Stowell’s book is about much more than Southerners’ reactions to the Civil War; instead, it is about how Southerners, Northerners, and Freedpeople all reacted to the cataclysmic events of secession, Civil War, and reunification. Stowell charts the course that each of these groups took after the Civil War, not only individually but also in the conflicts they had with one another.
- “Religious reconstruction was the process by which southern and northern, black and white Christians rebuilt the spiritual life of the south in the aftermath of the disruptions wrought by the Civil War. Each group, however, had a different vision of what was necessary and how best to accomplish this process. For white southern Christians, the task was primarily to restore the antebellum status quo in their religious lives. In the immediate aftermath of the war, they made their intentions clear as they tried as much as possible to restore the old order — political, social, and religious — and only grudgingly accepted change.”
- “For white northern evangelicals, religious reconstruction meant the evangelization and Christianization of the benighted South and its black and white inhabitants. Flushed with cultural pride in victory, white northern Christians sought to purify the South and break the corrupting grip of slavery and treason on the region’s religious life.”
- “For African-American Christians, religious reconstruction involved not restoration but creation. Enabled for the first time to give expression to their own religious ideals, they set to work establishing a new and separate religious life for themselves.”
The conflicts between these groups continue to resonate today because the religious lives and attitudes currently expressed by many Americans were first established after and in reaction to the Civil War. It’s not a coincidence that contemporary voting patterns closely mirror which states seceded and which remained in the Union.
Because of the ongoing relevancy of the religious and cultural patterns established in the aftermath of the Civil War, Stowell’s book is not just important for historians but also for anyone interested in a deeper understanding of contemporary religious and political conflicts in America. The book is aimed at an academic audience and thus is probably more than the casual reader will want to deal with, but those willing to spend the time on it will be rewarded.
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