cover image While God is Marching on: The Religious World of Civil War Soldiers

While God is Marching on: The Religious World of Civil War Soldiers

Steven E. Woodworth. University Press of Kansas, $35 (394pp) ISBN 978-0-7006-1099-0

In While God is Marching On: The Religious World of Civil War Soldiers, Steven E. Woodworth casts light on one of the grayest areas in the battle between the Blue and the Gray: religion. Most soldiers who fought in the Civil War were Christians, praying to the same God and fervently believing that Jesus blessed their cause. Woodworth examines letters, diaries and other documents to assess the breadth and depth of religious faith among Civil War soldiers. In doing so, he contributes something important to the study of American religious history; while countless books have illuminated the role of religion in antebellum and postbellum America, all too few have analyzed its importance during the war itself. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of many more such studies.