Benjamin R. Lacy suggests that the revival began in the camps and hospitals around
Richmond, Virginia.[1] The revival began in the
Army of Northern Virginia in early 1863.[2] In March 1863, for example, a new chaplain arrived at the
41st Virginia Infantry regiment and found the beginnings of a revival.[3] The revival was encouraged by
Stonewall Jackson and
Robert E. Lee and, by mid-1863, it had spread to all the Confederate armies.[4] 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.[5]
According to the Confederate chaplain J. William Jones, by the end of the war, 150,000 soldiers had been
converted.[4][6] Kurt O. Berends argues that the revivals were a major cultural event.[7] 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."[8]
Carroll, Dillon J., "'The God Who Shielded Me Before, Yet Watches Over Us All': Confederate Soldiers, Mental Illness, and Religion," Civil War History, 61 (Sept. 2015), 252–80.
Faust, Drew Gilpin. "Christian Soldiers: The Meaning of Revivalism in the Confederate Army." Journal of Southern History (1987): 63–90.
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