Sunday Battles

The Democrat, of yesterday morning, contains a very silly paragraph on Sunday battles, which it commends to the clergy of this city.  Thus it reads:

“The battle of Bull’s Run was fought on Sunday; we were unsuccessful.  The clergy and others of highly religious inclinations severely berated the act of fighting on Sunday, and traced the defeat of our arms to that circumstance.  Now, the rebel fortifications at Fort Donelson were surrendered on Sunday, and we have yet to learn that there was any special observance of that day, that would designate it from any other.  Why is it that those who denounced the action at Bull’s Run withhold their denunciations from the Fort Donelson affair?  If it was wicked on the one hand, and provocative of the especial frowns of the God of battles, surely it must have been on the other.”

Some have pretended to maintain that there is a God who watches over the destinies of nations as of individuals, and that in time of war the belligerent party, which has so far violated the sanctity of the day set apart and dedicated to His worship as to commence a battle on that day, is very apt to be defeated.  Whether it can be ascribed to the direct agency of God, or to the conscientious scruples of men religiously educated, and who, by the violation, lose that enthusiasm they would otherwise possess, we leave it to others to determine.  Certain it is, that, so far as the past is concerned, modern history measurably sustains it.  But what this has got to do with the rebels at Fort Donelson surrendering on a Sunday is past our comprehension.  Our neighbor’s ideas seem to have gotten slightly mixed.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Saturday Morning, March 1, 1862, p. 1