Confederate Soldiers
Union Gen. Ambrose Burnside readies his attack upon Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee‘s forces in Fredericksburg. With over 200 artillery pieces pointed over the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg and pontoon bridges ready for deployment, Burnside tries to anticipate Lee’s defensive strategy. Successfully crossing the river on the bridges is critical to a Union victory. The question is, where should the main force of his army cross the river in order to attack Lee at his most weakest point?
Meanwhile, in today’s Georgia Baptist Christian Index, Southern Baptist Army missionary and colporteur A. E. Dickinson of Richmond, Virginia offers his list of “Eight Reasons for Sustaining Army Colportage.” Dickinson’s listing offers not only a snapshot of spiritual conditions within the Confederate Army, but also provides glimpses into army camp life at large, a hint of an inflationary and unstable Southern economy, and a vision of the future of a victorious Confederacy.
1. Many regiments are destitute of chaplains. There are upwards of four hundred regiments in the field and only two hundred chaplains are under appointment, so that one half of our men are entirely destitute of the means of grace. Even those who have the services of chaplains are in many instances but poorly supplied, for some chaplains are in delicate health and can be with their men only a portion of their time, while some are inefficient and do no good at all.
2. There is a great desire for reading material in the army. Our soldiers have been accustomed to read. Before they entered the service they read the papers, magazines and books, and thus acquired a taste for reading. They have much leisure which ought to be employed in improving themselves.–But a small portion of one’s time is in active service. In twelve months, as a general thing, at least six will be spent in doing nothing. When asked, “What was the most unpleasant condition a man could be placed in? Benj. Franklin replied that it was to be “shut up in a house a rainy day and have nothing to read.”
3. If you do not give the soldiers something good to read they will most assuredly get something of a vicious character. A pedlar was in Richmond a few weeks since buying up all the most debasing and licentious works to sell to the soldiers. He was one of the Devil’s colporteurs, of whom there are many. Can we afford to let them have the field all to themselves?
4. The army is composed of the very best material in the Confederacy. Thousands are the sons of pious parents and the husbands of pious wives. They have received much religious instruction, and if, while in the camp, they have religious privileges they will be converted and return home as good “soldiers of Christ Jesus.”
5. If neglected, the good impressions made by pious ones at home will, in this great school of vice, be effaced and they will return, after the war, with hearts black with sin to crush the loving hearts of those who now pray for them at home. They will either return vastly better or vastly worse than they were when they left.
6. The men who now compose the army will rule this land for years to come. Having fought its battles and achieved its independence, they will fill all its offices of honor and influence. They will control and guide public opinion, and if they return debased and vicious the treasure and blood of this struggle will have been spent in vain.
7. The best means for securing an early and honorable peace is to be found just here. The more you place before a man the claims of the Gospel the better the man he will be in all the relations of life. He will be a more obedient, self-denying and courageous soldier.–If a christian, he knows that “all things will work for good” to him. Generals Lee, Jackson, D. H. Hill, Polk, Longstreet and Pendleton are the better soldiers for having faith in Christ and loving the service of God. Every tract we throw among our soldiers does as much to secure Southern independence as if we had thrown a bomb shell among the enemy.
8. Army colportage has proven itself a most admirable means of evangelizing.–Nineteen months ago, the Baptists of the South, through the Board located in this city, entered this field. For months there was not a tract sent into the army except thro’ this agency. Behold what God hath wrought! Thousands of brave men brought to Jesus, and, to-day, there are not less than fifty revivals of religion in progress in the various camps and hospitals of the army.
Shall such a work as this languish when the Baptists of the South are perplexed to know what to do with their money, because they have so much of it and there are so few ways to invest. Invest a good portion right here, in Bibles and tracts and good books, and tears and entreaty, and prayer and preaching the Gospel. It will pay well in this life and that which is to come.
Reading is indeed a popular past time in the army camps. While Confederate soldiers are not as literate as their Northern counterparts, as many as 80% of the men have at least rudimentary skills in terms of reading and writing–with a small minority being proficient, if surviving soldier letters are any indication.
The “debasing and licentious” material that the “Devil’s colporteurs” are selling to soldiers is likely a reference to pornographic materials, both novels and pictures, which are common in the army camps South and North. In addition, the Civil War spurs a growth in prostitution. To counter these and other unwholesome influences, Dickinson and the families of Baptist soldiers hope religious reading materials will help maintain a sense of morality among their men.
Sources: A. E. Dickinson, “Eight Reasons for Sustaining Army Colporteurs,” Christian Index, December 9, 1862; James McPherson, “‘Spend Much Time in Reading the Daily Papers’: The Press and Army Morale in the Civil War” (link); Ray B. Browne, Lawrence A Kreiser, Jr., The Civil War and Reconstruction, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2003, pp.6-8 (link); “Sex in the American Civil War” (link)
