that hit his helmet. He explained his good fortune: “[If] God in his providence had not moved the heart of my wife to perswade mee to carrie [the helmet] along with me which I was unwilling to doe, I had beene slaine.” In another battle during the same conflict, “God preserved” Captain John Mason “from any wounds” after his helmet was hit by a number of arrows. While we might think it more appropriate to thank Goodwife Underhill for her sound advice or to commend the design of Mason’s helmet, wise wives and well-designed armor were mere instruments in a divine plan. God guided every bullet and determined the outcome of every battle for reasons that might remain obscure but nonetheless underscored his omnipotence.2 reminding soldiers of God’s favor could prove a powerful incentive in combat. at one point during King Philip’s War, a rumor quickly spread that a thousand warriors were about to descend on a body of troops already skirmishing with Indians. Making the situation all the more dire was the fact that “Captain turner and several of his Souldiers were slain and other to the number of two and thirty.” appreciating the gravity of the situation, “Captain Holyoake exhorted” his soldiers “not to be terrifyed,” and encouraged them by remarking that “God hath wrought hitherto for us wonderfully ,letustrustinhimstill.”reinvigoratedbyHolyoake’sreminderofGod’s past favor, the rest of the company “made a safe and valiant retreat,” suffering only a few casualties.3 During another engagement, the praying-Indian soldier William Nahawton watched as an English soldier, “making haste to Fire, had forgot to pull out a wadd of tow which was in the pan of his gun,” and asked “him to take it out and Fire” at the enemy. Probably embarrassed by his ineptitude, “the Englishman told him he judged” their enemy to be out of range. Unimpressed with the Englishmen’s resolve, “try said Nahawton, and God shall direct the bullet, which he immediately did, and he saw the Indian who was running from them, tumble down; who prov’d to be one of their great Captains above mentioned: afterwards the Indian, Nahawton; made a very serious Prayer in acknowledgement to God for the successe.”4 Perhaps both men shared the view that God directed every bullet. Nahawton’s prayer is particularly intriguing. Did he pray to the Englishmen’s God, as the account suggests, or was he appealing to older associations with Hobbomock and “The God of Armies” z 179 other spiritual entities? Perhaps he thanked and praised an admixture of the old and the...