Mennonites, Amish, and the American Civil War

Bibliographic Information

Mennonites, Amish, and the American Civil War

James O. Lehman and Steven M. Nolt

(Young Center books in Anabaptist and Pietist studies)

Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007

Available at  / 3 libraries

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Note

Bibliography: p. [315]-340

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

During the American Civil War, the Mennonites and Amish faced moral dilemmas that tested the very core of their faith. How could they oppose both slavery and the war to end it? How could they remain outside the conflict without entering the American mainstream to secure legal conscientious objector status? In the North, living this ethical paradox marked them as ambivalent participants to the Union cause; in the South, it marked them as clear traitors. In the first scholarly treatment of pacifism during the Civil War, two experts in Anabaptist studies explore the important role of sectarian religion in the conflict and the effects of wartime Americanization on these religious communities. James O. Lehman and Steven M. Nolt describe the various strategies used by religious groups who struggled to come to terms with the American mainstream without sacrificing religious values-some opted for greater political engagement, others chose apolitical withdrawal, and some individuals renounced their faith and entered the fight. Integrating the most recent Civil War scholarship with little-known primary sources and new information from Pennsylvania and Virginia to Illinois and Iowa, Lehman and Nolt provide the definitive account of the Anabaptist experience during the bloodiest war in American history.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Maps Acknowledgments Introduction: Religion, Religious Minorities, and the American Civil War 1. Politics and Peoplehood in a Restless Republic 2. Our Country Is at War 3. Conscription, Combat, and Virginia's "War of Self-Defense" 4. Negotiation and Notoriety in Pennsylvania 5. Patterns of Peace and Patriotism in the Midwest 6. The Fighting Comes North 7. Thaddeus Stevens and Pennsylvania Mennonite Politics 8. Did Jesus Christ Teach Men to War? 9. Resistance and Revenge in Virginia 10. Burning the Shenandoah Valley 11. Reconstructed Nation, Reconstructed Peoplehood Appendixes A. The Sonnenberg Petition B. Mennonites Identified on Roll of Exemptions List of Abbreviations Notes References Index

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