Confederate States Army revival

{{Short description|Series of Christian revivals}}

File:Prayer in Stonewall Jackson's camp.jpg

The Confederate States Army revival was a series of Christian revivals which took place among the Confederate States Army in 1863. It is generally regarded{{citation needed|date=August 2024}} as part of the Third Great Awakening.

Benjamin R. Lacy suggests that the revival began in the camps and hospitals around Richmond, Virginia.{{cite web|last=Lacy|first=Benjamin R.|author-link=Benjamin R. Lacy|title=The Revival in the Confederate Army|url=http://www.lifeaction.org/revival-resources/heart-cry-journal/issue-15/revival-confederate-army/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111226051106/http://www.lifeaction.org/revival-resources/heart-cry-journal/issue-15/revival-confederate-army/|url-status=dead|archive-date=2011-12-26}} The revival began in the Army of Northern Virginia in early 1863.{{cite web|title=The Confederates Get Religion|url=http://www.civilwarhome.com/religion.htm|access-date=26 February 2013}} In March 1863, for example, a new chaplain arrived at the 41st Virginia Infantry regiment and found the beginnings of a revival.Henderson, William D. 41st Virginia Infantry. H.E. Howard, Inc., 1986, {{ISBN|0-930919-26-2}}, pp 35-37. The revival was encouraged by Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee and, by mid-1863, it had spread to all the Confederate armies.{{cite book |last=Duewel |first=Wesley L. |title=Revival Fire|year=2010|publisher=Zondervan |page=128 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=q9mP3fh9pT4C&pg=PT128|isbn=9780310877097}} Mark Summers argues, however, that Jackson and Lee were exceptional as far as enthusiasm among the officers went, and rather than a "top down" revival (the traditional Lost Cause of the Confederacy view), it was much more "bottom up", as thousands of religious tracts were distributed among the soldiers. Summers suggests that due to the Union blockade, the soldiers had little else to read.{{cite journal|last=Summers|first=Mark|title=The Great Harvest: Revival in the Confederate Army during the Civil War|journal=Religion & Liberty|volume=21|issue=3|url=http://www.acton.org/pub/religion-liberty/volume-21-number-3/great-harvest-revival-confederate-army-during-civi|access-date=26 February 2013}}

According to the Confederate chaplain J. William Jones, by the end of the war, 150,000 soldiers had been converted.{{cite book|last=Murphy|first=Jim|title=The Boys War: Confederate and Union Soldiers Talk About the Civil War|year=1993 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |page=60 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=2sm4o1HeMG8C&pg=PA60 |isbn=0395664128}} Kurt O. Berends argues that the revivals were a major cultural event.{{cite book|last=Berends|first=Kurt O.|title=Religion and the American Civil War|chapter='Wholesome Reading Purifies and Elevates the Man': The Religious Military Press in the Confederacy |year=1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=135 |chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=x9kIjlT32OUC&pg=PA135 |isbn=9780195121285}} Ben House suggests that the revivals provided "the spiritual resources that would be necessary to enable the South to survive defeat and Reconstruction with a strong Bible base still intact."{{cite book |last1=House |first1=Ben |title=Punic Wars & Culture Wars: Christian Essays on History and Teaching |date=2008 |page=62}}