29 - The Religious Landscape: From the Revolution to the New Nation

Summary

During the War of Independence the American clergy fervently solicited divine support for their cause. Yet none was so bold to assert outright that God was on the side of the rebels. Although preachers discerned positive omens in such rare early triumphs as the battles of Trenton and Princeton, any claim to certain knowledge of God's will would have been condemned as blasphemous. Indeed, military setbacks, of which there were many during the early war years, were often perceived as heaven's retribution for the inhabitants' sins of arrogance, avarice, unchaste behavior, and similar vices. And so, in accordance with the understanding of that time, although pulpits throughout the land resounded with pleas for God's favor, the language was always cautiously supplicatory and conditional.

Both preachers and ordinary Americans shaped their case as an “appeal to heaven,” imploring God to recognize the righteousness of their cause. The battle flag of the Third Connecticut Regiment bore the motto, “AN APPEAL TO HEAVEN.” General George Washington, when awaiting the British attack at New York in 1776, had ordered a day of fasting and prayer by the troops to “incline the Lord, and Giver of Victory, to prosper our arms.” The next year he informed soldiers who had emerged victorious from a firefight at the battle of Brandywine that “another Appeal to Heaven with the blessing of providence, which it becomes every officer and soldier to supplicate,” might bring further success.