God's Almost Chosen Peoples
God's Almost Chosen Peoples

Author: George C. Rable

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2010-11-29

Total Pages: 599

ISBN-13: 0807899313

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Throughout the Civil War, soldiers and civilians on both sides of the conflict saw the hand of God in the terrible events of the day, but the standard narratives of the period pay scant attention to religion. Now, in God's Almost Chosen Peoples, Lincoln Prize-winning historian George C. Rable offers a groundbreaking account of how Americans of all political and religious persuasions used faith to interpret the course of the war. Examining a wide range of published and unpublished documents--including sermons, official statements from various churches, denominational papers and periodicals, and letters, diaries, and newspaper articles--Rable illuminates the broad role of religion during the Civil War, giving attention to often-neglected groups such as Mormons, Catholics, blacks, and people from the Trans-Mississippi region. The book underscores religion's presence in the everyday lives of Americans north and south struggling to understand the meaning of the conflict, from the tragedy of individual death to victory and defeat in battle and even the ultimate outcome of the war. Rable shows that themes of providence, sin, and judgment pervaded both public and private writings about the conflict. Perhaps most important, this volume--the only comprehensive religious history of the war--highlights the resilience of religious faith in the face of political and military storms the likes of which Americans had never before endured.

"Fear God and Walk Humbly"

Author: James Mallory

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Published: 1997-03-30

Total Pages: 720

ISBN-13: 9780817308322

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Mallory's journal spans three major periods of the South's history - the boom years before the Civil War, the rise and collapse of the Confederacy, and the period of Reconstruction after the Civil War. Mallory's interests were varied and wide ranging, but weather and agriculture dominate his journal, for agriculture was his passion. A member of the Alabama Agricultural Society, he encouraged efforts to improve. His journal describes the vicissitudes of raising and marketing various crops and animals. Concerns with cotton, corn, wheat, other grains, livestock, orchards, unusual farming methods, fertilizers, and experiments all receive comment.

Civil Wars, Civil Beings, and Civil Rights in Alabama's Black Belt
Civil Wars, Civil Beings, and Civil Rights in Alabama's Black Belt

Author: Bertis D. English

Publisher: University Alabama Press

Published: 2020-10-06

Total Pages: 592

ISBN-13: 0817320695

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Reconstruction politics and race relations between freed blacks and the white establishment in Perry County, Alabama In his fascinating, in-depth study, Bertis D. English analyzes why Perry County, situated in the heart of a violence-prone subregion of Alabama, enjoyed more peaceful race relations and less bloodshed than several neighboring counties. Choosing an atypical locality as central to his study, English raises questions about factors affecting ethnic disturbances in the Black Belt and elsewhere in Alabama. He also uses Perry County, which he deems an anomalous county, to caution against the tendency of some scholars to make sweeping generalizations about entire regions and subregions. English contends Perry County was a relatively tranquil place with a set of extremely influential African American businessmen, clergy, politicians, and other leaders during Reconstruction. Together with egalitarian or opportunistic white citizens, they headed a successful campaign for black agency and biracial cooperation that few counties in Alabama matched. English also illustrates how a significant number of educational institutions, a high density of African American residents, and an unusually organized and informed African American population were essential factors in forming Perry County’s character. He likewise traces the development of religion in Perry, the nineteenth-century Baptist capital of Alabama, and the emergence of civil rights in Perry, an underemphasized center of activism during the twentieth century. This well-researched and comprehensive volume illuminates Perry County’s history from the various perspectives of its black, interracial, and white inhabitants, amplifying their own voices in a novel way. The narrative includes rich personal details about ordinary and affluent people, both free and unfree, creating a distinctive resource that will be useful to scholars as well as a reference that will serve the needs of students and general readers.

A Most Stirring and Significant Episode
A Most Stirring and Significant Episode

Author: H. Paul Thompson, Jr.

Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press

Published: 2012-10-15

Total Pages: 357

ISBN-13: 1501756672

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When Atlanta enacted prohibition in 1885, it was the largest city in the United States to do so. A Most Stirring and Significant Episode examines the rise of temperance sentiment among freed African Americans that made this vote possible—as well as the forces that resulted in its 1887 reversal well before the 18th Amendment to the Constitution created a national prohibition in 1919. H. Paul Thompson Jr.'s research also sheds light on the profoundly religious nature of African American involvement in the temperance movement. Contrary to the prevalent depiction of that movement as being one predominantly led by white, female activists like Carrie Nation, Thompson reveals here that African Americans were central to the rise of prohibition in the south during the 1880s. As such, A Most Stirring and Significant Episode offers a new take on the proliferation of prohibition and will not only speak to scholars of prohibition in the US and beyond, but also to historians of religion and the African American experience.