Stains Of Blame and Blood On Millions Of Hands

There were 51,000 casualties inflicted at Gettysburg alone.

"Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other."

- from Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, 3/4/65

During my recovery from surgery I’ve been reading more about the Civil War, including a fascinating book, "A Pictorial History Of The Civil War Years" by Paul M. Angle. 

Page after illustrated page describes suffering of unbelievable proportions. Men on both sides faced not only blistering cannon and rifle fire, but had to deal with grueling marches and encampments in all kinds of weather extremes, had to often subsist on maggot-infested and inferior rations, and were ravaged by typhoid fever, pneumonia and other illnesses that mercilessly took the lives of more men than did combat itself. And without benefit of anesthesia or even minimal sterilization against infection, many of the injured had their mangled limbs sawed off under gruesome conditions worse than death itself.

Throughout I again found myself in disbelief at the thought of whole nations, churches and communities on both sides continuing to justify and even glorify war as noble and honorable thing, rather than naming it the savage, barbaric and insane butchery it truly is. 

How can we continue to honor presidents, generals, politicians and religious leaders who defend and perpetuate this evil, even if waged against tyranny, slavery and whatever other forms of oppression?

As long as there is life, as long as there are decent people on earth and a God in heaven, such evils can be resisted and will eventually be overcome, but when we extinguish life itself, as we do in the killing fields and saturation bombings of ever more horrific forms of war, there can be little hope for a better world.

The silence of professed followers of Jesus around the world has been deafening. Beyond that, without the endorsement and support of religious leaders as well as followers of all faiths, war would be impossible. This is what should bother us most.

During the Civil War, only a handful of believers, mostly Quakers, Brethren and Mennonites, spoke out against this carnage and insanity.

Among them was Elder John Kline of nearby Broadway, a Brethren (Dunkard) minister who made repeated appeals to then Governor John Letcher and Congressman John T. Harris based on the conviction expressed in his diary as follows:

Succession means war; and war means tears and ashes and blood. It means bonds and imprisonments, and perhaps even the death to many in our Brotherhood, who, I have the confidence to believe, will die, rather than disobey God by taking up arms.

Peter Hartman, a first hand witness to the conflict as a Mennonite lad on a farm just over the the hill from what is now EMU, repeatedly shared his views about the folly and futility of war throughout his life.

In his “Reminiscences of the Civil War,” he writes:

In June of the same year (1863) General Fremont came here with 45,000 men. About twelve of the men came and went into our smokehouse. Each one hung a piece of bacon on his bayonet and marched across our meadow. I never saw a more jubilant group of fellows than they were. A good many came to our house. They were in high spirits. “We’ve got Jackson now. We have him in the jug and  all we have to do is put the stopper in.” They had a battle just above Harrisonburg on Saturday night. It was in the evening at sundown. I saw the northern army traveling up over the hill, it was not long until ‘pop, pop, pop,’ and they kept this up for about a half hour. I could hear the bullets whistle right by our place. I could hear the wounded men scream. I heard cannon roar on the side toward Harrisonburg...  On Sunday morning some of the Northern men came to our home for something to eat. They said, “We killed Colonel [Turner] Ashby last night.”

Until God removes the last vestige of pleasure, satisfaction or approval at having an ‘enemy’ such as Turner Ashby fatally shot through the heart, I wonder if we can ever claim to be fully Christian.

Here's a link to an earlier piece, Saying No To War:
https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2011/01/saying-no-to-war.html