James P. Byrd - A Holy Baptism of Fire and Blood: The Bible and the American Civil War

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Byrd, James P., 1965 author.

Title: A holy baptism of fire and blood : the Bible and the

American Civil War / James P. Byrd.

Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2021] |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020028349 (print) | LCCN 2020028350 (ebook) |

ISBN 9780190902797 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190902810 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: BibleStudy and teachingUnited StatesHistory

19th century. | Bible and politicsUnited StatesHistory19th century. |

WarReligious aspectsChristianityHistory19th century. |

Religion and politicsUnited States. | United StatesHistoryCivil War,

18611865Religious aspectsChristianity. | United States

Religion19th century. | United StatesReligious life and customs.

Classification: LCC E635 .B98 2020 (print) | LCC E635 (ebook) |

DDC 277.3/081dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020028349

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020028350

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190902797.001.0001

In memory Linda Byrd Earley

I am grateful for the advice of friends and colleagues who helped me to write this book. Lincoln Mullens expertise in digital humanities, particularly his use of machine learning to identify biblical verses in text files, allowed me to draw from extensive databases of biblical citations. Mullen also read the entire manuscript and offered many helpful suggestions. I am also grateful to Douglas Sweeney, who read the proposal and offered valuable insights, and to Chris Benda, who gave me a helpful assessment of an early chapter. Special thanks go to the research assistants who helped me to retrieve primary sources, convert them to electronic format, and organize biblical citations into various databases. Jennifer Axsom Adler, Alex Ayris, Noah Frens, and Alan Murphy were graduate students in religious history at Vanderbilt when they worked on this project. Their work made this a much better book than it would have been otherwise. Rachel G. McKane, a graduate student in sociology, was incredibly helpful with her expertise in R programming. Early in the project, Jacob Berexa assisted in developing the bibliography of primary sources. In the late stages of the work, Glenda Mernaugh reviewed the full manuscript and made useful suggestions. The peer reviewers for Oxford University Press offered valuable recommendations on the proposal and the final manuscript. My thanks go to the editors at Oxford University Press who did an outstanding job on this book. It was a delight to work with Theo Calderara, Editor-in-Chief of Humanities, who made excellent suggestions at every point in the process. I also want to thank Suganya Elango, the production editor who brought this book to its conclusion. I greatly appreciate the support and friendship of my faculty and administrative colleagues at Vanderbilt. Most of all, I am thankful for my family, especially my wife, Karen Byrd, and our daughters, Olivia and Caroline.

James P. Byrd

September 2020

But Lincolns famous speech was only the most prominent example of biblically infused wartime rhetoric.