Dust Bowl Migrants

A Moral History of the Civil War

Harry S. Stout, Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War, New York: Viking Press, 2006.

I just finished this 450 page tome last week, and with packing tasks waiting for me every morning, I haven't had time to collect my thoughts for a proper review. But here are a few reflections.

Harry Stout -- eminent historian, Jonathan Edwards scholar, and the author of The New England Soul, among other things -- has set a pretty lofty goal for himself with this volume. He aims to write a narrative history of the civil war, including everything you'd expect in a history of the war: play-by-plays of all the great battles and analyses of northern and southern politics. He also brings his own impressive research in religious history, drawing liberally from primary sources like sermons, diaries, and religious weeklies. No doubt he adds significantly to civil war scholarship in this area, though I couldn't really say.

Most controversially, Stout proposes to evaluate the conduct of the war according to just war theory. It is his contention that the civil war was not fought justly by either side. On the battlefield the war failed to recognize the rules proportionality -- were the lives lost necessary for the strategic gain? -- and discrimination between legitimate (military) and illegitimate (civilian) targets. On the home front, the escalation of the war was supported by a moral, religious rhetoric that was blind to question of just war and limits. Simply put, for northerners and southerners, the end ("freedom") justified any means. "From the start," Stout writes, "this had been a political war that proceed not from moral cause to military consequence, but rather from military offensives to unquestioned moral validations on both sides" (97).

Of special concern to Stout is his finding that preachers and religious newspapers proved the war's most loyal supporters, and helped to extend the war into its most destructive final year. The jeremiad - a kind of civil sermon that purported to discern God's favor or wrath in the events of the day - "'removed all restraint from the war's brutality" (93). Stout provides scads of examples of this kind of rhetoric, and the evidence is overwhelming. On both sides, the moral affirmation of war for the sake of the cause was absolute. Stout's argument seems to be that churches helped the war along not only by justifying its aims, but also by a "conspiracy of silence" about the war's conduct. Preachers even more than the secular press failed to raise any questions about the way their commanders pursued victory. In the face of mounting casualty rates, there was only talk of martyrs sacrificed on the altar of the nation. In the face of defeat, there were only calls to repentance from secret sins to fend off God's judgment.

Stout is a skilled writer, and I found myself once again drawn into the drama of the Civil War: the improbable defeats, the fragile turning points, the gravitas of the generals, the scandalous casualty rates. At times, Stout's rhetorical devices seem a little overwrought: for example, he repeatedly refers to generals Grant and Lee as the "warrior priests" of America's new civil religion, leading sacrificial lambs to the slaughter.

And yet his point is well-taken. The U.S. is "a nation wrought in the fires of war" (249). There was very little national identity for the average citizen - until the Civil War.

I wonder, though, if Stout would have been better served to write a "religious history" of the Civil War. The idea of a "moral history" seems a bit conflicted. He brings in just war theory to evaluate the Civil War, but this seems more of a task for an essay than an entire book. At the same time, his intertwining of military and religious history is spellbinding, and certainly a story that needed to be told. It raises questions about the relationship of church and state that are quite current. Take for example the efforts of Christians in the Union and the Confederacy to mention Jesus in their respective constitutions, and the predictions of God's judgment on any nation that refused to give Him honor in its founding documents. I found it almost humorous that some Christians today are on the same quest, with no sense of historical irony.

But more to the point of the book is the question, whose side is God on? Both north and south claimed Him and bolstered their arguments with Scripture. In the end, the most enduring answer proved to be Lincoln's -- God's purposes were altogether separate from northern and southern agendas, and He was fashioning a Redeemer Nation, a light for the world. I would guess that this is what most Americans believe about the Civil War and about our country, if you get right down to it. Even Stout agrees that "for reasons Americans don't deserve or understand, we are" the world's "last best hope" (458).

I think it is a fascinating idea. For all my years at Covenant College, I believed that providential history was too dangerous to be worthwhile, if not entirely impossible. And yet the Bible routinely judges nations (not just individuals) for their sins. What do we make of this? [Aside: This is why I want to read Steven Keillor's book, God's Judgments] More practically, how are we to function in the U.S. - as citizens of no country? Politically engaged?

It's a live question. Thoughts?

Here's a much better review by Grant Wacker

Posted by tom at July 25, 2007 02:10 PM | TrackBack