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Chapter 10: revivals in the Lower Valley and around Fredericksburg.
Even the brief season of comparative quiet which we enjoyed in the
Lower Valley of
Virginia, after our return from the first Maryland campaign, developed very decided indications of revivals in a number of the brigades.
So far as I have been able to learn, the first revival of much interest which occurred in the army at this time was in
Trimble's Brigade, and especially in the Twelfth and Forty-fourth Georgia Regiments.
Rev. A. M. Marshall, who had been a gallant private in the Twelfth Georgia, had been a short time before commissioned chaplain in his regiment, and, like other chaplains promoted from the ranks, proved himself as faithful in the chaplaincy as he had been as a soldier, and as he has been as a pastor since the war.
As soon as the army went into camp, near
Bunker Hill, in the
Lower Valley of
Virginia,
Mr. Marshall began a series of special services, which at once developed decided interest.
He called
Rev. James Nelson, of the Forty-fourth Virginia, and myself to his aid, and was especially fortunate in having
Dr. Joseph C. Stiles, who was then preaching in
Lawton's Georgia Brigade, to preach for him once every day. Large crowds attended the meetings, numbers presented themselves for prayer, there were a number of professions of conversion, and the work had developed into a revival of increasing power, when it was interrupted by the active campaign which culminated in the great victory of First
Fredericksburg.
Dr. Stiles thus wrote of his labors at this time:
At his earnest request, I preached to General Pryor's Brigade last Sabbath.
Upon one hour's notice, he marched up 1,500 men, who listened with so much interest to a long sermon that I was not surprised to hear of such a beginning of religious interest in various regiments of the brigade as issued in a half-way promise on my part to fall in with the proposal of the general to
