Mennonites, Amish, and the American Civil War

Erscheinungsjahr 2007
ISBN: 978-0-8018-8672-0
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press

Buch, Englisch, 376 Seiten, Format (B × H): 163 mm x 231 mm, Gewicht: 645 g

Reihe: Young Center Books in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lehman, James O

Nolt, Steven M

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christliche Kirchen, Konfessionen, Denominationen Protestantismus, evangelische und protestantische Kirchen
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christliche Kirchen, Konfessionen, Denominationen Andere und Moderne Christliche Glaubensgemeinschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

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

Über Autor(innen)

Nolt, Steven M
Steven M. Nolt is a professor of history and Anabaptist studies at Elizabethtown College and director of the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies.

James O. Lehman is director emeritus of libraries at Eastern Mennonite University and an archivist for the Virginia Mennonite Conference. He is the author of several books, most recently A Century of Grace: In the Community and around the World. Steven M. Nolt is a professor of history at Goshen College and coauthor of Amish Enterprise: From Plows to Profits and Plain Diversity: Amish Cultures and Identities, both published by Johns Hopkins.