September 29, 2025 • 18 mins
Offers an in-depth examination of the diverse experiences of Mennonite and Amish communities during the American Civil War, highlighting their varied responses to political pressures and conscription based on their geographic location—Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the Midwest. It explores how their religious convictions of nonresistance intersected with the intensely nationalistic fervor of the era, revealing instances of unionist sympathies, Confederate leanings, and efforts to secure conscientious objector status. The text also addresses the economic and social challenges these communities faced, including property loss and the complexities of maintaining their distinct identity amidst a divided nation.
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You can listen and download our episodes for free on more than 10 different platforms:
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Get the Book now from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Mennonites-American-Anabaptist-Pietist-Studies-ebook/dp/B004SHFUMY?&linkCode=ll1&tag=cvthunderx-20&linkId=0e60445b480c88d391f8582f48cd39a3&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Imagine this scene. It's November eighteen sixty. There's this young man,
Peter Hartman, racing home to his family's farm near Harrisonburg, Virginia.
He's got the newspaper, the Rockingham Register, his father David,
had sent him into town. And you can just feel
the tension, the political unease everywhere.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, you really can picture it.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
So Peter gets back, his sister reads the news out loud,
Abraham Lincoln elected president, and the reaction, Peter later wrote,
it made us all week that it almost made the
blood run cold. He even remembered hearing an old man
warn his father something like there's a tremendous storm brewing
in the South, and when that storm breaks, it will
(00:41):
shake the South to its very center. Just chillin Well.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
That sets the stage perfectly.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
And these weren't just any farmers, the Hartman's. They were Mennonites,
part of this well thriving community in the Shenandoah Valley,
but also really distinct deeply committed to pacifist non resistance,
which is central here exactly. They were unionists fundamentally against slavery.
So the big question for us today in this deep
dive is how did a community like this, dedicated to peace,
(01:10):
separate from the world. How did they navigate the sheer
brutality of the American Civil War when it landed quite
literally on their doorstep.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
It's such a compelling question, and to really get the
weight of it, you have to place them in the
broader American context of the time. America before the war
was just steeped in religious feelings, like the second grade Awakening.
Faith wasn't just private, it was a public.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Tool used by both sides right.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Absolutely, both the Union and the Confederacy used faith to
justify their causes. You see it everywhere, like in God
we Trust starting to appear on Union money, or the
Confederacy putting diovindij God will vindicate on their official seal.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
So it wasn't just politics.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
No, it was framed as a holy war by many
on both sides. And that makes the position of a
peace church, while even more complex, more dangerous. So our
mission today is to unpack this really fascinating story. How
did Mennonites and Amish actually live through this tremendous storm. Well,
look at how they relied on their beliefs, especially this
idea of being two kingdom people.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Living in God's kingdom and the earthly ones simultaneously exactly, and.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
How they had to adapt and make these incredibly difficult,
sometimes seemingly impossible choices, and ultimately how this whole experience
left a legacy, how it shaped their identity for generations
to come.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Okay, so let's start with that two kingdom idea and
those early reactions, the Hartman's fear after Lincoln one, it
says so much unionists anti slavery, but non resistant. That's
a unique tightrope to walk, especially in the South.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
It really is. And what's striking is how quickly the
response is differed depending on where you were. Geography mattered,
how so well, in Virginia, once Fort Sumter happened and
Lincoln called for troops, the pressure to conform was just immense.
The state Convention voted for secession pretty quickly, and.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
The Mennonites there we have accounts.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Like from John Bronk saying he voted for secession under duress,
literally facing death threats. So while many were Unionists deep down,
some maybe like those in Augusta County under Bishop Jacob Hildebrandt,
who seemed a bit more sympathetic to the South, had
to navigate these really intense local loyalties. It wasn't monolithic.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
That's a stark contrast to what we see in the North.
Then you mentioned John F. Funk in Chicago.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Yeah, a Mennonite businessman involved in lumber. Initially, he gets
totally swept up in the patriotic wave, hoisting flags, singing
my country Tizza, they all in. But when it actually
came time to enlist, he pulled back that conflict between
his union feelings and his church's teachings on peace. It
hit him hard.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
And he wasn't alone in that struggle, not at all.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
You had some Northern Mennonite men like Charles Hunsicker and
his brother Davis, who didn't list. But then you had
others like Henry Durstein whose parents literally went and pulled
him out of the army. It really, as you said,
runs the gamut.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
It does. So it really begs the question, how did
these communities so set on peace and being separate even
start to deal with a nation just tearing itself apart.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
It's the core dilemma. And in the Midwest, places like
Wayne County, Ohio, they felt well, kind of distant from
it all. At first. We have Eli Eli Yoder, a
school teacher there, writing that everything out here is comparatively quiet.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Their worries were more local, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
More about market prices going up because troops were quartering nearby.
This initial difference in experience region by region, it really
set the stage for how they'd faced the draft. Later on,
the draft became the real test right the.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Draft because as the war dragged on, both sides needed
more men desperately conscription and this is where it gets
incredibly complicated for non resistant people.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
It truly does. In the Confederacy, the path was especially tough.
Virginia started a draft early on, offering a choice either
a four day annual military drill or pay a small
fee not.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Full combat service.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Initially not initially for everyone and dunt or elders. They're
a closely related Anabaptist group also passed as people like
John Klein and Benjamin Mumah. They actively went and lobbied
the authorities for exemptions based on their beliefs.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Did they have any success?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Surprisingly yes, in some quarters. General Stonewall Jackson, of all people,
saw their steadfastness. He actually suggested using these non combatants
as teamsters, you know, drivers for supply wagons reliable labor,
he figured, rather than trying to force them to fight.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
That's remarkable coming from Jackson.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Pragmatic almost it was, But as you'd expect, not everyone
was so understanding or pragmatic.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
I imagine not.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
We hear this dark story of over seventy Mennonite and
Dunker men caught trying to slee north. They were captured
and thrown into Castle Thunder prison.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
In Richmond, seventy men. That sounds incredibly harsh. Was that
typical treatment for objectors caught trying to leave?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
It shows how seriously the Confederacy took evasion. Well, here's
a fascinating quist to that story. Apparently their quiet submission
to a thought, even while imprisoned, made a real impression
on some members of the Confederate Congress.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Really, how so it.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Actually contributed to them creating a specific provision in eighteen
sixty two commutation fee, pay five hundred dollars and you
could be exempt from service.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
So their behavior in prison influenced.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Policy, it seems a did. It wasn't across the board leniency,
but a specific solution aimed at this group, acknowledging in
a way their non combatant stance, even if the price
was steeped.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Five hundred dollars. You said that was a lot back then,
What did that actually mean for people?
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Oh, it was astronomical by late eighteen sixty three. That
was like three years wages for a skilled worker. Just
an impossible sum for many.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So what did they do face with that?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Many Virginia Mennonites, men like Samuel Kaufman and John Heatwell,
they chose to go into hiding, or they used a
kind of underground railroad network to escape north into Union territory.
They chose flight over paying for or participating in a
war they opposed.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
And what about those who stayed. We mentioned Jacob ar
Hildebrand's journal.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yes, his journal is heartbreaking. It shows his own sons
living in Augusta County repeatedly being called up from military
service or joining Home Guards. This is happening even while
his cousin, Bishop Hildebrand is pleading for his son Samuel
to stay out of the army at all costs. It
just reveals the intense pressures even splitting families.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Such a complex and painful picture in the South, What
about the North. Lincoln also called for a draft mid
eighteen sixty two after some Union losses. How did Northern
Mennonites respond.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
They faced different kinds of pressures, but pressures nonetheless, Pennsylvania
Mennonites they had history on their side sort of. They
pointed to old state constitutional clauses about religious freedom and exemptions.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
So they lobbied.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
They did. They lobbied Governor Curtain. But interestingly, they didn't
really align themselves with the Quakers, who were often more
actively abolitionist and pushing for broader social changes.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I have the difference.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
The Mennonites seemed focused narrowly on securing exemption within the
government's rules. Respecting authority, you know that two kingdom idea. Again,
they were often prepared to pay equivalency fees if that's
what the state required.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
And did the state require it? Was it easier to
get exemptions in the.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
North not always straightforward. When the Pennsylvania Draft lottery happened
in October eighteen sixty two, some officials, like a Commissioner
Void in Norristown were known for just flat out denying
exemptions to Pacifists, even if it went against practice.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
So it depended on the local.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Officials it often did. However, many Lancaster County Mennonites were
relatively prosperous. They had the means or were prepared to
pay commutation fees, although in that particular eighteen sixty two
state draft, the fees were surprisingly.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Waved waved why.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
The reasons aren't entirely clear, but they had been ready
to pay. And this willingness to contribute financially, you know,
alongside things like providing blankets or relief supplies for soldiers' families,
became a key part of their interaction with the state,
like saying, Okay, we can't fight, but we will contribute
to the public boarden in other ways.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
A kind of civic bargain that sounds pragmatic, but I
bet it caused some public debate, Oh.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Absolutely, a huge debate. Republican newspapers tended to defend them.
They called them non resistant voters, praise their loyalty at
the ballot box even if they didn't fight, and the Democrats.
Democratic papers often mocked them relentlessly, accused them of voting
for war but then refusing to fight. Some even implied
their votes for Lincoln back in eighteen sixty had helped
(09:31):
cause the war, helped destroy the Union that's hard. It
got ugly. In Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, people scattered leaflets threatening
to burn down homage buildings if they dared to vote.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Good heavens did they stop voting.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Remarkably, the record suggest that despite these threats, many continued
to vote, often for Republican candidates. They still participated politically
where they felt they could within their framework.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
That's resilience. What about the Midwest you said things were
quieter there? Initially politically different.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Right, in the Midwest, many Amish and Mennonites actually leaned
toward the Democrats. They tended to oppose what they saw
as Yankee efforts, meaning the federal government trying to impose
cultural conformity.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Interesting, so they aligned differently.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yes, Holmes County, Ohio, for instance, had a large Anabaptist
population and heavily voted for Clement Valandigum, a very outspoken
anti war Democrat.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
But they still paid fees if drafted.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yes, despite their political wanings, they publicly stated things like
whatever the government made demand of us in money will
be cheerfully and honestly paid. They emphasized their gratitude for liberty,
so that principle of financial contribution as a civic duty
held even if their votes went elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
So the war wasn't just abstract debates about drafts and politics.
It became terrifyingly real. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in January sixty
three obviously changed the war's character. But you mentioned it
didn't feature much in Mennonite discussions.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
It's interesting, isn't It wasn't their sence focus. What did
hit home literally was the fighting moving.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
North Antietam and Gettysburg exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Antietam in September sixty two, Gettysburg in July sixty three.
Those battles brought the war's absolute carnage right into Pennsylvania
and Maryland. We read about the dunker meetinghouse at Mamma
Farm near Antietam, just riddled with bullet holes.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
People saw first hand.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
They did. Peter Nisley, a Mennonite minister in Pennsylvania, wrote
about hearing the cannons from Gettysburg, thirty five miles away.
He described the awful destruction of life and property. He
even watched Union troops burn the bridge between Columbia and
Wrightsville to stop the Confederates.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
How did he describe that?
Speaker 2 (11:37):
He wrote, our few men that resisted them, retreated to
and fired that magnificent bridge. There's so Unionist leaning there,
calling them our few men. But still the overwhelming feeling
is critique of the destruction, the violence of war itself.
It's that constant tension playing out and the raids. J. E. B.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Stewart's cavalry came through Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
They did grabbing horses. Records show at least ny two
Mennonite farms lost horses in one raid. But the really
devastating phase, what historians call hard war, targeting civilian resources,
that truly arrived in the Shenandoah Valley in the fall
of eighteen sixty four General Philip Sheridan's campaign.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Sheridan's Valley Campaign. What did that mean for families like
the Hartman's who we started with.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
This really gets to the brutal nature of total war.
Sheridan's orders were explicit make the valley a barren waste,
unable to support Confederate armies.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
It wasn't discriminate, so everyone suffered.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Everyone. Peter Hartman, our young man from the intro, remember
Sheridan's troops overrunning their farm, killing thirty hogs, taking other livestock.
And it wasn't just Union sympathizers. Isaac Wenker, who was
a wealthy Mennonite farmer and miller known to have actually
supplied the Confederacy, selling them goods for gold. He lost
Barnes and a mill and Sheridan's fires too.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Loyalty didn't matter at that point, not.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
When the goal was systematic destruction. Unionist, Confederate sympathizer, non resist.
Everyone was in the path of the flames.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
It's just devastating to think about the sheer scale of loss,
regardless of who you were, and the personal cost must
have been immense.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
The personal toll, Yes, Jacobar Hill de Brand's journal again
offers these agonizing details. His sons Benjamin and Gideon, who
were serving, were wounded multiple times. One was shot, the
bullet going through his horse's head first. Another was wounded
by friendly fire.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Friendly fire.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Yeah, it's just a gut wrenching reminder of the individual
suffering hidden beneath the larger war narrative. It cut right
into the heart of these families, these peace communities.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
So the war ends, Lee surrenders, Lincoln is assassinated. The
nation is fundamentally changed by this tremendous storm. And you
said for Mennonites and Amish, their sense of identity, their
peoplehood was also reshaped.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Definitely. The postwar era reconstruction was a time of national reckoning.
You had President Johnson wanting leniency for the South, but
radical Republicans like Thaddeus Stevens pushing hard for black civil rights.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Since Stephens had support from some.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Mennonites, yes, Lancaster Mennonites continued to support him in elections.
And this period brings us to Jacob E. Yoder, that
Pennsylvania Mennonite teacher we mentioned. He actually went south to Lynchburg,
Virginia to teach in schools set up by the Freedman's
Bureau for formerly enslaves people.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
That sounds like direct engagement with reconstruction.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
It was, and he wrote about being deeply impressed by
the freed people's intense love freedom. He tells this moving
story of one man who said he'd prayed sixty years
for freedom.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
That's powerful. So Yoder was really involved in helping the
freed slaves. Was this typical for Mennonites, then that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yoder's level of direct engagement was actually highly unusual.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
For Mennonites at that time, really, why was that?
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Well? The broader community focus was often more inward looking,
concerned with maintaining their own communities purity and separation from
the world. While some did get involved in things like
industrial missions later on offering practical aid, widespread engagement with
racial justice wasn't the norm. Most held the prevailing segregationist.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Attitudes of the time, even Yoder.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Even Yoder, despite his admiration for their desire for freedom,
also carried those typical Northern prejudices. He described black character
shaped by slavery as profoundly ignorant and sometimes remarkably vicious.
It's a complex picture, that mix of genuine sympathy and
ingrained prejudice.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
That really highlights the tension between their peace ideals and
the racial context of the era. How did the communities
tend to remember the war itself? Looking back?
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Well, especially in Virginia, the collective memory really centered on
the suffering, the property loss from things like Sheridan's campaign.
The Southern Claims Commission became important there. It allowed people
to try and get reimbursement for losses if they could
prove they'd been loyal to the union. Even while living
in the Confederacy.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
So the focus was on victimhood and loyalty claims.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Largely yes, and interestingly, stories of what you might call
collective civil disobedience, things like hiding draftft dodgers, the underground
railroad north water, those tended to fade from the public
memory over time.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Why do you think that happened.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
It's hard to say for sure. Perhaps those stories didn't
quite fit the postwar loss cause narrative dominant in the South,
or maybe they didn't align perfectly with their own preferred
narrative of being quiet, law abiding subjects, even under duress.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Meanwhile, in the Midwest, you said something different emerged, an
activist sectarian sensibility. What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
It means some groups became more intentional about separating from
the political world. Church conferences started actively discouraging members from
voting or getting involved in politics. They saw it as
inconsistent with non resistance, a slippery slope towards compromising with
the worldly kingdom. The war seemed to push them towards
greater separation, not less.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
So different regions drew different lessons.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
It seems so, and it raises this fascinating point. What
happens to a peace church when its identity is tested
not just by persecution but also by relative prosperity and
the challenge of defining itself in a modernizing America. And
then adding another layer, you have about eighteen thousand Mennonite
immigrants arriving from Russia starting in eighteen seventy three. They
(17:11):
didn't have these shared American Civil War memories. Their experiences
were different. This further complicated what it meant to be
an American Mennonite, creating new divisions and discussions about relating
to the state. The ripples of that tremendous storm kept spreading.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
So wrapping this up, what should we take away from
this today? This story of Mennonites and Amish in the
Civil War, it's clearly more than just a historical curiosity.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Absolutely, it's a really powerful case study in how a
people driven by profound religious convictions tried to navigate a
world that was demanding, often violently, their participation.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
They were constantly defining and redefining that two kingdom idea,
aren't they in a world with so many conflicting demands
loyalty to state, to community to faith.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Constantly From Peter Hartman's family, terrified by Lincoln's election and
later fleeing the draft to Jacob E. Yoder making his
earnest though flog efforts to help freedmen in Virginia. Their
whole journey through the war was one of NonStop negotiation, adaptation,
and often deep internal struggle.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
They clearly didn't always agree amongst themselves, and they didn't
always live up perfectly to their own ideals under that
immense pressure. But they definitely came out of that tremendous
storm with their identity deeply, profoundly shaped.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
By it, no question. Yeah, it leaves you thinking, doesn't it.
We live in a world still full of conflicts, still
full of pressures to take sides, to conform. What can
we learn from a people who, however imperfectly, tried to
live by a different set of rules. How do we
figure out how to hold onto our core beliefs when
our own tremendous storm, whatever form it takes, breaks right
(18:47):
over us.
Imagine this scene. It's November eighteen sixty. There's this young man,
Peter Hartman, racing home to his family's farm near Harrisonburg, Virginia.
He's got the newspaper, the Rockingham Register, his father David,
had sent him into town. And you can just feel
the tension, the political unease everywhere.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, you really can picture it.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
So Peter gets back, his sister reads the news out loud,
Abraham Lincoln elected president, and the reaction, Peter later wrote,
it made us all week that it almost made the
blood run cold. He even remembered hearing an old man
warn his father something like there's a tremendous storm brewing
in the South, and when that storm breaks, it will
(00:41):
shake the South to its very center. Just chillin Well.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
That sets the stage perfectly.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
And these weren't just any farmers, the Hartman's. They were Mennonites,
part of this well thriving community in the Shenandoah Valley,
but also really distinct deeply committed to pacifist non resistance,
which is central here exactly. They were unionists fundamentally against slavery.
So the big question for us today in this deep
dive is how did a community like this, dedicated to peace,
(01:10):
separate from the world. How did they navigate the sheer
brutality of the American Civil War when it landed quite
literally on their doorstep.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
It's such a compelling question, and to really get the
weight of it, you have to place them in the
broader American context of the time. America before the war
was just steeped in religious feelings, like the second grade Awakening.
Faith wasn't just private, it was a public.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Tool used by both sides right.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Absolutely, both the Union and the Confederacy used faith to
justify their causes. You see it everywhere, like in God
we Trust starting to appear on Union money, or the
Confederacy putting diovindij God will vindicate on their official seal.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
So it wasn't just politics.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
No, it was framed as a holy war by many
on both sides. And that makes the position of a
peace church, while even more complex, more dangerous. So our
mission today is to unpack this really fascinating story. How
did Mennonites and Amish actually live through this tremendous storm. Well,
look at how they relied on their beliefs, especially this
idea of being two kingdom people.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Living in God's kingdom and the earthly ones simultaneously exactly, and.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
How they had to adapt and make these incredibly difficult,
sometimes seemingly impossible choices, and ultimately how this whole experience
left a legacy, how it shaped their identity for generations
to come.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Okay, so let's start with that two kingdom idea and
those early reactions, the Hartman's fear after Lincoln one, it
says so much unionists anti slavery, but non resistant. That's
a unique tightrope to walk, especially in the South.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
It really is. And what's striking is how quickly the
response is differed depending on where you were. Geography mattered,
how so well, in Virginia, once Fort Sumter happened and
Lincoln called for troops, the pressure to conform was just immense.
The state Convention voted for secession pretty quickly, and.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
The Mennonites there we have accounts.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Like from John Bronk saying he voted for secession under duress,
literally facing death threats. So while many were Unionists deep down,
some maybe like those in Augusta County under Bishop Jacob Hildebrandt,
who seemed a bit more sympathetic to the South, had
to navigate these really intense local loyalties. It wasn't monolithic.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
That's a stark contrast to what we see in the North.
Then you mentioned John F. Funk in Chicago.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Yeah, a Mennonite businessman involved in lumber. Initially, he gets
totally swept up in the patriotic wave, hoisting flags, singing
my country Tizza, they all in. But when it actually
came time to enlist, he pulled back that conflict between
his union feelings and his church's teachings on peace. It
hit him hard.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
And he wasn't alone in that struggle, not at all.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
You had some Northern Mennonite men like Charles Hunsicker and
his brother Davis, who didn't list. But then you had
others like Henry Durstein whose parents literally went and pulled
him out of the army. It really, as you said,
runs the gamut.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
It does. So it really begs the question, how did
these communities so set on peace and being separate even
start to deal with a nation just tearing itself apart.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
It's the core dilemma. And in the Midwest, places like
Wayne County, Ohio, they felt well, kind of distant from
it all. At first. We have Eli Eli Yoder, a
school teacher there, writing that everything out here is comparatively quiet.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Their worries were more local, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
More about market prices going up because troops were quartering nearby.
This initial difference in experience region by region, it really
set the stage for how they'd faced the draft. Later on,
the draft became the real test right the.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Draft because as the war dragged on, both sides needed
more men desperately conscription and this is where it gets
incredibly complicated for non resistant people.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
It truly does. In the Confederacy, the path was especially tough.
Virginia started a draft early on, offering a choice either
a four day annual military drill or pay a small
fee not.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Full combat service.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Initially not initially for everyone and dunt or elders. They're
a closely related Anabaptist group also passed as people like
John Klein and Benjamin Mumah. They actively went and lobbied
the authorities for exemptions based on their beliefs.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Did they have any success?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Surprisingly yes, in some quarters. General Stonewall Jackson, of all people,
saw their steadfastness. He actually suggested using these non combatants
as teamsters, you know, drivers for supply wagons reliable labor,
he figured, rather than trying to force them to fight.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
That's remarkable coming from Jackson.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Pragmatic almost it was, But as you'd expect, not everyone
was so understanding or pragmatic.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
I imagine not.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
We hear this dark story of over seventy Mennonite and
Dunker men caught trying to slee north. They were captured
and thrown into Castle Thunder prison.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
In Richmond, seventy men. That sounds incredibly harsh. Was that
typical treatment for objectors caught trying to leave?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
It shows how seriously the Confederacy took evasion. Well, here's
a fascinating quist to that story. Apparently their quiet submission
to a thought, even while imprisoned, made a real impression
on some members of the Confederate Congress.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Really, how so it.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Actually contributed to them creating a specific provision in eighteen
sixty two commutation fee, pay five hundred dollars and you
could be exempt from service.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
So their behavior in prison influenced.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Policy, it seems a did. It wasn't across the board leniency,
but a specific solution aimed at this group, acknowledging in
a way their non combatant stance, even if the price
was steeped.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Five hundred dollars. You said that was a lot back then,
What did that actually mean for people?
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Oh, it was astronomical by late eighteen sixty three. That
was like three years wages for a skilled worker. Just
an impossible sum for many.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So what did they do face with that?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Many Virginia Mennonites, men like Samuel Kaufman and John Heatwell,
they chose to go into hiding, or they used a
kind of underground railroad network to escape north into Union territory.
They chose flight over paying for or participating in a
war they opposed.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
And what about those who stayed. We mentioned Jacob ar
Hildebrand's journal.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yes, his journal is heartbreaking. It shows his own sons
living in Augusta County repeatedly being called up from military
service or joining Home Guards. This is happening even while
his cousin, Bishop Hildebrand is pleading for his son Samuel
to stay out of the army at all costs. It
just reveals the intense pressures even splitting families.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Such a complex and painful picture in the South, What
about the North. Lincoln also called for a draft mid
eighteen sixty two after some Union losses. How did Northern
Mennonites respond.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
They faced different kinds of pressures, but pressures nonetheless, Pennsylvania
Mennonites they had history on their side sort of. They
pointed to old state constitutional clauses about religious freedom and exemptions.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
So they lobbied.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
They did. They lobbied Governor Curtain. But interestingly, they didn't
really align themselves with the Quakers, who were often more
actively abolitionist and pushing for broader social changes.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I have the difference.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
The Mennonites seemed focused narrowly on securing exemption within the
government's rules. Respecting authority, you know that two kingdom idea. Again,
they were often prepared to pay equivalency fees if that's
what the state required.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
And did the state require it? Was it easier to
get exemptions in the.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
North not always straightforward. When the Pennsylvania Draft lottery happened
in October eighteen sixty two, some officials, like a Commissioner
Void in Norristown were known for just flat out denying
exemptions to Pacifists, even if it went against practice.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
So it depended on the local.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Officials it often did. However, many Lancaster County Mennonites were
relatively prosperous. They had the means or were prepared to
pay commutation fees, although in that particular eighteen sixty two
state draft, the fees were surprisingly.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Waved waved why.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
The reasons aren't entirely clear, but they had been ready
to pay. And this willingness to contribute financially, you know,
alongside things like providing blankets or relief supplies for soldiers' families,
became a key part of their interaction with the state,
like saying, Okay, we can't fight, but we will contribute
to the public boarden in other ways.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
A kind of civic bargain that sounds pragmatic, but I
bet it caused some public debate, Oh.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Absolutely, a huge debate. Republican newspapers tended to defend them.
They called them non resistant voters, praise their loyalty at
the ballot box even if they didn't fight, and the Democrats.
Democratic papers often mocked them relentlessly, accused them of voting
for war but then refusing to fight. Some even implied
their votes for Lincoln back in eighteen sixty had helped
(09:31):
cause the war, helped destroy the Union that's hard. It
got ugly. In Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, people scattered leaflets threatening
to burn down homage buildings if they dared to vote.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Good heavens did they stop voting.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Remarkably, the record suggest that despite these threats, many continued
to vote, often for Republican candidates. They still participated politically
where they felt they could within their framework.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
That's resilience. What about the Midwest you said things were
quieter there? Initially politically different.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Right, in the Midwest, many Amish and Mennonites actually leaned
toward the Democrats. They tended to oppose what they saw
as Yankee efforts, meaning the federal government trying to impose
cultural conformity.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Interesting, so they aligned differently.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yes, Holmes County, Ohio, for instance, had a large Anabaptist
population and heavily voted for Clement Valandigum, a very outspoken
anti war Democrat.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
But they still paid fees if drafted.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yes, despite their political wanings, they publicly stated things like
whatever the government made demand of us in money will
be cheerfully and honestly paid. They emphasized their gratitude for liberty,
so that principle of financial contribution as a civic duty
held even if their votes went elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
So the war wasn't just abstract debates about drafts and politics.
It became terrifyingly real. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in January sixty
three obviously changed the war's character. But you mentioned it
didn't feature much in Mennonite discussions.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
It's interesting, isn't It wasn't their sence focus. What did
hit home literally was the fighting moving.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
North Antietam and Gettysburg exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Antietam in September sixty two, Gettysburg in July sixty three.
Those battles brought the war's absolute carnage right into Pennsylvania
and Maryland. We read about the dunker meetinghouse at Mamma
Farm near Antietam, just riddled with bullet holes.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
People saw first hand.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
They did. Peter Nisley, a Mennonite minister in Pennsylvania, wrote
about hearing the cannons from Gettysburg, thirty five miles away.
He described the awful destruction of life and property. He
even watched Union troops burn the bridge between Columbia and
Wrightsville to stop the Confederates.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
How did he describe that?
Speaker 2 (11:37):
He wrote, our few men that resisted them, retreated to
and fired that magnificent bridge. There's so Unionist leaning there,
calling them our few men. But still the overwhelming feeling
is critique of the destruction, the violence of war itself.
It's that constant tension playing out and the raids. J. E. B.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Stewart's cavalry came through Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
They did grabbing horses. Records show at least ny two
Mennonite farms lost horses in one raid. But the really
devastating phase, what historians call hard war, targeting civilian resources,
that truly arrived in the Shenandoah Valley in the fall
of eighteen sixty four General Philip Sheridan's campaign.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Sheridan's Valley Campaign. What did that mean for families like
the Hartman's who we started with.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
This really gets to the brutal nature of total war.
Sheridan's orders were explicit make the valley a barren waste,
unable to support Confederate armies.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
It wasn't discriminate, so everyone suffered.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Everyone. Peter Hartman, our young man from the intro, remember
Sheridan's troops overrunning their farm, killing thirty hogs, taking other livestock.
And it wasn't just Union sympathizers. Isaac Wenker, who was
a wealthy Mennonite farmer and miller known to have actually
supplied the Confederacy, selling them goods for gold. He lost
Barnes and a mill and Sheridan's fires too.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Loyalty didn't matter at that point, not.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
When the goal was systematic destruction. Unionist, Confederate sympathizer, non resist.
Everyone was in the path of the flames.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
It's just devastating to think about the sheer scale of loss,
regardless of who you were, and the personal cost must
have been immense.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
The personal toll, Yes, Jacobar Hill de Brand's journal again
offers these agonizing details. His sons Benjamin and Gideon, who
were serving, were wounded multiple times. One was shot, the
bullet going through his horse's head first. Another was wounded
by friendly fire.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Friendly fire.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Yeah, it's just a gut wrenching reminder of the individual
suffering hidden beneath the larger war narrative. It cut right
into the heart of these families, these peace communities.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
So the war ends, Lee surrenders, Lincoln is assassinated. The
nation is fundamentally changed by this tremendous storm. And you
said for Mennonites and Amish, their sense of identity, their
peoplehood was also reshaped.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Definitely. The postwar era reconstruction was a time of national reckoning.
You had President Johnson wanting leniency for the South, but
radical Republicans like Thaddeus Stevens pushing hard for black civil rights.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Since Stephens had support from some.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Mennonites, yes, Lancaster Mennonites continued to support him in elections.
And this period brings us to Jacob E. Yoder, that
Pennsylvania Mennonite teacher we mentioned. He actually went south to Lynchburg,
Virginia to teach in schools set up by the Freedman's
Bureau for formerly enslaves people.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
That sounds like direct engagement with reconstruction.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
It was, and he wrote about being deeply impressed by
the freed people's intense love freedom. He tells this moving
story of one man who said he'd prayed sixty years
for freedom.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
That's powerful. So Yoder was really involved in helping the
freed slaves. Was this typical for Mennonites, then that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yoder's level of direct engagement was actually highly unusual.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
For Mennonites at that time, really, why was that?
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Well? The broader community focus was often more inward looking,
concerned with maintaining their own communities purity and separation from
the world. While some did get involved in things like
industrial missions later on offering practical aid, widespread engagement with
racial justice wasn't the norm. Most held the prevailing segregationist.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Attitudes of the time, even Yoder.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Even Yoder, despite his admiration for their desire for freedom,
also carried those typical Northern prejudices. He described black character
shaped by slavery as profoundly ignorant and sometimes remarkably vicious.
It's a complex picture, that mix of genuine sympathy and
ingrained prejudice.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
That really highlights the tension between their peace ideals and
the racial context of the era. How did the communities
tend to remember the war itself? Looking back?
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Well, especially in Virginia, the collective memory really centered on
the suffering, the property loss from things like Sheridan's campaign.
The Southern Claims Commission became important there. It allowed people
to try and get reimbursement for losses if they could
prove they'd been loyal to the union. Even while living
in the Confederacy.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
So the focus was on victimhood and loyalty claims.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Largely yes, and interestingly, stories of what you might call
collective civil disobedience, things like hiding draftft dodgers, the underground
railroad north water, those tended to fade from the public
memory over time.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Why do you think that happened.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
It's hard to say for sure. Perhaps those stories didn't
quite fit the postwar loss cause narrative dominant in the South,
or maybe they didn't align perfectly with their own preferred
narrative of being quiet, law abiding subjects, even under duress.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Meanwhile, in the Midwest, you said something different emerged, an
activist sectarian sensibility. What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
It means some groups became more intentional about separating from
the political world. Church conferences started actively discouraging members from
voting or getting involved in politics. They saw it as
inconsistent with non resistance, a slippery slope towards compromising with
the worldly kingdom. The war seemed to push them towards
greater separation, not less.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
So different regions drew different lessons.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
It seems so, and it raises this fascinating point. What
happens to a peace church when its identity is tested
not just by persecution but also by relative prosperity and
the challenge of defining itself in a modernizing America. And
then adding another layer, you have about eighteen thousand Mennonite
immigrants arriving from Russia starting in eighteen seventy three. They
(17:11):
didn't have these shared American Civil War memories. Their experiences
were different. This further complicated what it meant to be
an American Mennonite, creating new divisions and discussions about relating
to the state. The ripples of that tremendous storm kept spreading.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
So wrapping this up, what should we take away from
this today? This story of Mennonites and Amish in the
Civil War, it's clearly more than just a historical curiosity.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Absolutely, it's a really powerful case study in how a
people driven by profound religious convictions tried to navigate a
world that was demanding, often violently, their participation.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
They were constantly defining and redefining that two kingdom idea,
aren't they in a world with so many conflicting demands
loyalty to state, to community to faith.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Constantly From Peter Hartman's family, terrified by Lincoln's election and
later fleeing the draft to Jacob E. Yoder making his
earnest though flog efforts to help freedmen in Virginia. Their
whole journey through the war was one of NonStop negotiation, adaptation,
and often deep internal struggle.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
They clearly didn't always agree amongst themselves, and they didn't
always live up perfectly to their own ideals under that
immense pressure. But they definitely came out of that tremendous
storm with their identity deeply, profoundly shaped.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
By it, no question. Yeah, it leaves you thinking, doesn't it.
We live in a world still full of conflicts, still
full of pressures to take sides, to conform. What can
we learn from a people who, however imperfectly, tried to
live by a different set of rules. How do we
figure out how to hold onto our core beliefs when
our own tremendous storm, whatever form it takes, breaks right
(18:47):
over us.
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