ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the primary research to evaluate the historiography on religion and combat motivation in the Confederate armies. Authorities like Gerald F. Linderman and Bell I. Wiley have suggested that the influence of religion declined significantly under the strain of war, or that it was less important in the Confederate armies than in civilian society. Civil War soldiers saw themselves as the military arms or extensions of their hometowns, representatives of their contribution to the national cause. Religion's primary functions can be grouped in three broad categories: community, compensation, and consolation. Certainly social pressures made some of these choices less than voluntary. But evangelical, republican, and even battlefield voluntarism was perhaps less a positive force than a negative one over the long term. The chapter analyzes the role of religion in Confederate combat motivation through the conceptual lenses of community, compensation, and consolation.
