William W. Bennett, A narrative of the great revival which prevailed in the Southern armies during the late Civil War

We set out religiously, by having preaching twice on Sabbath and prayer-meeting twice a week. A good influence prevails, and a high moral tone has characterized our men from the first. The sentiment seems to be rife among us that instead of retrograding, Christians ought to progress decidedly in camp. This is a just opinion, for the frequent and unusual temptations which they meet, the absence of those restraints and associations that ordinarily sustain them, the position of antagonism into which they are placed perforce in the resistance of overt sin, and the simple and direct reference to God to which they are shut in, as it were, all are calculated to develop and strengthen the principles of their religion. We have had a protracted meeting at night for a week. There have been nineteen conversions in the time, two of them professing in their tents while sick. The regiment numbers something over 1,000, and the aggregate of Church-members is 245. Many of those who have died were happy and triumphant.

Our Colonel cares for his men with a Christian conscience, and the other field and staff officers, as also those of the companies, are for the most part religious men. In the start, the Colonel prescribed the public recognition of God by closing dress parade with prayer, and this order we observe daily. Oh! if our officers did but feel that “except the Lord build the house, they labor. in vain that build it!”

In the hospitals, among the sick and wounded, the power of grace was gloriously revealed. The soldiers brought with them from the battle-fields the solemn impressions they had received amidst the dreadful scenes of carnage. “Strange as it may appear to some,” writes an experienced post chaplain, “scores of men are converted immediately after great battles. This has become so common that I as confidently look for the arrival of such patients as I do for the wounded. It is not very strange, if we remember that before they went ”