Both the North and the South viewed the Civil War in Christian terms. Each side believed that its fight was just, that God favored its cause. Rebuilding Zion is the first study to explore simultaneously the reaction of southern white evangelicals, northern white evangelicals, and Christian freedpeople to Confederate defeat. As white southerners struggled to assure themselves that the collapse of the Confederacy was not an indication of God's stern judgment, white northerners and freedpeople were certain that it was. Author Daniel W. Stowell tells the story of the religious...

Both the North and the South viewed the Civil War in Christian terms. Each side believed that its fight was just, that God favored its cause. Rebuilding Zion is the first study to explore simultaneously the reaction of southern white evangelicals, northern white evangelicals, and Christian freedpeople to Confederate defeat. As white southerners struggled to assure themselves that the collapse of the Confederacy was not an indication of God's stern judgment, white northerners and freedpeople were certain that it was. Author Daniel W. Stowell tells the story of the religious...

Nearly one-fifth of Abraham Lincoln's cases involved women, and during the twenty-five years of his legal career thousands of women appeared in Illinois courts as litigants, criminal defendants, witnesses, and spectators. Drawing on the rich resources of a DVD version of Lincoln's complete legal papers, Daniel Stowell's In Tender Consideration scans the full range of family woes that antebellum Americans took to the law. Through the stories of dozens of individuals who took legal action to obtain a divorce, contest a will, prosecute a rapist, or assert rights to family property, this volume...