What role did religion play in their daily lives and on the battlefield?
McPherson: Civil War soldiers were a product of what has been called the second Great Awakening in American religious history, that wave of evangelical Protestant revivalism in the early part of the nineteenth century. I think most Civil War soldiers were quite literal in their Christian beliefs. Many of them would say in their letters that they had put their fate in God’s hands. They were religious fatalists on the battlefield. They would write home and say, “I’m under God’s protection whether I’m on the battlefield or at home in front of my fireside, and if it is His will to take me home to his bosom, He can do that as easily at home by my fireside as He can on the field of battle.” I think this kind of fatalism and this sense that God’s will would determine their fate, rather than their own will, made them better soldiers. They were willing to put their fate in the hands of God, willing to go forward in time of battle, whatever happened. I found in looking at their letters that many
