page_title: Confederate States of America
section_title: Religion
hierarchical_section_title: Confederate States of America / Demographics / Religion
caption_attribution_description: English: St. John's Episcopal Church in Montgomery, Alabama
context_page_description: The Confederate States of America, commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy, was an unrecognized breakaway state that fought against the United States during the American Civil War.
  In existence from 1861 to 1865, the Confederacy was originally formed by secession of seven slave states: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. All of them are in the Lower South region of the United States, whose economy was heavily dependent upon agriculture, particularly cotton, and a plantation system that relied upon enslaved African Americans for labor. Convinced that white supremacy and the institution of slavery were threatened by the November 1860 election of Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln to the U.S. presidency on a platform which opposed the expansion of slavery into the western territories, the Confederacy declared its secession in rebellion against the United States, with the loyal states becoming known as the Union during the ensuing American Civil War. In a speech known today as the Cornerstone Address, Confederate Vice President Alexander H.
context_section_description: The CSA was overwhelmingly Protestant. Both free and enslaved populations identified with evangelical Protestantism. Baptists and Methodists together formed majorities of both the white and the slave population (see Black church). Freedom of religion and separation of church and state were fully ensured by Confederate laws. Church attendance was very high and chaplains played a major role in the Army.
  Most large denominations experienced a North–South split in the prewar era on the issue of slavery. The creation of a new country necessitated independent structures. For example, the Presbyterian Church in the United States split, with much of the new leadership provided by Joseph Ruggles Wilson (father of President Woodrow Wilson). In 1861, he organized the meeting that formed General Assembly of the Southern Presbyterian Church and served as its chief executive for 37 years. Baptists and Methodists both broke off from their Northern coreligionists over the slavery issue, forming the Southern Baptist Convention and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, respectively. Elites in the southeast favored the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America, which reluctantly split off the Episcopal Church (USA) in 1861. Other elites were Presbyterians belonging to the 1861-founded Presbyterian Church in the United States. Catholics included an Irish working class element in coastal cities and an old French element in southern Louisiana. Other insignificant and scattered religious populations included Lutherans, the Holiness movement, other Reformed, other Christian fundamentalists, the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement, the Churches of Christ, the Latter Day Saint movement, Adventists, Muslims, Jews, Native American animists, deists and irreligious people.
  The southern churches met the shortage of Army chaplains by sending missionaries. The Southern Baptists started in 1862 and had a total of 78 missionaries. Presbyterians were even more active with 112 missionaries in January 1865. Other missionaries were funded and supported by the Episcopalians, Methodists, and Lutherans. One result was wave after wave of revivals in the Army.
caption: St. John's Episcopal Church, Montgomery. The Secession Convention of Southern Churches was held here in 1861.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.", "Image Model": "E-510", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "314", "Image YResolution": "314", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.0 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2012:02:29 14:31:41", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image CustomRendered": "Normal", "Image ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "Image WhiteBalance": "Auto", "Image DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "Image SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "Image GainControl": "None", "Image Contrast": "Soft", "Image Saturation": "Hard", "Image Sharpness": "Soft", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 37, 0, 1, 0, 20, 0, ... ]", "Image ExifOffset": "948", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1494", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5410", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/100", "EXIF FNumber": "18", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:02:25 12:51:56", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:02:25 12:51:56", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "925/256", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "20", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1200", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1600", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera"}