By Kenneth Anderson, ’17
On Sunday morning, April 2, 1865, regular services were in progress at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on Grace Street in Richmond, Virginia. The Rev. Dr. Charles Minnigerode was in the midst of delivering his sermon as parishioners prepared for the distribution of the Eucharist. The church, located across from the Virginia capitol was the place of worship and social center for many prominent Richmonders. A visit from the Prince of Wales,the future king of England,and its selection as host for the General Convention of the Episcopal Church underlined its prestige . Since Richmond’s designation as capital of the new Confederate States of America in 1861, the church had also gained many Confederate statesmen and military men as parishioners. General Robert E. Lee and his family rented a pew in 1861 and attended whenever possible throughout the war. But the most notable of St. Paul’s new parishioners was the first president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis. Davis was baptized at the Confederate White House by Rev. Dr. Minnigerode and confirmed into the Episcopal Church by Bishop Johns in 1862.
As the prospects of Confederate victory dimmed, Davis’s church attendance increased. On this Sunday morning, the church would gain another place in the story of the Civil War and engrained in the memory of generations of Southerners. In the midst of the service, likely filled with Confederate statesmen, military officials on leave, prominent male and female Richmonders, and black slaves, the sexton of the congregation walked quietly to Davis’s pew, Number 63, and handed him an official dispatch. Unbeknownst to the remainder of the congregation, the dispatch was from General Lee and urged Davis, and the Confederate government to evacuate Richmond as soon as possible. In the weeks before, General Grant’s Union forces had inched closer to the capital of the Confederacy while Lee’s army had continued to resist and retreat., It was clear by April 2nd that Lee could no longer defend the city. With the news, Davis rose from his pew and exited the sanctuary, evacuating later that day. It was the ultimate irony that in this moment, a capital city, its president, and his fledgling nation so steeped in religious fervor would face its final reckoning in the pews of it’s capital’s most prominent church. The moment that Sunday held greater significance. It was the end of a great narrative, crafted in the pews of St. Paul’s. Through his church membership, Davis was ably to dually gain social acceptance to the city of Richmond but more importantly to develop Confederate culture under the cross.
From the first shots fired in rebellion at Fort Sumter in 1861, Southerners charged that Almighty God ordained their secessionist cause and their slave-centered way of life. Baptizing the Southern cause in Christian principle provided a legitimization and higher purpose for the actions of an oppressive society that condoned the systematic bondage of a race of human beings. In his inaugural address, Jefferson Davis ended with a “simple and devout appeal to the Heavenly Father: ‘To Thee O God, I trustfully commit myself, and prayerfully invoke Thy blessings on my country and its cause.” Davis’s wartime religious fervor would increase between his inauguration in 1861 and his evacuation in 1865. His increased devotion to the Episcopal Church and Christian faith throughout his time as Confederate president reflected his flock of constituents in their belief in Christian teachings and its connection to their cause of rebellion.
The influence of the Church and Christianity in the Confederacy was overtly present in its pathos, national documents, and symbols. Historian Drew Gilpin Faust suggests that the Confederates sub-consciously portrayed themselves as the embodiment of the Puritan legacy that intertwined church and state and ultimately led to American independence from Britain in 1776. The connection to Northern Puritan heritage brings additional irony to the Confederate religious psyche. Not only did Confederates see themselves as righteous in their cause but also the defenders of American originalism. They deployed an American Christian narrativeto separate from the United States. . National symbols of the Confederacy were infused with Christian verbiage as well. As their national motto, the Confederates chose the Latin phrase Deo Vindice (With God as our defender) and invoked the favor and guidance of Almighty God” in their constitutional preamble. The unofficial Confederate national anthem,“God Save the South,” invoked God’s protection and favor against an evil Northern enemy. Confederates also changed the lyrics of the Union song, The Battle Cry of Freedom to reflect their religious connection. “Our Dixie forever! She’s never at a loss! Down with the eagle and up with the cross! Even the battle flag of the Confederacy reflected religious sentiment using the Cross of St. Andrew, both a religious symbol and a symbol of Scottish heritage. Christian devotion was widespread among Confederate government and army leaders. Generals Lee and Jackson were both noted for their intense faith.
To keep with this trend of religious fervor, Jefferson Davis used St. Paul’s Church and faith to exemplify Southern Christian behavior and relate to the residents of his newly-adopted city and his new nation. The Episcopal Church, in turn, changed prayers to exclude the ‘President of the United States’ as early as 1861. The Southern dioceses ordered that the prayers of the people were “to read for the President of the Confederate States.” For the four years of war and the three years that Jefferson Davis attended Episcopal services in Richmond, these altered prayers were said on his behalf. Even Davis’s dramatic exit from St. Paul’s during the ante-communion that fateful Sunday could not change the deeply embedded Christian-based pathos of the Confederate churches. So strong was the Confederate Episcopalian ardor, that after Union forces occupied Richmond in April of 1865, Episcopal churches in the city, including St. Paul’s stayed closed during Holy Week out of refusal to pray for the President of the United States while under Federal order to resume the original prayers.
Mass religious reflection was a hallmark of Davis’s presidency. His term was filled with days of religious observance and “humiliation.” Beginning in 1861, and later around days of battle, Davis and the Confederate Congress called for national days of fasting and prayer. On May 14, 1861, Davis invoked a day of fasting to “recognize our dependence upon God.” As the Confederate cause experienced its first major setbacks, the days of fasting increased, as did Davis’s attention to his faith. Richmond residents noted their President’s increased spiritual devotion and his secretary suggested that, “I am rather inclined to credit the rumor that he intends to join the Church. All his messages and proclamations indicate that he is looking to a mightier power than England for assistance.” His own wife remarked on Davis’s “joy of being received into the church.”
After his confirmation, Davis attended services at St. Paul’s regularly and became a fixture at Sunday services. He rented pew Number 63 and often attended with his family, again affirming the Christian family values so cherished by Confederate pathos. Davis’s religious endeavors are sparsely spoken of before his time as president but were widely recorded during his time in Richmond. Davis was also known to meet with Rev. Dr. Minnigerode and the Rt. Rev. John Johns, Bishop of Virginia for spiritual advice throughout his presidency. He socialized with St. Paul’s members and fellow Confederates such as James and Mary Chesnut and prominent Richmond families such as the McGuires, the Haxalls, and the Munfords.
As the leadership of St. Paul’s and the Virginia diocese solidified their relationships with Davis, the parish solidified its place in Confederate memory. St. Paul’s was in effect the center of organized resistance by the Virginia diocese against the national Protestant Episcopal Church. For all four years of the war and the separation of the Diocese, St. Paul’s hosted the Conventions for “rebelling” parishes across the Commonwealth. Then in 1865, the parish, a center for resistance and Confederate religious pathos set the scene for the demise of the Confederacy and its most famous communicant in Davis.
Because of the high volume of notable communicants in the congregation that fateful morning, Davis’s actions and the mood at St. Paul’s is well documented. Despite the many witnesses, the ending of the telegram episode and the service it interrupted is disputed. The disputed nature of the moment is one of many examples of the inflated valor associated with the Lost Cause of the postbellum period. In a detailed account of the event, Mrs. Mary Johnston wrote a recalled that after Davis’s exit and the hurried departures of numerous Confederate officials, “men and women rose, hung panting a moment, then, swift or slow, left Saint Paul’s.” The exit caused a minor panic that required the sexton to exclaim, “please be still my people!” Rev. Minnigerode’s account stems closer to Mrs. Johnston’s account of the moment. The rector remarked on Davis’s faithful attendance at St. Paul’s and how he “never failed to be in his pew unless sick or absent from the city, devoutly following the services of the church.” After the telegram was given to Davis, Minnigerode recalled the “restlessness of the congregation” and urged them to stay until the end of service as parishioners walked out of the church.
Even with multiple narratives of the events of Sunday April 2, 1865, the irony and tragedy of the moment of Davis’s demise in Richmond is uniform. Looking back to the Civil War years at St. Paul’s in 1931 from a Lost Cause perspective, Elizabeth Wright Weddell remarked that “the incident related in preceding paragraphs…was destined to link St. Paul’s Church and the Confederacy in an indissoluble bond, a fetter forged of a community of suffering nobly borne.” Weddell also deemed Davis “the victim of a cruel and vindictive foe” and the “vicarious sufferer for the entire Southern people.” Weddell’s analysis of Davis at St. Paul’s echoes the lasting effects of Confederate use of Christian symbolism, portraying Davis as the noble martyr and Davis’s deep relationship with Richmond through St. Paul’s Church.
The exit of Jefferson Davis in Richmond and the tragedy that ensued in the city after his exit echoed biblical destruction. The heart of city of Richmond was set ablaze upon the evacuation of the Confederate government and within a week of Davis’s exit from St. Paul’s, Union troops along with newly freed slaves roamed the streets of Richmond. In the one moment of, what seemed to some, divine providence, St. Paul’s Church withstood the flames and continued to prosper as a congregation. Davis spent the next two months evading Federal authorities before being and imprisoned. Incarcerated in Virginia,, Davis received a portrait from Pope Pius IX with an inscription from the book of Matthew (11:28), “Come to me, all you that labor, and are burdened, and I will refresh you, sayeth the Lord.” Davis’s religious dedication and his love of the Episcopal Church continued after the Civil War, and he attended the installation of the Bishop of London in 1869. His relationship with the Church and the moment of his demise in the sanctuary of the same church solidified both his own personal relationships and the role of Christianity in the Confederacy.
Further Reading
Elizabeth Wright Weddell, St. Paul’s Church, Richmond Virginia: Its Historic Years and Memorials. Richmond, VA: Byrd Press, 1931.
Drew Gilpin Faust, The Creation of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the Civil War. Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1989.
Eugene Genovese, A Consuming Fire: The Fall of the Confederacy in the Mind of the White Christian South, Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1998.