In the Civil War era, Americans nearly unanimously accepted that
humans battled in a cosmic contest between good and evil and that
God was directing history toward its end. The concept of God's
Providence and of millennialism -- Christian anticipations of the
end of the world -- dominated religious thought in the nineteenth
century. During the tumultuous years immediately prior to, during,
and after the war, these ideas took on a greater importance as
Americans struggled with the unprecedented destruction and promise
of the period.
Scholars of religion, literary critics, and especially
historians have acknowledged the presence of apocalyptic thought in
the era, but until now, few studies have taken the topic as their
central focus or examined it from the antebellum period through
Reconstruction. By doing so, the essays in Apocalypse and the
Millennium in the American Civil War Era highlight the diverse ways
in which beliefs about the end times influenced nineteenth-century
American lives, including reform culture, the search for meaning
amid the trials of war, and the social transformation wrought by
emancipation. Millennial zeal infused the labor of reformers and
explained their successes and failures as progress toward an
imminent Kingdom of God. Men and women in the North and South
looked to Providence to explain the causes and consequences of both
victory and defeat, and Americans, black and white, experienced the
shock waves of emancipation as either a long-prophesied jubilee or
a vengeful punishment. Religion fostered division as well as union,
the essays suggest, but while the nation tore itself apart and
tentatively stitched itself back together, Americans continued
looking to divine intervention to make meaning of the national
apocalypse.
Contributors: Edward J. BlumRyan CordellZachary W.
DresserJennifer GraberMatthew HarperCharles F. IronsJoseph
MooreRobert K. NelsonScott Nesbit Jason PhillipsNina
Reid-MaroneyBen Wright
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