"A welcome study of religion’s role in the Civil War and also a useful read for everyone interested in the daily life of the camp and the battlefield."—Journal of Southern History
"[Miller] offers a neatly constructed and innovative contribution to the emerging literature on religion and the American Civil War, one that students of American religious history and Civil War history alike should certainly read."—Annals of Iowa
"The book provides a valuable collective portrait of the duties and daily experiences of chaplains. Anyone interested in the religious history of the war should enjoy Miller’s fine addition to this growing literature."—Civil War News
"In God’s Presence shows how the ministry of chaplains and missionaries is an important, if little studied, part of Civil War history."—On Point: The Journal of Army History
"By examining the work of chaplains in the camps, on the battlefield, in the hospitals, where Catholic nuns often tended both physical and spiritual wounds, and in the prisons, Miller offers some interesting insights into the spiritual life of the troops, and religious and cultural belief and practice in mid-nineteenth century America."—New York Military Affairs Symposium Review
"The author’s methodical and well-documented approach—that of defining boundaries between sacred and profane in the religious work of America’s most deadly war—is indeed a welcome contribution to an often-ignored subject."—Civil War Book Review
"Miller’s work has illuminated an aspect of the religious history of the Civil War that has hitherto eluded historians."—H-Net Reviews
"An excellent addition to the literature on the Civil War, this volume goes beyond battles, maneuvers, and generalship to provide a better understanding of the conflict."—Choice
“We have long known that the violence and destruction of war can challenge even the most steadfast faith. The men who entered Civil War armies did so in a period of religious dynamism in American life, and Benjamin Miller’s study lets us appreciate the spiritual lives of Civil War soldiers in new ways. Miller explains the vibrant and chaotic religious worlds that soldiers created in the midst of war, when the boundaries between sacred and profane blurred. He shows us the changes that the war brought and the limits of those changes for the postwar world. A rich and innovative study that merits attention.”—Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Fred C. Frey Professor of History, Louisiana State University
“Benjamin Miller’s well-researched volume joins a gratifying surge in serious scholarship on religion and the Civil War. After long and inexplicable neglect of this subject, historians like Miller have shown how thoroughly—but also how complexly—religion factored into that conflict. The special merit of this book is to explain why chaplains generally and the United States Christian Commission specifically played such an important part in the lives of the soldiers on the front lines.”—Mark Noll, author of The Civil War as a Theological Crisis
“Benjamin Miller provides a trustworthy guide to the work of chaplains during the Civil War. Employing a spatial analysis of their interactions with soldiers, he assesses their contested efforts to create physical spaces for Christian practice amid the tedium of camp and the terror of battle. Particularly illuminating is his discussion of hospitals as religious spaces and incubators of postwar civil religion.”—David R. Bains, professor of religion, Samford University
