My college roommate wrote a history thesis that went on to be published in the Berkeley Undergraduate Journal. His essay concerned views of Providence from both sides of the Civil War. Providence is the belief that God will provide in one's favor despite adverse circumstances. He argued that Christian leaders from both North and the South firmly believed that God would vindicate their respective causes. He cites Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address in 1865: Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. Lincoln acknowledged that both North and South believed that God was on their side. And it was only in the afterma...