William W. Bennett, A narrative of the great revival which prevailed in the Southern armies during the late Civil War

“ [230] above everything else, and thus leave but little room for the cultivation of meekness, humility, gentleness, and faith and love, which constitutes the religion of the blessed Jesus; and, as these do not thrive well in a warlike atmosphere, there is great danger of losing, or, at least, very greatly abating, the spirituality and the power of the religion of the Church, and subtracting very materially from the respect which many professed Christians in the Confederacy have for all the institutions in the Church, and especially for the ministers of religion.”

All previous wars, with hardly an exception, afforded ground for such a conclusion; but the great anomaly of our war was, that while religion may have languished at home, in the armies it flamed out with a power and brilliancy unheard of before in the annals of civil strife and bloodshed. This great fact came to view more clearly as the conflict deepened, and no man rejoiced in it more than did the eminent and venerable Bishop Andrew. At this day there are ministers of Christ of high talents and great usefulness, who were born of God amidst the smoke and flame of battle, and who heard the call of the Spirit to a nobler warfare above the rattle of musketry and the roar of cannon. And with these there stand now in the ranks of the laity, filling honorable and useful offices in the Church of God, their comrades, who, in the midst of like scenes, “tasted of the good word of God and the powers of the world to come.” Mingled with sad remembrances of the great struggle, they have a joyous recollection of the time and the place when peace was planted in the soul on the field of blood.

The gladness of that happy day,
Oh, may it ever, ever stay!