The South, the War and ‘Christian Slavery’

(Disunion) In the minds of many Southerners, the capture of New Orleans on April 25, 1862, by Union forces was more than simply a troubling military loss. It also raised the disturbing possibility that divine punishment was being inflicted on a spiritually wayward and sinful Confederacy.
The loss of the South’s most important port and largest city had followed on the heels of the loss of Tennessee’s Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in February and the ignominious retreat from Shiloh in early April. These setbacks, after the virtually uninterrupted Southern successes of 1861, caused many across the Confederacy to wonder, in the words of the South Carolina diarist Pauline DeCaradeuc Heyward, if “these reversals and terrible humiliations … come from Him to humble our hearts and remind us of our total helplessness without His aid.” Continued

Photo: E. P. Alexander