The "brothers war" of 1861 to 1865, when 31 million people of the United States turned upon each other in terrible strife, affected Mennonites and Amish in varied and complex ways. Unprepared for intense war hysteria and military conscription, many found little room remaining for neutrality. No war had arrested their attention for three generations. Many had become comfortably established in America. Caught up in the spirit of building America or moving west with the frontier, their quiescent piety had little room for Christian education or even church periodicals. Calls for enlistees to "save the Union " found numerous unbaptized young men joining local regiments and marching off to war. Most Mennonites and Amish, however, tried to avoid military service, as nonresistance remained the official position of their churches. Large and strong churches and communities sometimes found that easier to maintain than weaker frontier communities. From their own records, we learn only a little about how Mennonites and Amish were jolted by feverish and rabid patriotism. Local newspapers and government records here and there reveal more. By the 1860s, many Mennonites had become used …show more content…
Most were pro-Union, but under duress of life and limb some voted in favor of Virginia seceding from the Union. A few risked voting against it. Some were forced into the military but then refused to shoot at people. Arrests, prison, high fines, and other pressures finally drove quite a few to take flight to the North. Mennonite farmers saw their horses pressed into service, and raiding soldiers took food and supplies. The final and worst outrage came when General Sheridan's raid through the Shenandoah Valley torched more than 2,000 barns, more than 70 mills, and a few houses and devastated food supplies. Numerous families secured passes and transportation