The Politics of Faith during the Civil War Timothy L. Wesley. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2013.In the midst of the various memorials and commemorations of the Civil War, one expects a multitude of books on various aspects of the war and the culture surrounding it. With exceptions like George C. Rable's God's Almost Chosen Peoples: A Religious History of the Civil War (2010), most recent scholarly work has examined the importance of religion in the lives of soldiers and has all but overlooked the role of religious rhetoric on the home front. Timothy L. Wesley, however, delivers an engaging book-length study, The Politics of Faith during the Civil War, that details and examines the rhetorical practices of the clergy, their national organizations, and their congregations.The introduction acknowledges many of the study's limits, including a lack of attention to Judaism because of a dearth of records and archival materials. The introduction also states the book's purpose, helping readers orient themselves more fully to the parameters of Wesley's study: This book chronicles and assesses the efforts of civil and church authorities to control and/or censor the political of wartime ministers and the ways in which those efforts were received or resisted by Americans in the pews and, even more importantly, the pulpit (7).The book's arrangement eschews chronology, instead moving thematically. The first chapter delves into Northern and Southern clergy's reactions to slavery and related issues as the country approached the war. Chapter 2 explores how the war blurred the lines between piety and politics (32). Wesley relies on archival records, estimating the membership numbers of various US Christian denominations and quoting from and analyzing letters, opinion pieces, newsletters, sermons, and speeches. The prominence of political rhetoric among preachers in the North was apparent to politicians of the period, including Lincoln, and Wesley clarifies ministerial influence over the country. A particular advantage of this text over others is its examination of both important religious figures whom history has remembered (such as Presbyterian Reverend Thomas Brainerd) and those it has often overlooked (such as Catholic Archbishop John J. Hughes).Chapters 3 and 4 tackle connections between patriotism and the dangers inherent in a clergyman's appearance of disloyalty. Wesley explains these concerns: when the leading lights of wartime denominationalism assembled in governing bodies, disloyalty was the most commented-upon ministerial behavior (76). …