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Littlefield History of the Civil War Era
God's Almost Chosen Peoples: A Religious History of the American Civil War
Throughout the Civil War, soldiers and civilians on both sides of the conflict saw the hand of God in the terrible events of the day, but the standard narratives of the period pay scant attention to religion. Now, in God's Almost Chosen Peoples, Lincoln Prize-winning historian George C. Rable offers a groundbreaking account of how Americans of all political and religious persuasions used faith to interpret the course of the war.
Examining a wide range of published and unpublished documents--including sermons, official statements from various churches, denominational papers and periodicals, and letters, diaries, and newspaper articles--Rable illuminates the broad role of religion during the Civil War, giving attention to often-neglected groups such as Mormons, Catholics, blacks, and people from the Trans-Mississippi region.
The book underscores religion's presence in the everyday lives of Americans north and south struggling to understand the meaning of the conflict, from the tragedy of individual death to victory and defeat in battle and even the ultimate outcome of the war. Rable shows that themes of providence, sin, and judgment pervaded both public and private writings about the conflict.
Perhaps most important, this volume--the only comprehensive religious history of the war--highlights the resilience of religious faith in the face of political and military storms the likes of which Americans had never before endured.
Examining a wide range of published and unpublished documents--including sermons, official statements from various churches, denominational papers and periodicals, and letters, diaries, and newspaper articles--Rable illuminates the broad role of religion during the Civil War, giving attention to often-neglected groups such as Mormons, Catholics, blacks, and people from the Trans-Mississippi region.
The book underscores religion's presence in the everyday lives of Americans north and south struggling to understand the meaning of the conflict, from the tragedy of individual death to victory and defeat in battle and even the ultimate outcome of the war. Rable shows that themes of providence, sin, and judgment pervaded both public and private writings about the conflict.
Perhaps most important, this volume--the only comprehensive religious history of the war--highlights the resilience of religious faith in the face of political and military storms the likes of which Americans had never before endured.
586 pages, Hardcover
First published November 29, 2010
15 people are currently reading
175 people want to read
About the author
George C. Rable
15 books3 followersGeorge C. Rable is the Charles Summersell Professor of Southern History at the University of Alabama.
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September 5, 2025
A Religious History Of The American Civil War
The title of George Rable's new book on the Civil War, "God's Almost Chosen Peoples" (2010) derives from a speech that Lincoln gave on February 21, 1861 to the New Jersey Senate en route to his inauguration in Washington, D.C. Lincoln said: "I shall be a humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty and of this, his almost chosen people."
During the Civil War, religious Americans, North and South, had a strong sense of divine providence. They read the same Bible and prayed to the same God. They tended to think that God had a special providence for the United States which they analogized loosely to the ancient Israelites of the Old Testament.
Rable's book examines how people of faith tried to understand the Civil War in the years leading up to and including the conflict. He offers a complex, detailed, and thoughtful account of a subject that his received relatively little sustained attention in Civil War studies. Rable holds the Charles Summersell Chair in Southern History at the University of Alabama. He is best-known for his book, "Fredericksburg, Fredericksburg!" which was awarded the Lincoln Prize. His new book on Civil War religious history is dense and difficult. He offers important theological background for examining how people of faith viewed religion during the Civil War era. Rable has read an extraordinary range of original source material and religious texts, including sermons, denominational papers and statements, religious newsletters, diaries, among other sources. The bibliography and the end notes are massive. Rable examines both the Union and the Confederacy. He considers a variety of religious denominations, even though his focus is on American evangelical Protestantism. He considers the writings of ministers and theologians, of religious lay individuals, and of the soldiers in the field who fought the War.
As Rable points, out, the story of religion in the Civil War has many "zig-zags" and resists easy summarization. His study has the virtue of exploring the many divergent viewpoints that surfaced in both North and South. But much of the book concerns America's "Civil Religion", a term Rable might have considered more thoroughly. Religious Americans saw themselves within God's providence. They tended to read the Bible literally and as a blue print of sorts for the extremities in which they found themselves. Although they understood that American government (and the Confederate government as well) separated Church and State, many Americans tended to view their history and the Civil War in Biblically religious terms. The pervasiveness of religion was large but should not be over-estimated. Rable points out that between one American in six or seven was a church member during the Civil War Era, although the number of people who attended church with some regularity was considerably larger.
The book begins with a consideration of how various religious denominations responded to slavery prior to the outbreak of the War. Some individuals thought formal religion should take no position in an essentially political matter but focus instead on questions of personal salvation. Other people used religious beliefs to support strong commitments to slavery or anti-slavery positions. This particular question about the role of religion in civil life remains, of course, much with us. Then Rable considers responses to Lincoln's election and shows a broad spectrum of religious views in both North and South, with some voices in both sections advocating conciliation. With the firing on Fort Sumter, religious views in both North and South hardened as denominational leaders on both sides urged the conflict forward and perhaps conflated patriotism with religious belief.
The larger portion of this lengthy book examines religion in the camps -- where there were a minority of strong religious believers even taking account of religious revivalism -- and on the political and on the home front. Religious leaders in both North and South seemed to move too quickly to the conclusion that God was on their side. Leaders in both sections proclaimed numerous fast days and days of Thanksgiving. Religious providential interpretations varied as respective battles were won or lost. Ultimately, many but not all religious leaders in the North became strong supporters of Emancipation as a religious end of the Union's war efforts. As the war dragged on and bloodshed increased alarmingly, the urgings of people of faith probably became increasingly important in keeping the commitment of both sides to battle to the last.
In the last chapter of the book, Rable examines closely Lincoln's Second Inaugural address which spoke in a more nuanced, complex manner than did the learned clergymen on either side of the difficulties of the conflict and of the ambiguities of providence. Over the years, Lincoln's Second Inaugural has become a primary text of what many scholars see as an American secular civil religion. Rable also examines the many responses of religious people to Lincoln's assassination.
Although it sometimes gets mired down in detail, Rable's book examines reflectively how many Americans in the mid-nineteenth Century understood religion together with the many different impacts of religion and religious believers on the Civil War.
Robin Friedman
The title of George Rable's new book on the Civil War, "God's Almost Chosen Peoples" (2010) derives from a speech that Lincoln gave on February 21, 1861 to the New Jersey Senate en route to his inauguration in Washington, D.C. Lincoln said: "I shall be a humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty and of this, his almost chosen people."
During the Civil War, religious Americans, North and South, had a strong sense of divine providence. They read the same Bible and prayed to the same God. They tended to think that God had a special providence for the United States which they analogized loosely to the ancient Israelites of the Old Testament.
Rable's book examines how people of faith tried to understand the Civil War in the years leading up to and including the conflict. He offers a complex, detailed, and thoughtful account of a subject that his received relatively little sustained attention in Civil War studies. Rable holds the Charles Summersell Chair in Southern History at the University of Alabama. He is best-known for his book, "Fredericksburg, Fredericksburg!" which was awarded the Lincoln Prize. His new book on Civil War religious history is dense and difficult. He offers important theological background for examining how people of faith viewed religion during the Civil War era. Rable has read an extraordinary range of original source material and religious texts, including sermons, denominational papers and statements, religious newsletters, diaries, among other sources. The bibliography and the end notes are massive. Rable examines both the Union and the Confederacy. He considers a variety of religious denominations, even though his focus is on American evangelical Protestantism. He considers the writings of ministers and theologians, of religious lay individuals, and of the soldiers in the field who fought the War.
As Rable points, out, the story of religion in the Civil War has many "zig-zags" and resists easy summarization. His study has the virtue of exploring the many divergent viewpoints that surfaced in both North and South. But much of the book concerns America's "Civil Religion", a term Rable might have considered more thoroughly. Religious Americans saw themselves within God's providence. They tended to read the Bible literally and as a blue print of sorts for the extremities in which they found themselves. Although they understood that American government (and the Confederate government as well) separated Church and State, many Americans tended to view their history and the Civil War in Biblically religious terms. The pervasiveness of religion was large but should not be over-estimated. Rable points out that between one American in six or seven was a church member during the Civil War Era, although the number of people who attended church with some regularity was considerably larger.
The book begins with a consideration of how various religious denominations responded to slavery prior to the outbreak of the War. Some individuals thought formal religion should take no position in an essentially political matter but focus instead on questions of personal salvation. Other people used religious beliefs to support strong commitments to slavery or anti-slavery positions. This particular question about the role of religion in civil life remains, of course, much with us. Then Rable considers responses to Lincoln's election and shows a broad spectrum of religious views in both North and South, with some voices in both sections advocating conciliation. With the firing on Fort Sumter, religious views in both North and South hardened as denominational leaders on both sides urged the conflict forward and perhaps conflated patriotism with religious belief.
The larger portion of this lengthy book examines religion in the camps -- where there were a minority of strong religious believers even taking account of religious revivalism -- and on the political and on the home front. Religious leaders in both North and South seemed to move too quickly to the conclusion that God was on their side. Leaders in both sections proclaimed numerous fast days and days of Thanksgiving. Religious providential interpretations varied as respective battles were won or lost. Ultimately, many but not all religious leaders in the North became strong supporters of Emancipation as a religious end of the Union's war efforts. As the war dragged on and bloodshed increased alarmingly, the urgings of people of faith probably became increasingly important in keeping the commitment of both sides to battle to the last.
In the last chapter of the book, Rable examines closely Lincoln's Second Inaugural address which spoke in a more nuanced, complex manner than did the learned clergymen on either side of the difficulties of the conflict and of the ambiguities of providence. Over the years, Lincoln's Second Inaugural has become a primary text of what many scholars see as an American secular civil religion. Rable also examines the many responses of religious people to Lincoln's assassination.
Although it sometimes gets mired down in detail, Rable's book examines reflectively how many Americans in the mid-nineteenth Century understood religion together with the many different impacts of religion and religious believers on the Civil War.
Robin Friedman
August 6, 2025
This volume fills a gap in the Civil War historiography that needed to be filled long ago. Professor Rable details an important aspect of Civil War life: the religious aspect. The narrative is lively and has many first person quotes sprinkled throughout the text. I found the layout of the book to be very captivating, with a biblical quote at the beginning of each chapter. Overall, a very good effort and well worth reading.
February 26, 2014
Overview: George Rable's God's Almost Chosen Peoples is a thorough "religious history" of the Civil War. It address, among other issues, the religious attitudes of Americans leading up to the war, religious factors in causing and sustaining the war, the politicization of religious culture (and vice versa), religious explanations of the war, religious experiences of soldiers, denominational divisions resulting from the war, the war's effects on the religious landscape, and religious interpretations of reconstruction policies.
Method: The book is broadly narrative in that it follows a roughly consecutive path from the late 1850s to the death of Lincoln. Topical studies are inserted into this framework, sometimes sensibly and sometimes questionably. These topics include the roles of chaplains in the armies, the experiences of those working with the wounded, and the culture of army revivals. Rable draws from an extremely wide range of sources, official and public (political acts, sermons, newspapers, speeches, church records) as well as personal and private (journals, letters, memoirs). From such an abundance of potential sources, Rable attempts to balance North and South, male and female, black and white, devout and skeptical, powerful and powerless. The result is a panoply of voices that often resists easy incorporation into a narrative or corraling into a thesis. Another result is the book's somewhat unwieldy girth.
Major Themes: Rable's approach leaves little room for a central thesis; instead the book keeps it thread by devoting frequent attention to a few major themes.
1. Providential interpretation of history — The most pervasive theme of the book is also what Rable declares to be the most pervasive feature of American thinking about the war, that it like all other events would unfold according to the plan of God. The vast majority of Americans held to a providential interpretation of history; the war could not be an exception, though it acutely stressed the paradoxes of such a position. At times interpretations of providence were straightforward: God would give ultimate victory to those on the side of right. Some variants on this theme existed, such as that God would give victory in individual battles to whichever side exhibited less sinful behavior in the camps or had more devout leaders or who had experienced a more intense revival lately. Momentary defeats could be explained as God's chastening hand, purging either side of some sin. Preachers were not slow to speculate on which one. The horror of war could even lead to an "atonement" theology in which spilled blood redeemed the nation for past failures.
The interpretation was unidirectional, though. Victories and setbacks had to be interpreted within the assumption that God was on one's side. Failures did not call the cause into question; it only made God's ways appear more mysterious. Only a few people, such as Charles Hodge (through his strict Calvinism?) and Abraham Lincoln (through his idiosyncratic personal beliefs?), consistently managed to avoid equating God's cause with their own. The war itself did not substantially change Americans' views of providence, a fact that seems to purturb Rable a bit.
2. Civil religion and the politicization of the churches — First, a definition: “Civil religion in America developed as a set of beliefs about the relationship between God and the nation that emphasized national virtue, national purpose, and national destiny. A general faith in the work of divine providence in human history grew into a more specific conviction that Americans were a people chose by God to carry out his mission in the world. The creation and growth of the American republic therefore acquired transcendent meaning and signified the Lord’s direct intervention in human history” (3).
Separation of church and state had always been more of a theoretical ideal than descriptive fact in America, but the Civil War brought the churches into partisan politics to an unprecedented degree. Before the war, many conservative denominations put denominational stability ahead of any particular political ideology. Some held to "the spirituality of the church," a teaching articulated most memorably by Presbyterian James Henley Thornwell. It stressed the otherworldly nature of the church's essence and mission. Nevertheless, as the war began, neutral ground eroded quickly as both governments insisted on loyalty from ministers. Thornwell himself ended up writing "a purely political essay" (45) in a religious periodical. After emancipation, northern churches that had tread carefully around the issue fell in line with policy. Border state ministers came under fire and sometimes physical assault from both sides. As the North occupied the South toward the end of the war, they sometimes siezed church property, ousted "rebel" pastors, and insisted on demonstrations of loyalty to the Union from others. On both sides, "the cross and the flag" traveled together. At the end of the war, Christian support for Lincoln's policies became almost an article of faith in the North, whereas defeated southerners began to re-explore the spirituality of the church.
3. Religious life in the armies — The armies occupied an ambiguous place in American religion. On the one hand, they were seen as a breeding ground of immorality. It could be claimed either that they worked the men too hard for them to take good care of their souls or that abundant idle time fostered bad habits. Men distant from the civilizing influences of their churches and wives were constantly at risk. There was perpetual anxiety that the poor moral condition of the soldiers would inhibit the war effort. On the other hand, the armies quickly became the objects of valorization. Stories of revivals in the camps enflamed hopes, especially in the South. Hagiography of Christian generals such as Jackson and Lee quickly took off. The occupation of soldiering, always morally ambiguous, was valorized as the image of the "Christian soldier" who nobly volunteers himself as a sacrifice (atonement theology again) for a righteous cause dominated rhetoric.
Leaving behind homefront worries and hopes, life in the armies presented serious challenges to faith as well as new opportunities. The chaplaincy was not a fixed institution at that time. Chaplains were haphazardly deployed and made up their job descriptions as they went along, with great variation in success. Soldiers had many opportunities to express religious devotion, from official revivals and Sunday services to more intimate prayer meetings and song sessions. Others would encounter religion in the hospitals, where close proximity to death, chaplains, and nurse nuns provided strong encouragement to consider one's ways. Some religiosity was fueled by the hopes that it would attract God's favor; accounts of intense religious devotion reassured the homefront. However, best estimates suggest that only a minority of soldiers engaged regularly in religious practices.
Conclusion: A very good book that deserves to be on the shelf of the serious Americanist. A bit weak in terms of narrative, but compensated for by the sheer breadth of coverage and fine-grain detail at several points.
Method: The book is broadly narrative in that it follows a roughly consecutive path from the late 1850s to the death of Lincoln. Topical studies are inserted into this framework, sometimes sensibly and sometimes questionably. These topics include the roles of chaplains in the armies, the experiences of those working with the wounded, and the culture of army revivals. Rable draws from an extremely wide range of sources, official and public (political acts, sermons, newspapers, speeches, church records) as well as personal and private (journals, letters, memoirs). From such an abundance of potential sources, Rable attempts to balance North and South, male and female, black and white, devout and skeptical, powerful and powerless. The result is a panoply of voices that often resists easy incorporation into a narrative or corraling into a thesis. Another result is the book's somewhat unwieldy girth.
Major Themes: Rable's approach leaves little room for a central thesis; instead the book keeps it thread by devoting frequent attention to a few major themes.
1. Providential interpretation of history — The most pervasive theme of the book is also what Rable declares to be the most pervasive feature of American thinking about the war, that it like all other events would unfold according to the plan of God. The vast majority of Americans held to a providential interpretation of history; the war could not be an exception, though it acutely stressed the paradoxes of such a position. At times interpretations of providence were straightforward: God would give ultimate victory to those on the side of right. Some variants on this theme existed, such as that God would give victory in individual battles to whichever side exhibited less sinful behavior in the camps or had more devout leaders or who had experienced a more intense revival lately. Momentary defeats could be explained as God's chastening hand, purging either side of some sin. Preachers were not slow to speculate on which one. The horror of war could even lead to an "atonement" theology in which spilled blood redeemed the nation for past failures.
The interpretation was unidirectional, though. Victories and setbacks had to be interpreted within the assumption that God was on one's side. Failures did not call the cause into question; it only made God's ways appear more mysterious. Only a few people, such as Charles Hodge (through his strict Calvinism?) and Abraham Lincoln (through his idiosyncratic personal beliefs?), consistently managed to avoid equating God's cause with their own. The war itself did not substantially change Americans' views of providence, a fact that seems to purturb Rable a bit.
2. Civil religion and the politicization of the churches — First, a definition: “Civil religion in America developed as a set of beliefs about the relationship between God and the nation that emphasized national virtue, national purpose, and national destiny. A general faith in the work of divine providence in human history grew into a more specific conviction that Americans were a people chose by God to carry out his mission in the world. The creation and growth of the American republic therefore acquired transcendent meaning and signified the Lord’s direct intervention in human history” (3).
Separation of church and state had always been more of a theoretical ideal than descriptive fact in America, but the Civil War brought the churches into partisan politics to an unprecedented degree. Before the war, many conservative denominations put denominational stability ahead of any particular political ideology. Some held to "the spirituality of the church," a teaching articulated most memorably by Presbyterian James Henley Thornwell. It stressed the otherworldly nature of the church's essence and mission. Nevertheless, as the war began, neutral ground eroded quickly as both governments insisted on loyalty from ministers. Thornwell himself ended up writing "a purely political essay" (45) in a religious periodical. After emancipation, northern churches that had tread carefully around the issue fell in line with policy. Border state ministers came under fire and sometimes physical assault from both sides. As the North occupied the South toward the end of the war, they sometimes siezed church property, ousted "rebel" pastors, and insisted on demonstrations of loyalty to the Union from others. On both sides, "the cross and the flag" traveled together. At the end of the war, Christian support for Lincoln's policies became almost an article of faith in the North, whereas defeated southerners began to re-explore the spirituality of the church.
3. Religious life in the armies — The armies occupied an ambiguous place in American religion. On the one hand, they were seen as a breeding ground of immorality. It could be claimed either that they worked the men too hard for them to take good care of their souls or that abundant idle time fostered bad habits. Men distant from the civilizing influences of their churches and wives were constantly at risk. There was perpetual anxiety that the poor moral condition of the soldiers would inhibit the war effort. On the other hand, the armies quickly became the objects of valorization. Stories of revivals in the camps enflamed hopes, especially in the South. Hagiography of Christian generals such as Jackson and Lee quickly took off. The occupation of soldiering, always morally ambiguous, was valorized as the image of the "Christian soldier" who nobly volunteers himself as a sacrifice (atonement theology again) for a righteous cause dominated rhetoric.
Leaving behind homefront worries and hopes, life in the armies presented serious challenges to faith as well as new opportunities. The chaplaincy was not a fixed institution at that time. Chaplains were haphazardly deployed and made up their job descriptions as they went along, with great variation in success. Soldiers had many opportunities to express religious devotion, from official revivals and Sunday services to more intimate prayer meetings and song sessions. Others would encounter religion in the hospitals, where close proximity to death, chaplains, and nurse nuns provided strong encouragement to consider one's ways. Some religiosity was fueled by the hopes that it would attract God's favor; accounts of intense religious devotion reassured the homefront. However, best estimates suggest that only a minority of soldiers engaged regularly in religious practices.
Conclusion: A very good book that deserves to be on the shelf of the serious Americanist. A bit weak in terms of narrative, but compensated for by the sheer breadth of coverage and fine-grain detail at several points.
June 24, 2024
George Rable’s God’s Almost Chosen Peoples is a comprehensive account of Christianity’s role and function during the American Civil War. Despite being torn apart by political differences and the slavery question, Rable finds that the Union and Confederacy’s devout peoples submitted to the same God, and perceived their own cause to be the recipient of divine providence. While Rable claims that his publication is not “thesis driven”, he states that the purpose of the book is to show how “people used their faith to interpret the course of the Civil War” and that ultimately “religious conviction produced a providential narrative of the war” (Rable 6, 9). Rable’s claim of a providential narrative throughout the war is best identified through how the Union and Confederacy rationalized their respective losses and victories throughout the conflict; often in nearly identical ways. Periods of defeat and loss warranted repentance of both personal and national sins, while a succession of victories often saw both nations indulge in an arrogant overconfidence that ignored a humility before Christ. Conclusively, Rable observes great irony in the Civil War’s religious history, as both nations engaged in parallel thinking to determine the meaning of a horrible conflict. Rable’s blend of primary accounts from a variety of voices and secondary scholarship provides a relatively convincing account of how peoples of both nations used their faith to rationalize moments of despair and triumph during the Civil War. While God’s Chosen Peoples is undoubtedly informative, it is also a bit repetitive. Throughout the nearly 400 page work, the reader can’t help but sometimes experience a sense of “deja-vu” at reading the same points/conclusions that were already expressed in preceding chapter(s). God’s Chosen Peoples most closely aligns with the Neo-Liberal school of thought. Rable intensively focuses on the experiences and spiritual lives of average soldiers in both armies, and specifically the narrative of Black Americans in response to the Civil War and Emancipation Proclamation.
December 9, 2021
If you study 19th century US religious history this book is a must read.
April 10, 2015
There are many books written about many aspects of the Civil War but there was always one category which seemed to go unwritten: Religion. That is not to say that there were never any books on religion in the Civil War, but no book seemed to encompass the history of religion in the Civil War. God’s Almost Chosen People by George C. Rable attempts to fill the void of religious study in the war and throughout the text makes some provocative points. One thing can be certain when looking at a work such as this one: the monumental research provided in the pages will be seen as an advantage to have in the realm of Civil War academia.
George C. Rable holds the Charles G. Sumersell Chair in Southern History at the University of Alabama. He is the author of many other works such as Civil Wars: Women and the Crisis of Southern Nationalism, The Confederate Republic: A Revolution against Politics, and Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg! which has been hailed as the primary narrative on the Fredericksburg campaign and also won the Lincoln prize. He is also the winner of the Blackmon-Moody Outstanding Professor Award for the University of Alabama in 2003 and was the President of the Society of Civil War historians from2004-2008. This work is also part of the Littlefield History of the Civil War Era, a sixteen volume series of books from some of today’s most respected Civil War historians compiled by the University of North Carolina Press.
There have been books on the market about how religion morphed the ways in which the soldiers acted during the American Civil War, but this book takes a different approach to religion. From the opening pages all the way to the end of the narrative, this book was all encompassing and dealt with all the major issues which the war pervaded. By using the accounts and sermons from many of the influential ministers of the time to politicians using faith as a means for their ends was just fascinating on all counts. Some of the most fascinating chapters were the way in which clergy and church administrators used the Bible as a way to prove that the other side of the conflict was in the wrong by what they were doing. The section labeled “Holy War” and “War’s Purpose” really made you think about the causes of the Civil War and how it was seen as a whole. Rable also pays attention to the minority religions such as the Mormons who had undergone a great deal of harassment before the war with the Mormon wars. He also talks about the Catholic influence. This is, in my experience of Civil War research, the only full volume treatment about Religion in the Civil War while others have a much more concentrated fell to them. This was a great breath of fresh air to read as a full volume treatment.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of religion in this county and anyone who is studying the Civil War. The only way students can fully comprehend how the Civil War morphed the way in which people used faith as not only an existential ground, but as a means to their own ends is to read this book. I applaud George C. Rable for this phenomenal work about religion and suggest that it should be on the shelf of every Civil War historian.
Matthew Bartlett - Gettysburg Chronicle
George C. Rable holds the Charles G. Sumersell Chair in Southern History at the University of Alabama. He is the author of many other works such as Civil Wars: Women and the Crisis of Southern Nationalism, The Confederate Republic: A Revolution against Politics, and Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg! which has been hailed as the primary narrative on the Fredericksburg campaign and also won the Lincoln prize. He is also the winner of the Blackmon-Moody Outstanding Professor Award for the University of Alabama in 2003 and was the President of the Society of Civil War historians from2004-2008. This work is also part of the Littlefield History of the Civil War Era, a sixteen volume series of books from some of today’s most respected Civil War historians compiled by the University of North Carolina Press.
There have been books on the market about how religion morphed the ways in which the soldiers acted during the American Civil War, but this book takes a different approach to religion. From the opening pages all the way to the end of the narrative, this book was all encompassing and dealt with all the major issues which the war pervaded. By using the accounts and sermons from many of the influential ministers of the time to politicians using faith as a means for their ends was just fascinating on all counts. Some of the most fascinating chapters were the way in which clergy and church administrators used the Bible as a way to prove that the other side of the conflict was in the wrong by what they were doing. The section labeled “Holy War” and “War’s Purpose” really made you think about the causes of the Civil War and how it was seen as a whole. Rable also pays attention to the minority religions such as the Mormons who had undergone a great deal of harassment before the war with the Mormon wars. He also talks about the Catholic influence. This is, in my experience of Civil War research, the only full volume treatment about Religion in the Civil War while others have a much more concentrated fell to them. This was a great breath of fresh air to read as a full volume treatment.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of religion in this county and anyone who is studying the Civil War. The only way students can fully comprehend how the Civil War morphed the way in which people used faith as not only an existential ground, but as a means to their own ends is to read this book. I applaud George C. Rable for this phenomenal work about religion and suggest that it should be on the shelf of every Civil War historian.
Matthew Bartlett - Gettysburg Chronicle
June 13, 2025
George C. Rable’s God’s Almost Chosen People offers a nuanced examination of the role religion played in shaping the experiences, ideologies, and actions of Americans during the Civil War. Through extensive research and engaging narrative, Rable demonstrates how both the Union and the Confederacy saw divine meaning in the conflict, using religious rhetoric to justify their causes, interpret battlefield outcomes, and sustain morale in the face of immense suffering.
One of the book’s greatest strengths is its ability to illuminate the deeply embedded nature of religious belief in 19th-century America. Rable explores how ministers, soldiers, and politicians invoked providence, how wartime revivals influenced soldiers’ faith, and how religious institutions adapted to the war’s moral and political challenges. The book also highlights the contradictions and complexities within wartime theology—particularly how both pro-slavery and abolitionist factions claimed divine favor. One of the best books I have read this year.
One of the book’s greatest strengths is its ability to illuminate the deeply embedded nature of religious belief in 19th-century America. Rable explores how ministers, soldiers, and politicians invoked providence, how wartime revivals influenced soldiers’ faith, and how religious institutions adapted to the war’s moral and political challenges. The book also highlights the contradictions and complexities within wartime theology—particularly how both pro-slavery and abolitionist factions claimed divine favor. One of the best books I have read this year.
January 4, 2015
There was a lot of helpful information in this book on nearly every religious aspect of the war, but it was marred by a few shortcomings. First, it felt far too long. If anything I usually think books has too few quotes. But this one we hear over and over again quotes of the same arguments. While it certainly showed that some things did not change as the war progressed, but it became very tiresome in the process. It seems to me that the length could be reduced by 30% without too much difficulty.
Second, it seemed like the author did not have a complete grasp of theology, especially toward the beginning. This was mostly in analogies the author made, and it may not have had much impact on the meat of the book, but it did not inspire confidence.
Second, it seemed like the author did not have a complete grasp of theology, especially toward the beginning. This was mostly in analogies the author made, and it may not have had much impact on the meat of the book, but it did not inspire confidence.
March 31, 2011
My review is here:
http://erb.kingdomnow.org/featured-go...
http://erb.kingdomnow.org/featured-go...
March 17, 2015
not a "thesis-drive work" surveys the role of providential thought in making sense of the Civil War.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews