A Pacifist On The Front Line

A Pacifist On The Front Line

He fought for another kind of victory.

ALTHOUGH a convinced abolitionist, D. L. Moody did not enlist in the Union Army during the Civil War, claiming, “There has never been a time in my life when I felt that I could take a gun and shoot down a fellow-being. In this respect I am a Quaker.”

In his adopted city of Chicago, he helped to establish the city’s YMCA as its first full-time employee. Yearning to teach the Bible, he went to the streets looking for children and street people to fill his Sunday school class at the North Wells Street Mission. By 1861 he was working full time in both Sunday school and the YMCA, supported by Cyrus McCormick and others.

When the Civil War broke out, Camp Douglas was established in Chicago. Seeing the need to hold services there, Moody helped form a YMCA Army and Navy Committee and led daily services at the camp. At Camp Douglas thousands of Confederate soldiers were interned, Union soldiers were constantly coming and going, and new recruits were gathered and instructed. Moody ministered to as many soldiers as he could. Among the new recruits were a large number of “Moody boys.”

On Sunday and Monday, April 6–7, 1862, the second great battle of the Civil War and one of the bloodiest—the battle of Shiloh or Pittsburg Landing—was fought in southern Tennessee. The Confederates lost 10,700 soldiers, while Grant’s army lost 13,000. Over 100,000 were wounded.

An emergency call went out for extra doctors, nurses, medical students, and volunteers. The news reached Chicago on Tuesday, and Moody quickly volunteered to be on the trainload of help dispatched from the city. Arriving at Pittsburg Landing on April 11, 1862, Moody recounted,

We were taking a large number of wounded men down the Tennessee River. . . . A number of young men of the Christian Commission were with me, and I told them that we must not let a man die on the boat that night without telling him of Christ and Heaven.

You know the cry of a wounded man is “Water! Water!” As we passed along from one to another giving them water, we tried to tell them of the water of life, of which if they would drink they would never die. I came to a man who had about as fine a face as I ever saw. I spoke to him, but he did not answer. . . .

I sat down beside him and gave him brandy and water every now and then. . . . I said to myself that I could not let him die without getting a message for [his] mother. Presently he opened his eyes, and I said: . . . “Yes, you are on your way home, . . . but the doctor says you won’t reach your earthly home. I thought I’d like to ask you if you had any message for your mother.”

His face lighted up with an unearthly glow as he said: “Oh, yes, tell my mother that I died trusting in Jesus!”

It was one of the sweetest messages I ever heard in my life!

D. L. Moody did deliver the message to the soldier’s mother, and he made eight more trips to the front lines during the war.

Reflection

D. L. Moody was a pacifist, but that did not deter him from ministering during the Civil War. What is your attitude toward war? Do you believe that there are just wars?

The authorities are established by God for that very purpose, to punish those who do wrong.

Romans 13:4