The American Patriot’s Dream. This early Currier & Ives lithograph praises the patriotism of Federal soldiers and explicitly links battlefront and home front in patriotic unity.
Northern self-interest justified the North’s invasion of the South according to Dewey’s logic. His just war would not be defensive, but offensive, grounded in strategic and moral right: “To us this is a holy war. Religion—in the highest and widest view of it—commands us to do what we are doing.”
19
Good and bad, right and wrong; the terms flowed on all sides so easily and logically and self-righteously that one suspects they masked a deeper-seated animal lust for battle. The historian Michael Fellman has talked about this in the context of “blood sport.”
20
J. Glenn Gray, reflecting on his wartime experiences in World War II, speaks of war as “spectacle” and the “lust of the eye”—a “secret attraction.” To clarify his meaning, Gray invokes Robert E. Lee’s famous observation about war:
If we think of beauty and ugliness without their usual moral overtones, there is often a weird but genuine beauty in the sight of massed men and weapons in combat. Reputedly, it was the sight of advancing columns of men under fire that impelled General Robert E. Lee to remark to one of his staff: “It is well that war is so terrible—we should grow too fond of it.”
21
Both of these writers are concentrating on soldiers at war “without their usual moral overtones” and the irrational transformations they experience in becoming warriors. Yet that soldier mentality of irrational obsession and demoralized “beauty” could and did infuse the whole society in this citizens’ war.
Beneath all the rationalizations and moral affirmations, Manassas and its aftermath showed a deeper irrational strain impelled by the almost intoxicating sight of massed armies in the field and on parade. Any society at war finds itself in an unnatural and evil state. It may be a necessary evil, as most nonpacifists agree, but it is nevertheless evil. But in the crucible of war, that fact is easily lost sight of. After Manassas, “manliness,” “spectacle,” and “patriotism” were the only facts that mattered, from the highest executive to the lowliest soldier and the youngest child.
CHAPTER 9
“WILL NOT THE MARTYRS BE BLESSED ... ?”
W
hile the Northern secular press raged against incompetent generals and panicked soldiers, other moral critics took different meanings from the ongoing defeats. Some of the strongest responses to Federal defeats came from abolitionists who saw in reverses divine confirmation of the moral inadequacy of preserving the Union as a sufficient justification for war.
Nonclerical abolitionists echoed clerical abolitionists like George B. Cheever. In Worcester, Massachusetts, Martha LeBaron Goddard wrote to her friend Mary that battlefield casualties could be accepted if the cause of abolition was embraced:
Yet ... from men and women whom I have seen, has come the same thought over and over again—“It is terrible; but
defeat
and suffering will
force
us to do right: and the administration will be beaten into doing justice.” And so forever behind the clouds, is the heaven bright—and if we learn by the dead faces of our white brothers, to put joy and life and power into those of our black ones—will not the martyrs be blessed indeed?
1
The language of “martyrs” had been used by the abolitionists to label fallen comrades as far back as the abolitionist editor Elijah Lovejoy, who was murdered in 1837, and John Brown. They were willing to transform death into martyrdom if it was grounded ethically in abolition. In time, as casualties mounted to unprecedented levels, all battlefield fatalities on both sides of the conflict were termed martyrs to their respective causes. What began as a political war was being transformed, in effect, into a moral crusade with religious foundations for which martyrs would willingly sacrifice themselves on their nations’ altars. Inevitably, such language absolutized the war on both sides and reinforced the demand for self-righteous blood revenge. In the North and the South, the clergy were more than willing to comply.
In 1861 most Northerners were not prepared to see the war in abolitionist terms. Nor were they certain that the North was morally superior in its treatment of blacks. In an editorial on the “Object of the War,” one clerical writer exposed racist hypocrisies in the North, observing that in 1850, “colored membership of the different churches, south, was one out of every twelve of the colored population. With us, it was one out of fifty-six.” These statistics, the writer concluded, were “not pro-slavery arguments,” but they did put into question the sincerity of Northerners claiming to have the souls of slaves uppermost in their thoughts. Concerned that Lincoln did too much to accommodate slaveholders, the
Banner of the Covenant
criticized his “excessive sensibility in regard to slavery, when it is considered that it has been the chief cause of the war.”
2
Others assured their readers that “God will never give victory to our arms” until slavery was ended.
Many Northern soldiers were also disillusioned, but not over the slavery issue. On November 9, as reports of the disaster at Ball’s Bluff circulated, Private Franklin Bullard wrote an embittered letter to his uncle, complaining of incompetent commanders. But of the cause itself, he still remained hopeful:
I don’t want to come home before these Southern Rebels are whiped out of their hides although I am pretty well satisfied with the luck I had at Balls Bluff in having the satisfaction of knowing that I killed one rebel and did not receive even a scar the bullets came thick and fast all round the house Colonel Devins ... I heard him say never mind the bullets give it to them boys he is a lucky boy Captain Philbrick is a great and honest man and he is not afraid to die in this holy cause he is a man we will follow even unto death in this cause. To die in a good cause is an honor to die a traitor is a disgrace give me liberty or death is what patrick henry said and I say it and I will have liberty.
3
In the South, news of the rout at Ball’s Bluff again swelled Confederate hearts. The South Carolina aristocrat Mary Chesnut recorded in her diary: “At Bonney’s store heard that at Leesburg, Shanks Evans had defeated Yankees, taken three hundred prisoners, and they left five hundred dead on the field. Besides a great number who were drowned. Allowing for all exaggeration, it must be a splendid victory.”
4
Even the
Richmond Daily Whig
celebrated victory by joining the religious press in invoking Providence alongside patriotism: “We have to felicitate the country this morning upon another signal and cheering evidence of the courage and devotion of our patriot troops, and to continuing favor of Heaven. Victory has again perched on the Confederate banners.”
5
Like Private Bullard in the North, Savannah’s Charles C. Jones was not afraid “to die in a good cause.” A Princeton-trained lawyer and Confederate civil officeholder, Jones could have avoided the army, but instead he enlisted in the Chatham Artillery Cavalry as an officer. In a letter to his father, C. C. Jones, the Presbyterian minister and “slave evangelist,” he explained why:
Above all, as a matter of personal duty and of private example, I think I ought to render service in the field. Were I to consult my own private inclinations as based upon principles of comfort, considerations of interest, and prospects of gain, I would not go. The service will be arduous, involving sacrifices great in their character; but I am of opinion that my duty requires it, and I will go.
6
By October 26, Jones was stationed at Camp Claghorn, Georgia, enjoying “our pure white tents” and preparing for battle. His mother, Mary, wrote, urging him to “[r]emember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy!” While conceding that she knew none of his company personally, “I pray for them all, from your captain down.” Lest there be any doubt about where Southern women stood in the conflict, Mary assured her son that whether he lived or died, the cause was just:
I know that you are now every moment exposed to the attack of our perfidious and merciless enemy; but your sword will be drawn in a righteous cause, and I fervently implore my God and Redeemer to protect and save you in the day of battle, and to encourage your heart and the hearts of our commander and of all your noble company, and to strengthen your arms for the conflict, that in your full measure you may be enabled to repel the infidel invaders who are now at our own doors with their work of ruin and destruction.
With an ailing husband and many slaves on the plantation, Mary closed her letter on a more ominous note shared by many Confederate women fearing slave insurrections: “Their intentions are now openly declared, and nothing but Omnipotent Power will keep them from making this not only a civil but a servile war.”
7
In Richmond, Mary Chesnut experienced similar fears on a much more personal level. On September 21, 1861, she wrote in her diary that while reading her husband’s mail for him she came across a letter from her cousin Mary Witherspoon: “I broke down. Horror and amazement was too much for me: poor Cousin Betsey Witherspoon was murdered! She did not die peacefully, as we supposed, in her bed. Murdered by her own people. Her negroes ... Horrible beyond words.”
8
In the roller coaster this war would become, Southerners barely concluded their celebrations over Ball’s Bluff when their euphoria came painfully down to earth with news of bitter disappointments for the Confederate armies and painful reminders of the all-powerful Federal navy. No coastal location was safe from naval bombardments and amphibious invasions. Most devastating was the capture of Port Royal Sound, South Carolina, and the nearby town of Beaufort, which gave the North a toehold between Savannah and Charleston and helped secure their blockade of the East Coast.
A month earlier, Mary Chesnut had reveled in victory at Ball’s Bluff. By November 8 the tide had turned: “The Reynoldses came, and with them terrible news. The enemy are effecting their landing at Port Royal. I ordered the carriage and rushed off to Camden to hear the worst.... Utter defeat at Port Royal. [William] DeSaussure’s and [Richard] Dunovant’s regiments cut to pieces.”
9
But God was still present: “Not one doubt is there in our bosoms that we are not the chosen people of God. And that he is fighting for us.”
10
President Davis agreed. Having just been formally elected president of the Confederate States of America, Davis wasted no time in calling for another day of fasting. The proclamation was reprinted in virtually every Confederate paper. It would be observed on November 15, when “the Reverend Clergy and the people of these Confederate states ... [repair] to their usual places of public worship; and to implore the blessing of Almighty God upon our arms; that He may give us victory over our enemies; preserve our homes and altars from pollution, and secure to us the restoration of peace and prosperity.”
As in the North, Confederate fast and thanksgiving days offered unique opportunities for civilians and soldiers to come together as full coparticipants in the war. Supplicating an overseeing Providence alone would determine the outcome of hostilities. Civilians could think of themselves (for a little longer anyway) as noncombatants and innocents, but their holy days belied them. Noncombatants, yes, but innocents, no. On both sides the people were soldiers all. As soldiers fought and prayed, so would the home front fight the war with their prayers and fasts.
Local papers reprinted Davis’s proclamation and promoted the occasion almost universally. In Charleston, the
Daily Courier
even printed a recommended prayer for the collect (one of the few surviving prayers):
O let not our sins cry against us for vengeance; but hear us Thy servants begging mercy and imploring Thy help against the face of our enemies. We implore Thy protection and power against those who have invaded our soil and our homes. We humbly look up to Thee, oh God, and say that we have done them no wrong. Defend, O Lord, and establish our cause. Endue us with power and strength; give us victory over all our enemies and make it appear that Thou are our Savior and mighty Deliverer, through Jesus Christ Our Lord—Amen.
11
Not every secular press was as compliant with the fast as Davis hoped. In an ominous portent of looming divisions between the press and the Davis administration, the
Richmond Daily Dispatch
ruefully acknowledged a “Puritan inconsistency” in fasting. Nevertheless, it bowed to public pressure: “In conformity with the recommendation of the President all business will be suspended in the office of the
Dispatch
to-day, and consequently, no paper will be issued tomorrow.”
12
This was the peoples’ war as well as the soldiers’, and the people fought with prayers and fasts that permitted no cynicism—even to journalists.
Despite its editorial view on fasting, the
Richmond Daily Dispatch
took up a defense of military chaplains, arguing that the payment of chaplains at a private’s rate was an insult to the office.
13
They were not alone. Ministers and religious presses throughout the Confederacy pointed to the inconsistency of a “Christian” nation that treated its clergy as mere privates entitled to only one ration per day and assigned no uniform (in contrast to Union chaplains who received an officer’s rank and pay).
14
In fact, the Confederates’ professed spiritual superiority did not entirely offset a lingering anticlericalism in the military and in the government’s condescending treatment of chaplains. Not surprisingly, the chaplains felt discriminated against in a “manly” military culture that responded apathetically to the high turnover in Confederate chaplaincies.
15