Booknotes: Tabernacles in the Wilderness

New Arrival:

• Tabernacles in the Wilderness: The US Christian Commission on the Civil War Battlefront by Rachel Williams (Kent St UP, 2024).

When it comes to the private relief organizations of the Civil War, the United States Sanitary Commission is the first to come to mind. With its elaborate sanitary fairs, close association with the federal government, and tens of millions of dollars raised all across the North—all of which enabled the creation and operation of a vast network of camp inspectors, hospitals, supplemental suppliers of all kinds, and home front charities for sick, disabled, or traveling veterans, the USSC was able to do much in the way of promoting the health, diet, hygiene, and well-being of Union soldiers. Though it receives less attention in the literature, the United States Christian Commission, founded by Protestant evangelicals, collaborated with the USSC in vital ways but also had a distinctive spiritual mission of its own.

I am not aware of any other treatment of its kind, so Rachel Williams's Tabernacles in the Wilderness: The US Christian Commission on the Civil War Battlefront may very well be first modern history of the organization's extensive activities in the field. Delving deeply into "previously neglected archival material―most notably the reports, diaries, and correspondence of the volunteer delegates who performed this ministry on the battlefront―" enabled Williams to offer Civil War readers a fuller exploration of "the proselytizing methods employed by the USCC, the problems encountered in their application, and the ideological and theological underpinnings of their work."

More from the description: USCC aid workers "saw in the Civil War not only a wrathful judgment from God for the sins of the nation but an unparalleled opportunity to save the souls of US citizens and perfect the nation. Thus, the workers set about proselytizing and distributing material aid to Union soldiers with undaunted and righteous zeal." In doing so, they employed a wide range of activities in support of mind, body, and spirit. "Whether handing out religious literature, leading prayer meetings, preaching sermons, mending uniforms, drawing up tailored diets for sick men, or bearing witness to deathbed scenes, USCC workers improvised and enacted a holistic lived theology that emphasized the link between the body and soul."

In sum, Tabernacles in the Wilderness "offers fascinating new insights into the role of civilians within army camps, the bureaucratization and professionalization of philanthropy during the Civil War and in the United States more broadly, and the emotional landscape and material culture of faith and worship."