Religion was central to the American Civil War experience. It gave Americans at war a vocabulary through which to understand life and death, a rationale for fighting (or not fighting) for one's country, a moral compass, and an institutional means of providing relief to soldiers in the field and people suffering on the homefront. Before the war, religious ideas informed the debates on slavery and the character and destiny of the Union. After the war, religious institutions and imperatives gave substance to African-American aspirations for freedom and autonomy; helped rebuild the defeated South and explain defeat to white Southerners; and spurred Northern interest in Reconstruction.

Background

Although much variety existed among Americans regarding culture and class, the men who served in the armies, especially those who rallied to the flags in 1861 and stayed for the duration of the conflict, were remarkably homogeneous in their...