Prayer Brigade Quotes

After the Battle of Winchester, Jackson allowed his men two days of rest and prayer, while his quartermasters tallied the spoils left behind by the Yankees. Although Jackson drove his men hard, he could sense they were at their limit; their failure to pursue Banks’ broken army was proof of it. While he was eager to get on with the fight, he needed men capable of fighting. He

What at first was a surprise to them was that the brigades that held these best records were the Christian ones, who took time to say their prayers morning and evening and always rested on the Sabbath. This proved that these hard-working men, who rested one day in seven, could do and did better and faster work than those who knew no Sabbath, but pushed on from day to day without rest. Man as a working animal needs the day of rest, and with one off in seven will, as has been here and in other places proved, do better work in the remaining six than the one who takes no day of rest.

There is not a man in the army, officer or private that does not have from a Battalion to a Brigade of Body lice on him,” wrote one Reb in 1863; and others dubbed the pests with such military names as “graybacks,” “Zouaves,” “tigers,” and “Bragg’s body-guard.” Killing lice was referred to as fighting under the black flag; throwing away an infested shirt was called giving the vermin a parole; and evading them by turning a garment wrong side out became “the execution of a flank movement.” One sardonic Reb when about to go to bed was seen to assume a prayerful pose and to recite: Now I lay me down to sleep, While gray-backs o’er my body creep; If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord their jaws to break.