A Holy Baptism of Fire and Blood: The Bible and the American Civil War

by James P. Byrd

Overview

In his Second Inaugural Address, delivered as the nation was in the throes of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that both sides "read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other." He wasn't speaking metaphorically: the Bible was frequently wielded as a weapon in support of both North and South. As James P. Byrd reveals in this insightful narrative, no book was more important to the Civil War than the Bible. From Massachusetts to Mississippi and beyond, the Bible was the nation's most read and respected book. It presented a drama of salvation and damnation, of providence and judgment, of sacred history and sacrifice. When Americans argued over the issues that divided them -- slavery, secession, patriotism, authority, white supremacy, and violence -- the Bible was the book they most often invoked. Soldiers fought the Civil War with Bibles in hand, and both sides called the war just and sacred. In scripture, both Union and Confederate soldiers found inspiration for dying-and for killing-on a scale never before seen in the nation's history. With approximately 750,000 fatalities, the Civil War was the deadliest of the nation's wars, leading many to turn to the Bible not just to fight but to deal with its inevitable trauma. A fascinating overview of religious and military conflict, A Holy Baptism of Fire and Blood draws on an astonishing array of sources to demonstrate the many ways that Americans enlisted the Bible in the nation's bloodiest, and arguably most biblically-saturated conflict.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190902810
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/04/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

James P. Byrd is Chair of the Graduate Department Religion and Associate Professor of American Religious History at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. He earned his master's degree at Duke University and his Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of Sacred Scripture, Sacred War: The Bible and the American Revolution (OUP, 2013).

Table of Contents

Introduction 1. His Terrible Swift Sword 2. The Stone Which the Builders Rejected 3. The Red Sea of War 4. This Second War I Consider Equally as Holy as the First 5. A Covenant of Death 6. Trust in Providence and Keep Your Powder Dry 7. This Warfare is a Holy Warfare 8. A Holy Baptism of Fir and Blood 9. Welcome to the Ransomed 10. Without Shedding of Blood Is No Remission 11. The Sword of the Lord 12. We Cannot Escape History 13. Of One Blood all Nations 14. These Dead Have Not Died in Vain 15. Cursed Be He That Keepeth Back His Sword from Blood 16. Woe To That Man By Whom The Offense Cometh 17. Baptized in the Blood of their President Epilogue

Editorial Reviews

"A Holy Baptism of Fire and Blood...makes an important contribution to our understanding of how Americans used the Bible, and the roles that religious ideology played during the nation's bloodies conflict." — C. David Dalton, Journal of Southern History

"The book is a compelling read, clarifying a core element of American history and political and religious discourse, about the past but also about the present." — Adele Reinhartz, University of Ottawa, The Society of Biblical Literature

"An eye-opening work for anyone wishing to truly understand the era...Essential." — CHOICE

"It will no doubt contribute richly to a wealth of new studies at this intersection for years to come." — Devin Singh, Dartmouth College, Chuch History

"Thorough and evocative." — Church History

"A Holy Baptism of Fire and Blood provides the most thorough discussion to date of the Bible's role in the Civil War." — David B. Parker, Kennesaw State University, Reading religion

"All told — and there is much in James Byrd's insightful narrative — A Holy Baptism of Fire & Blood is a unique and powerful first-hand recounting of the Civil War's ebb and flow through the elastic prism of the book most familiar to nineteenth-century Americans." — Bruce T. Gourley, The Civil War Book Review

"James P. Byrd has gifted readers with another comprehensively chronicled and extensively analyzed survey of how Americans, in the country's earliest decades, were politically inspired by the Bible ... As his second invaluable contribution to the interpretive history of the Bible in America makes clear, it is Byrd's historically and spiritually attuned gifts that are beyond debate." — Rabbi Dr. Stu Halpern, The Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought

"Byrd integrates his discussion of biblical references so well into their historical contexts that the book could almost be read as a history of the war itself.... A Holy Baptism of Fire and Blood provides the most thorough discussion to date of the Bible's role in the Civil War." — Reading Religion

"[Starred Review] This study of the use of the Bible at a critical time in the history of the United States can shed light on our own times, when the Bible is often used in a political tug-of-war." — Augustine J. Curley, Library Journal

"[Starred Review] Civil War buffs and Scripture enthusiasts alike will find this book to be a uniquely worthwhile reading experience." — Kirkus

"For readers accustomed to encountering the Civil War through battlefield accounts and secular biographies, Mr. Byrd's book is revelatory. No recent historian has shed more clarifying light on the spiritual equipment that bolstered soldiers' hearts and shaped their moral determination. Illuminating the faith they carried into battle along with their Bibles, as Mr. Byrd so eloquently does, helps us understand the inexplicable: how ordinary men by the tens and hundreds of thousands faced the imminent prospect of violent death or horrible maiming at Shiloh, Antietam, Cold Harbor and a thousand other battlefields that made the war the bloodiest in the nation's history." — Fergus Bordewich, Wall Street Journal

"Read the book, study the book, and reflect on the book. However, if nothing else, the Introduction and the Epilogue are a "must read" and worth the price of the book. Also, very helpful is the Appendix, "Biblical Citations in the Civil War Era." This is a landmark work to be read by any person seeking to understand the role of faith in military history and especially, during the American Civil War." — Timothy J. Demy, U.S. Naval War College, Cercles Recensions Book Reviews

"War is everywhere in the New Testament, as in the Old,' declared a Southern clergyman in 1863. The Bible was the most frequently cited book in both North and South during the Civil War. It served as a guide to explain the sacrifices and sufferings of soldiers and civilians. James Byrd's magisterial study helps the modern reader appreciate the all-encompassing role of scripture in America's most deadly experience." — James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era

"This remarkable examination of the use of the Bible in the Civil War, North and South, represents a new departure in Civil War historiography. Through an innovative and exhaustive quantitative compilation and analysis of scriptural references, James Byrd highlights the most important Scriptures cited during the war and sets them in their broadest historical context. While the texts and interpretations varied widely in North and South, Byrd demonstrates in striking detail the truth of Lincoln's provocative assertion in his 2nd Inaugural that both sides "read the same bible and pray to the same God." — Harry S. Stout, Yale University

From the Publisher

★ 01/01/2021

Having searched published and unpublished Civil War-era sermons and letters for biblical references, Byrd offers a chronological treatment of the Civil War as seen through the eyes of those who believed that the Bible had something to say about that conflict. He argues that, while both the North and the South may have read the same Bible, they each read it differently, and their understanding of what it revealed about God's purpose changed with the circumstances of the war. Byrd (religion, Vanderbilt Univ. Divinity School; Sacred Scripture, Sacred War) argues convincingly that the war over slavery was a war over the Bible's teaching on slavery. Referencing Bible passages, the work reflects on what the Bible has to say about war, conflict, pacifism, and redemption. Complementing nicely Elizabeth L. Jemison's Christian Citizens, which deals with how formerly enslaved people and their former enslavers read the Bible, Boyd's work offers a microcosm of the mid-19th century world of politics and religion. VERDICT This study of the use of the Bible at a critical time in the history of the United States can shed light on our own times, when the Bible is often used in a political tug-of-war.—Augustine J. Curley, Newark Abbey, NJ

Library Journal

★ 2020-12-15
A fresh exploration of the Bible’s role in the Civil War.

Byrd, a professor of American religious history at Vanderbilt Divinity School, provides a useful, original contribution to the vast library of Civil War history, focusing not merely on faith or religion in the context of the war, but on the Bible itself. Given the depth of religious fervor and level of biblical literacy that marked American society during the war years, the author is able to tap into a deep well of cultural riches and historical insights. “The American Civil War was not primarily a war over the Bible,” writes Byrd in the epilogue, “but for many Americans it was a biblical war,” and he points out several times that Lincoln once noted how both the North and the South “read the same Bible.” Both sides did indeed read the same Scriptures, and while both believed the Scriptures supported their views, they offered wildly differing interpretations. Byrd also shows how the Bible was a central point of reference for nearly everyone in Civil War society, from enlisted men to officers, abolitionists to proponents of slavery, politicians to, of course, clergy. Old Testament references, many of which are obscure today, were used widely by both sides of the conflict to interpret the contemporary events and find the direction of God’s favor. The Bible was used to prove, understand, or explain everything, from White supremacy to the reasons for specific military defeats to the assassination of Lincoln. As the war carried on, the language of sacrifice found throughout the Bible saturated Americans’ understanding of the conflict. “We misunderstand the Bible’s role in the war…if we devalue the biblical images of sacrifice,” writes the author, whose eye-opening analysis shows how, through sacrifice and atonement, Americans from both sides found meaning in the carnage of war.

Civil War buffs and Scripture enthusiasts alike will find this book to be a uniquely worthwhile reading experience.

Kirkus Reviews