That None Should Be Lost: War and Gospel in The

THAT NONE SHOULD BE LOST: WAR AND GOSPEL IN THE CHRISTIAN INDEX, 1860-1865 by THOMAS LEE DREWRY Under the direction of Emory Thomas ABSTRACT Human tragedy breeds certain questions. Loss and grief expose dark recesses of the human spirit, those fears and feelings often hidden from life’s mundane routines that persist, unsuspecting of pending crisis or mortality. Prompted by questions of life, death, and tragedy, many turn to individual frameworks of belief, often religious in nature and in form, in order to heal, to find answers, and simply to do something. During the Civil War, many Confederates sought religion for the sustenance, direction, and motivation necessary for individual and collective survival. For many Americans on both sides of conflict, religion and war were partners. For Confederates, evangelical Christianity proved influential in the daily practices of individual faith and the formation of a national identity. Historians have not adequately examined this relationship, and such inadequacies inspired this study. INDEX WORDS: Civil War, Confederate States of America, religion, Evangelicalism, religious newspapers, Baptists, Georgia Baptists THAT NONE SHOULD BE LOST: WAR AND GOSPEL IN THE CHRISTIAN INDEX, 1860-1865 by THOMAS LEE DREWRY A.B., The University of Georgia, 2000 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS ATHENS, GEORGIA 2002 © 2002 Thomas Lee Drewry All Rights Reserved. THAT NONE SHOULD BE LOST: WAR AND GOSPEL IN THE CHRISTIAN INDEX, 1860-1865 by THOMAS LEE DREWRY Approved: Major Professor: Emory Thomas Committee: John Inscoe Sandy Martin Electronic Version Approved: Gordhan L. Patel Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2002 DEDICATION This work is dedicated to my grandfather, Robert D. Poole, whose passions for life, for the past, and for orderliness, I share. Thoroughness and faithfulness have guided his entire life, and such qualities proved essential in the completion of this thesis. Some deem us perfectionists, but we know 110 percent is far more than a catchy phrase for the faint of heart. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Pride and accomplishment prove worthy and often justifiable competitors, ably restricting thankfulness from fruition. Despite this, I heartily recognize that my efforts here reflect not talents I have created, nor abilities born solely from within. My words on this page cannot truly account for the many sacrifices, encouraging words, and prayers that so many have offered over the course of this work. Perhaps, though, this attempt will at least suffice on paper what can only be satisfied in spirit. Emory Thomas has been the constant friend of me and of my work. He has mentored me as a student, graciously commented on my work as a scholar, and provided diligent encouragement of my ideas and thoughts. John Inscoe and Sandy Martin, two of the busiest professors on campus, have undoubtedly served as faithful committee members of this venture and integral components of my scholarly career thus far. Many thanks to Mary Ella Engel, for her constant smile, support and care; to Eric Millen and John Hayes, for their attentive ears; and to my fellow graduate students for their wise words, their review of my ideas, and their willingness to impart their wisdom. My parents, Hayden and Linda, have been tremendously involved in caretaking my spirit and monitoring my efforts throughout all of my work. Undoubtedly, they have exuded consistency, even when they forget what exactly it is that I am writing. I am earnestly appreciative to my family, John and Jennifer Walker, Trenton and Mary Katherine Cloer, Heather Eaves O’Dell, Stanton Porter, and Stephen Floyd. And most importantly, thanks to my Lord, the Giver of all good things, for his gracious touch and loving intimacy that alone make every day abundant. Soli Deo Gloria. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.................................................................................................v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................1 2 GUARDING THE GATE.................................................................................20 3 FIGHTING THE WOLVES .............................................................................56 4 TENDING THE FLOCK..................................................................................90 5 CONCLUSION...............................................................................................122 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................128 vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION “If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.” Matthew 18:12-14 NRSV "Be strong and courageous, be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, for all the multitudes that is with him: for there be more with us than with him: with him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the Lord our God to help us, and to fight our battles." Second Chronicles 32:7-8 KJV In Religion in the Old South, historian Donald Mathews examined the radicalism of eighteenth-century Virginia preacher Samuel Davies. Leader among the New Lights, Davies preached to individuals, demanding his flock not simply ideologically concur with good Christian morality or the Divine arrangement, but rather cleanse sinful stain of their hearts to prepare for salvation. Davies precisely and passionately elucidated the line separating the saved and the damned, the evangelical community and the fallen world that was Virginia. None could straddle the fence of God’s favor; either one was marked by holiness and belief or by eternal fire and torture.1 During the French and Indian War, Davies served as a publicist and recruitment officer, though, as Mathews noted, he spoke as the leader of a community uniquely and unmistakably separated from Virginia society. Davies separated the cause of liberty and the worldly British who fought for that cause, doubting whether God’s judgment of his country could be thwarted even with the most capable of armies. Even still, Davies determined that in war evangelicals should “repent their sins, do their best, and trust in the Lord.” Mathews rendered Davies a “loyal 2 Britisher to be sure, and intensely patriotic, but he knew that he and his people were different from other Virginians and thankful to God for it!”2 Southern evangelicals during the Civil War were not entirely estranged from Davies’ sentiment. Offering “A Word in Season,” Samuel Boykin, editor of The Christian Index of Georgia, noted that the Confederate nation “[seemed] to be in danger from the ebullitions of fanaticism at the North, and, perhaps, a too highly excited patriotism at the South.” Boykin encouraged Southerners to “stand fast,” to continue their Christian duties, and embrace a “wrestling prayer” for the country.3 Boykin too noted that “this world is not the home of man. Place him how you will, he feels in captivity. He has longings for the infinite world which cannot be gratified here.”4 Though separated by generation and denomination, Boykin and Davies would have understood each other’s messages, quite probably in agreement, offering similar advice to determine evangelicals’ perceptions of and actions amid war. Granted, Boykin’s separation from society, though similarly acknowledged, engendered not thanksgiving for dissent, but hope for societal reformation through those committed to Christ’s cause. Boykin and Davies, though, delineated the differences between their nations and the heavenly realm, clearly outlining their duties as citizens of this world and the one to come. Historians like Mathews, Christine Leigh Heyrman, and Rhys Isaac portray the evangelicalism as rooted in social disorder in which believers, upon conversion, exchanged proper decorum for piety and flaunted a “zealous defiance” before family and friend, as their new identity entailed a rejection of patriarchy and Anglican frivolity.5 Isaac states that evangelicalism in the eighteenth century was the “popular response to 3 mounting social disorder” and in individual conversion, sin a “metaphor” for larger social problems.6 Though Davies and his contemporaries challenged planter authority and often criticized the peculiar institution of slavery, evangelicalism, once a religion of dissenters, eventually flourished, waded into the establishment, and proved a “critical ingredient” in the region’s decision to secede.7 The story of religion from Revolution to Civil War thus becomes a tale of how evangelicals, who shed their radicalism and early egalitarian notions, became masters. Intent on securing the good graces of white men in the South, evangelical leaders became the patriarchs, whom Davies and his early “brothers” threatened, and supported the peculiar institution for which evangelicals initially had no use.8 This historical analysis thus illuminates the pulpit as a political stage, church leaders as little different from political firebrands, and faith in Southern order as synonymous with faith in God himself. In sectional crisis, the proslavery South heavily depended upon religion to justify the institution

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