December 7, 1864---The Stoney Creek Raid; The God Amendment

DECEMBER 7, 1864:        

The Stoney Creek Raid:  

Union troops do extensive damage to the Weldon Railroad south of Stony Creek, essentially rendering this supply line into Richmond and Petersburg useless for the remainder of the war. Confederate repair crews do not get the line working again until March of 1865.  

Colonel Lorenzo Barber U.S.A., once one of Berdan’s Sharpshooters, and one of the commanders of the Raid (known as the “Fighting Parson” because he was also a chaplain) writes: “The sight presented by the burning road, bridges, piles of wood, and fences, was sad and grand in the extreme ---  a terrible comment on the waste and ravages of war.”

The God Amendment:

A “National Convention” of Christian clergy in the North proposes their own Thirteenth Amendment, one explicitly recognizing God in the Constitution. As is usual, the Christian clergy do not acknowledge the beliefs of any other religious groups in the United States:

Resolved, That a national recognition of God, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Scriptures, as proposed in the memorial of this Association to Congress, is clearly a Scriptural duty which it is national peril to disregard. 

Resolved, That in consideration of the general diffusion of religious intelligence, principles and institutions throughout our country; in view of the many express recognitions of Christianity by the Constitutions, and the legislative enactments of the several States, and in view also, of the religious history of the founding of this Government, it is a striking and solemn fact that our present National Constitution is so devoid of any distinctive Christian feature that one of our Chief Magistrates once refused to appoint a day of fasting and prayer in an hour of public calamity because the nation in its Constitution recognized no God and another, in contracting a treaty with a Mahomedan Power, hesitated not to declare that the Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion. It has in itself no character of enmity against the laws and religion of Mussulmen. 

Resolved, That the measures proposed by this Association are not sectional nor sectarian, nor partisan, but the general voice of Christian patriotism, asking that which is right and wholesome, which is keeping with our antecedents, and which will not operate oppressively upon the conscience of any citizen. 

Resolved, that the state of the times, recent and present, and the state of pu[b]lic sentiment, warrant and encourage the attempt to secure the amendment of the Constitution which is proposed by this Association. 

Resolved, That the hour of chastisement is the hour of repentance, amendment and reform, and that in such a day of national trouble and rebuke as has befallen us, every reformation from sin is valuable and important; it is clear that in acknowledging God, in exalting His Son and in diffusing the principles of His word through all our Government and Administration, not only is there no mistake committed, but an end of the first dignity and importance is secured.