As the American Civil War (1861–5) approached, the United States seemed hopelessly divided along sectional lines but ‘Diverse as they were, many Americans united around their respect for the Bible’ (p. 3). Indeed, James Byrd argues that they agreed with the Methodist evangelist and Christian perfectionist Phoebe Palmer of New York who declared in 1865 that: ‘The Bible is a wonderfully simple book’ and reading it made everyone ‘a more enlightened, simple, happy and useful Christian’ (quoted at p. 3). Thus, the Bible provided an important guide for Americans on both sides as they faced and dealt with the bloodiest war in their history.

Byrd takes a chronological approach in exploring and explaining the use of the Bible among Union and Confederate citizens, including prominent theologians and clergy, but also politicians, soldiers and civilians. In the process he ‘examined thousands of biblical citations in over two thousand sources, including sermons, diaries, letters and newspapers’ (p. 15). With this methodology and organisational structure, he begins with slavery and secession where northerners and southerners both sought justification in the Bible. Pro-slaveryites cited examples of slavery in the Old Testament and Paul's call for ‘bondservants’ to ‘obey’ their ‘masters’ in his letters to the Ephesians and Colossians, while abolitionists countered with Christ's ‘Golden rule’ message to ‘do onto others what you would have them do unto you’ (Matthew vii.12). It seemed to be a stalemate, with each side attacking the other for misinterpreting holy Scripture.

After secession, when eleven southern states founded a new Confederate States of America and war came, the need for biblical justification of violence became paramount. Confederate clergy like Thomas Smyth of Charleston, South Carolina, for example, compared President Abraham Lincoln to Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, as the tyrant described in the Book of Daniel. Just as the ancient Israelites had ultimately escaped his attempted destruction of them, so too would the Confederacy survive Lincoln's attacks. For the Union side King David's rebellious son, Absalom, ‘had been reborn in [the Confederate president] Jefferson Davis’ (p. 76). Lincoln was their King David, who regretted having to destroy an aberrant family member, but for the good of Israel and God's plan, had to do so with all his might. Therefore, Lincoln had to do the same to save the United States's role in God's plan.

The confidence and comfort which both sides took from having the Bible on their side was quickly shaken, however, as the war dragged on, creating unprecedented casualties. How could God allow their side to suffer such terrible loss? Byrd's research indicates some humility arising among those who had once cited Scripture purely for patriotic purposes. As he goes through the various military campaigns, he shows that preachers and politicians alike began to question the confidence they had in knowing God's will through his Bible. Indeed, in attempting to discover this will, one could face his wrath. This self-criticism only went so far, however. Just as the ancient Hebrews, and even Jesus himself, had been tested by trials and tribulations, so too were their causes. Only through humility and reverence, not arrogance and disrespect, could one get back on the right side of the Lord. President Davis's calls for days of fasting and humiliation in the Confederacy, for example, highlights clearly how toned down ardent religious patriotism could become.

For African Americans, however, the Bible, even with its mentions of slavery, provided comfort. They embraced Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in biblical terms. Those in the free North gathered in churches just before New Year 1863, when the proclamation was to come into force, and proclaimed the ‘Jubilee’ promised to the Israelites in the Book of Leviticus. The famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass gave a speech to a black church in his new home of Rochester, New York, entitled: ‘The Day of Jubilee Comes’ (p. 181). He mixed the secular and the religious, claiming inspiration from the words of liberty in the Declaration of Independence as well as the Golden Rule. Lincoln's proclamation had finally made manifest the claims in the Declaration, itself inspired by ‘the divine wisdom of the Man of Nazareth’ (p. 184). As Byrd succinctly puts it, it had taken ‘politics eighteen hundred years to catch up with Jesus’ (p. 184).

Ultimately, from all the evidence Byrd provides, one gets the impression that the Bible worked more for Americans in terms of trying to understand what was happening to them than in telling them what the result would be. At war's end, the victorious Union side sought explanation for the massive casualties, while for the former Confederates it was casualties too but also defeat. In showing us people's use of the Bible, however, it would have been better to have organised this book thematically rather than chronologically. Important themes such as using the Bible to understand casualty totals or why one side succeeded or failed become lost among the voluminous subheadings in each chapter and the necessary lengthy background descriptions of the war's events. For example, Byrd provides some very useful statistics on the most common biblical citations used by each side, but these are confined to an appendix at the end of the book. They alone deserved their own chapter. The evidence indicates the overwhelming popularity of citing the Old over the New Testament, perhaps indicating the need for militancy, especially early in the war. Even the most popular New Testament citations often came from Paul's Epistles and Acts rather than from the Gospels. Jesus' message in Matthew v.35 to ‘turn the other cheek’ did not make the top ten on either side. The book's structure is a weakness but overall, this work is still very useful in showing us how nineteenth-century Americans, whether active churchgoers or not, sought explanation, solace and even vindication, in the Bible. Yet, it also highlights that they often understood, as President Lincoln did just weeks before his assassination in April 1865, that whoever used God's word for whatever cause, ‘The Almighty has his own purposes’, that could never be truly knowable (‘Second Inaugural Address of President Abraham Lincoln’, 4 March 1865).