For both the Union and Confederate soldiers, religion was the greatest sustainer of morale in the Civil War, and faith was a refuge in times of need. Guarding and guiding the spiritual well-being of the fighters, the army chaplain was a voice of hope and reason in an otherwise chaotic military existence. The clerics' duties did not end after Sunday prayers; rather, many ministers could be found performing daily regimental duties, and some even found their way onto fields of battle.

In Pulpit and Nation, Spencer McBride highlights the importance of Protestant clergymen in early American political culture, elucidating the actual role of religion in the founding era. Beginning with colonial precedents for clerical involvement in politics and concluding with false rumors of Thomas Jefferson’s conversion to Christianity in 1817, this book reveals the ways in which the clergy’s political activism—and early Americans’ general use of religious language and symbols in their political discourse—expanded and evolved to become an integral piece in the invention of an American national identity. Offering a fresh examination of some of the key junctures in the development of the American political system—the Revolution, the ratification debates of 1787–88, and the formation of political parties in the 1790s—McBride shows how religious arguments, sentiments, and motivations were subtly interwoven with political ones in the creation of the early American republic. Ultimately, Pulpit and Nation reveals that while religious expression was common in the political culture of the Revolutionary era, it was as much the calculated design of ambitious men seeking power as it was the natural outgrowth of a devoutly religious people.

"There is a time to preach and a time to fight. And now is the time to fight." With those words, the Rev. John Muhlenberg stepped from his pulpit, removed his clerical robe--revealing the uniform of a Colonial officer--and marched off to war. Many of the ministers who became chaplains in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War carried muskets while ministering to the spiritual needs of the troops. Their eyewitness accounts describe the battles of Lexington and Concord, life on a prison ship, the burning of New York City, the Battle of Rhode Island, the execution of Major Andre, and many other events.