Mennonites, Amish, and the American Civil War

Young Center Books in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies

by James O. Lehman, Steven M. Nolt

During the American Civil War, the Mennonites and Amish faced moral dilemmas that tested the very core of their faith. How could they oppose both slavery and the war to end it? How could they remain outside the conflict without entering the American mainstream to secure legal conscientious objector status? In the North, living this ethical paradox marked them as ambivalent participants to the Union cause; in the South, it marked them as clear traitors. In the first scholarly treatment of pacifism during the Civil War, two experts in Anabaptist studies explore the important role of sectarian religion in the conflict and the effects of wartime Americanization on these religious communities. James O. Lehman and Steven M. Nolt describe the various strategies used by religious groups who struggled to come to terms with the American mainstream without sacrificing religious values―some opted for greater political engagement, others chose apolitical withdrawal, and some individuals renounced their faith and entered the fight. Integrating the most recent Civil War scholarship with little-known primary sources and new information from Pennsylvania and Virginia to Illinois and Iowa, Lehman and Nolt provide the definitive account of the Anabaptist experience during the bloodiest war in American history.

Genres: History, Civil War

376 pages, Hardcover

First published October 8, 2007

Reviews

[Denise Kettering · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a groundbreaking work on the involvement and non-involvement of Mennonites and Amish during the American Civil War period. The authors did a tremendous amount of research into the regional differences that occurred in how Mennonites and Amish handled the war and were treated by the broader surrounding culture. The amount of research that went into the book is amazing and introduces readers to a whole new set of research. the book emphasizes that there was not a single Amish and Mennonite approach to the war, although many of them did exhibit an attitude of nonresistance, there were many others who had to go to war because of the costs of remaining nonresistant. Some who hired substitutes even expressed regret or concern over having someone else go to war in their place. The book demonstrates the complexity of the attitudes and activities of these groups that struggled with how to faithfully adhere to their beliefs and live as citizens in their respective countries.

[Christopher Blosser · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provides an interesting history of the Mennonites and Amish -- Northern, Midwestern and Southern -- during the time of the Civil War, as told though the lives, historical records and eyewitness accounts of those who experienced its trials and tribulations. Much like the rest of the nation, while many Mennonites were committed to a "two-kingdom" ethic of non-participation, there were indeed instances of those who forsake their religious traditions to enlist in the army as well. Well-researched and copiously documented, this volume offers a look into an aspect of the American Civil War that is only recently receiving warranted attention.

Tangential note: Read in connection with personal historical research into the ancestors of the Blosser family -- namely Abraham B. Blosser (1828-1891), who was the son of Jonas Blosser (1791-1873), who was the son of Peter Blosser (1752-1835). These Blossers were then residents of Rockingham County in the Shenandoah Valley, VA. Being Mennonite "nonresistants" (conscientious objectors) found themselves in a bit of a pickle at the stat of the Civil War, opposed to secession and slavery yet, as it turns out, also deplorably treated by Union soldiers under General Sheridan who plundered their farms and made off with provisions -- and in one instance, burning a Blosser stone mansion -- during Sheridan's 1864 Shenandoah campaign. See the account of Abraham Blosser, "A Historical Sketch of the Early Mennonites in Virginia" in History of the Mennonites: Historically and Biographically Arranged From the Time of the Reformation; More Particularly From the Time of Their Emigration to America (1887).

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superbly written with indepth details