Posted on 05/09/2006 8:50:09 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
Rebel and Yankee troops began taking up arms against each other 145 years ago this month.
A few weeks into the war, citizens gathered in Athens to cheer and weep as the new Hobbs' Corps boarded a train bound for Richmond, Va.
A newspaper reported that the corps sought prayers "for the safety of our company from the dangers of the field, and the temptations of the camp, and for the speedy and complete triumph of the cause of the South."
Most of those prayer requests went unanswered, it seems. Maj. Thomas Hobbs, an active Methodist, died in the war. The South did not triumph.
Many people believed that God sent victory of another sort. Historians record that revival swept the Confederate armies.
"I have never witnessed such a widespread and powerful religious interest among the soldiers," wrote a Southern chaplain in 1863.
Prayers rose as steadily as campfire smoke, witnesses said. Soldiers crowded altars and begged for tracts and Bibles. They sang and prayed in the night and sometimes gathered for worship as shells exploded. One chaplain said he preached to a solid acre of soldiers in Virginia. Almost whole units stopped cursing and drinking, chaplains reported.
Chaplain Mooney
The revival in the Confederate armies fascinates a Trinity man whose ancestors fought on both sides of the war. The Rev. Myron Mooney, pastor of Trinity Free Presbyterian Church, has studied the spiritual movement and believes it was as dramatic as the Great Awakening that swept Colonial America.
"There were not only salvations, but there was an outpouring of the Holy Spirit," he said.
Mooney attends reenactments portraying a real Civil War missionary and chaplain who has the same last name but is unrelated, the Rev. Wellborn Mooney of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. Books on the revival tell of his preaching, visiting the wounded and dying and helping lead a brush arbor meeting for soldiers near Chattanooga.
Mooney spoke this week on the revival to a Sons of Confederate Veterans group in Tennessee.
"For a Christian, any time the spirit of God is poured out, it should be important to Christians," he said.
Dressed in his period costume, Mooney holds services during reenactments. He preaches each year at the Point Mallard Prayer Chapel during September Skirmish and goes to similar events elsewhere. Wednesday, he was at the Decatur City Cemetery for the dedication of a marker for Confederate graves.
The organization Reenactors on Mission for Jesus Christ inspired him to minister at Civil War events, Mooney said.
A Madison resident gave Mooney a copy of a tract that her ancestor, a soldier from Georgia, mailed home before his death at the Battle of Seven Pines, Va. He wrote his wife that she should "do as it directs you and try to rase Johney to do the same if i Never return Back home Again." The tract urged readers to come to Jesus.
'Shout in the camp'
A Tennessee chaplain who later served as a minister in North Alabama, the Rev. S.M. Cherry, kept a diary of his work as a chaplain and an agent of the Soldiers' Tract Association. Cherry said that one night four soldiers professed faith in Christ and "we had a shout in the camp."
In 1864 he reported a "precious revival" at Dalton, Ga., — 107 conversions in Brown's Brigade. He described a log camp chapel soldiers built. The chaplains thought it would be large enough, "but when the great revival began," soldiers so crowded it that chaplains doubled its size. Still it was not large enough, he said.
He noted revivals in other brigades, including several of Alabama. The general of Lowry's Brigade of Alabama and Mississippi baptized a dozen of his own soldiers, Cherry said. Fifty or so were converted in General Deans' Alabama Brigade.
"The wonderful work of grace is spreading all over the army," he said, claiming in April 1864 that 1,000 soldiers had publicly sought salvation.
A soldier stationed near Montevallo wrote in 1864 of 100 conversions to Christ through a Bible class and an association for soldiers. Among the 35th Alabama Regiment, "almost all our boys are religious," an officer told a chaplain who helped lead services in 1863.
An 1863 letter to an editor told of the Rev. W.H. Carroll of Alabama preaching to Law's Alabama Brigade at camp near Fredricksburg, Va.,
"How many parents' heart will be gladdened when the glorious news of a revival in our camp reaches them!" the writer said.
A chaplain for the 10th Alabama Regiment, the Rev. J.J.D. Renfroe, wrote of a "splendid protracted meeting" in the brigade. A co-worker said that hundreds professed faith. As he put it, "The shock of battle has been sanctified to the saving of souls."
Methodist evangelist the Rev. John B. McFerrin, baptized at Cambridge Campground in Limestone County, said he never saw more displays of God's power than in 1863-64 meetings.
Unbelief, belief
Not all found faith in trenches and battlefields. Chaplains also reported encountering unbelief and "wicked" behavior in the ranks. Officers and church groups begged for more chaplains and missionaries to volunteer.
Cherry concluded years later, "Christ was in the camp of the Southern States' Army; to me there is no doubt on that point."
Church historian Gardiner Shattuck Jr. wrote in Christian History magazine that 100,000 or more Confederate soldiers converted. The impact of revivals "surely was tremendous," he said.
Sources: "Christ in the Camp" by J. William Jones and "The Great Revival in the Southern Armies" by W.W. Bennett, both reprinted by Sprinkle Publications, Harrisonburg, Va., which has helped put on conferences on the revival.
The Rev. Myron Mooney beside a Confederate flag during a Confederate Memorial Day event Wednesday at Decatur City Cemetery. Mooney takes on the role of Chaplain Wellborn Mooney of Tennessee at reenactments and ceremonies. The Confederate chaplain was part of revivals in the armies.
I wonder how they felt about "revival" for the slaves?
Read up on Stonewall Jackson and what he did to promote the faith!
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