For Cause and Comrades: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

Battle challenged soldiers’ belief in their ability to control their fate. This led to frequent expressions of fatalism in their letters—if it was a man’s time to die, then he would die, and there was no use in trying to escape it. While there’s no evidence that Civil War soldiers resorted to superstitions to help them cope with lurking death, there is much evidence of both armies’ strong religiosity. In fact, McPherson suggests that the Civil War armies were the most religious in American history.

Many “nominal Christians” had conversion experiences during the war. One Iowan corporal wrote, for example, that he had been spiritually transformed into a different man than he was before and that he feared he wasn’t “too late” for God’s help in pulling through the rest of the war. During the terrible battle at Cold Harbor, a man “resolved to forsake my evil ways and to serve god.” For soldiers who were already devout, faith only intensified during the war. One soldier, who ended up being killed, wrote his sister that he never understood the comfort others found in religion until now, and he resolved to “be a better Christian” if he made it home safely.

McPherson detects a “Christian fatalism” in such letters that could have an edge of optimism or of pessimism. While both attitudes helped a soldier overcome his fears in battle, the pessimistic version was a resignation to one’s fate—for example, a Pennsylvania soldier rationalized that God simply decided it was his brother’s time to die . On the other hand, the optimists put a more hopeful shading on things: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain felt that he wouldn’t incur harm unless God willed it to happen. Another soldier overcame his obsession with death when he realized that he was still protected by God on the battlefield just as he was elsewhere in life.

Some of this religious fatalism had a predestinarian bent. One South Carolina lieutenant wrote that God’s authority is supreme and that it would be “unsoldierly” to beg for his life, so he simply committed his fate to God. Nevertheless, most American Protestants of this time put a greater emphasis on human free will. McPherson argues that this made them more likely to trust in the efficacy of prayer in impacting their fate—both their own prayer and others’ on their behalf. Thus an Ohio colonel wrote that God offered protection in response to his family’s prayers.

McPherson points out that this religious faith grew from a strong belief in the eternal life of the soul and of a literal heaven and hell. This belief helped many soldiers to put the fear of death in perspective. A Mississippi private wrote that “Christians make the best soldiers” because they don’t fear death or the afterlife. Even a nonbelieving officer observed this and acknowledged, “A [Christian] can afford to be a philosopher […] but a poor devil who cant believe it hasn’t that support.”

Death and dying were also a prominent subject of Victorian literature at this time, featuring “premonitions of death and tearful deathbed scenes.” Occasionally soldiers described a strong feeling that death was imminent (which sometimes came true) but they consoled their families with the conviction that they would meet in a better world.

Another religious issue for soldiers was the Christian prohibition of killing. A recruit noted that it was difficult to simultaneously fight and maintain his Christian beliefs. Others agonized over the paradox between killing and following Christ’s teachings even as they went into battle. Nevertheless, men more or less followed through on their orders. A Minnesota soldier wrote that although he didn’t feel good about killing others, he couldn’t see another way of resolving the conflict. Others expressed reluctance to kill while simultaneously upholding their convictions about the war and their sense of duty.

This sense of duty was embedded in a belief that the war was not only just, but “a holy cause against an evil enemy.” Both sides believed that God was on their side. A Confederate soldier wrote that he could not believe that God would allow Southerners to be oppressed by  “such a race of people as the Yankees,” while a Union soldier wrote confidently that their cause would ultimately ensure their place in heaven. When it came to the heat of battle, many adopted a “kill or be killed” justification, while others tried to distinguish between killing in combat and outright murder (such as a sharpshooter taking out the enemy outside of battle).

From 1863–1864, when it became clear that the Confederates might lose the war, a wave of religious revivals spread through the Army of Virginia, the Army of Tennessee, and other Confederate armies. Many professed faith and were baptized, and prayer groups became popular. McPherson believes that the boost in morale these revivals brought about helped the Confederates to continue fighting into 1865. While revivals weren’t as widespread in the Union army, conversions during the grueling late years of the war weren’t unheard of. McPherson concludes that religious faith increased a soldier’s ability to endure the stresses of combat, even if it didn’t necessarily motivate the soldiers by itself.