Conclusion: “The Nation Still in Danger”

The Conclusion highlights the reality that Reconstruction had not turned out as most northern evangelicals had hoped. The Christian America envisioned by radicals, one which ensured an equitable place for the ex-slaves, had failed to materialize. Though legally in possession of political and civil rights, those rights were tenuous at best under southern governments, and there was little cultural or political will at the national level to ensure much more beyond nominal freedom. For non-radical northern evangelicals, Reconstruction also failed to provide what they had desired—an affective Christian-American oneness. This became clear in 1881 during the melodrama surrounding James Garfield’s assassination, when northern evangelicals looked to his death to forge an affective Union. The Conclusion also links Civil War-era northern evangelicalism to what would become fundamentalism, mid-twentieth-century neo-evangelicalism, the so-called Religious Right of the late-twentieth century.

The Union Saved Again

The fifth chapter explores the transformation of northern evangelical opinion regarding Andrew Johnson from 1866 to 1868 and their subsequent welcoming of Ulysses S. Grant as a two-time savior of the Union in the election of 1868. During the spring and summer of 1866, Johnson broke with Congressional Republicans over Reconstruction policy and began to lose the support of non-radical northern evangelicals in the process. Many northern evangelicals would feel compelled by Johnson’s stubbornness and southern recalcitrance to support the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment and then Johnson’s impeachment in 1868. Northern evangelicals saw an image of themselves in Grant, and they envisioned the final healing of sectional difficulties in a Grant presidency along with the opportunity to focus on other problems threatening their country.

“The Uprising of a Great People”

Chapter one explores northern evangelical devotion to the Union during the Civil War by looking at its intersection with the public words of Abraham Lincoln. His public words were often particularly attuned to evangelicals’ hearts and minds and seemingly reflected their own understanding of the Union in relation to God. The chapter reveals northern evangelicals’ belief in the supremacy of providence, while relating it to Lincoln’s own preoccupation with the divine meaning of the war. Furthermore, northern evangelicals perceived the Union in terms of an Old Testament-like covenantal relationship to God, which meant that God had been historically at work shaping a Christian-American people who were obligated to live unto him and fight to save the Union. This outlook was reflected in Lincoln’s thanksgiving and fast-day proclamations, and, consequently, mainstream northern evangelicals generally supported his vision for saving their country.

Introduction: “Long Live the Glorious Union”

The introduction states the book’s thesis—that throughout the Civil War and Reconstruction many northern white evangelicals subordinated particular concern for the four million African-American slaves (and then ex-slaves) to a larger vision for the Union’s persistence and continued flourishing as a specifically Christian nation. It defines evangelicalism, which was centrally important to both North and South, and suggests that the Civil War may be understood in part as a clash of competing visions for a properly Christian America. The introduction then situates the book within the context of current scholarship on northern evangelicalism and the Civil War and Reconstruction. Finally, the introduction relates northern evangelicalism to the concept of Union and contends that evangelical devotion to it may be understood more as a form of ethno-cultural nationalism than civic nationalism.

Pax Grantis

The sixth chapter shows northern evangelicals preoccupied during Grant’s presidency with managing various cultural, social, and political forces centrifugally threatening the Union. Their larger vision for national Christian oneness continued to subsume the ex-slaves. This was evident in several ways: first, many looked to the cohesive, homogenizing power that evangelicalism promised to provide the large and growing republic; second, predisposed to see Reconstruction end, particularly following the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, northern evangelicals were convinced that they had one of their own in the White House and thus supported Grant during the 1872 election against Liberal Republicans; and third, they regarded him as an ally when it came to addressing the potential threat offered by Native Americans and Roman Catholics. By the end of Grant’s presidency, the Union appeared restored, the nation had just celebrated its centennial, prosperity and oneness seemed to abound, and Americans felt at peace.

From Moses to Joshua

The fourth chapter surveys the generally positive reception northern evangelicals gave Andrew Johnson following Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865 and through the remainder of the year. Flowing from their desire to see one whole, Christian America realized, northern evangelicals explicitly encouraged Johnson to follow in Lincoln’s steps and act as a willing vehicle of providence to speedily restore the Union. With Congress in recess until December, Johnson had a relatively free hand to direct Reconstruction and produce sectional reconciliation, and his initial Reconstruction policy generally met with northern evangelical approval. Rather than advocating for racial justice, non-radical northern evangelicals remained animated by a vision of national Christian oneness and were ready with Andrew Johnson to declare the Union restored by December 1865.

1864

The second chapter looks at northern evangelicals in relation to the election of 1864. Although the war’s evolving aim, which now included emancipation, reflected northern white evangelicals’ misgivings regarding slavery, during 1864 many nevertheless downplayed slavery-related issues. The year began with high hopes surrounding Ulysses S. Grant’s promotion to lead all Union forces, but by late summer his Virginia campaign had stalled and precipitated much anxiety in the North. In the face of Democratic opposition and abolitionist criticism,mainstream evangelicals cast 1864 as the dénouement of the war, if not the nation’s entire history. The enhanced drama benefitted Lincoln, for the more desperate things appeared, the more desperately mainstream evangelicals supported him. Contrary to the desires of evangelical abolitionists, most northern evangelicals saw the election of 1864 as fundamentally about saving the Union.

“The Harvest of Death Is Complete”

Following upon Abraham Lincoln’s electoral victory in 1864, chapter three portrays northern evangelicals anticipating military victory and emergent national oneness. The chapter looks particularly at northern evangelical intersection with Lincoln’s second inaugural address, their initial hopes following the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, and then their reaction to Lincoln’s assassination. Northern evangelicals were ecstatic when the war ended and the Union was preserved, and, despite Lincoln’s assassination and the anger that followed, they looked ahead to Reconstruction as a moment during which affective national Christian oneness would be more fully and strongly attained than ever before in American history. The northern evangelical vision for the Union was intact and optimistic. Northern white evangelicals had never been primarily energized by radical advocacy for racial justice; thus they did not desire or envision the long-term need for strong federal reconstructive efforts in the South.