Robert Lewis Dabney

Our Comfort in Dying Robert Lewis Dabney

The Heidelberg Catechism asks: "What is thy only comfort in life and in death?" Answer: "That I, with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ." Robert Lewis Dabney preached this doctrine in Confederate camps throughout the American Civil War, serving as the chaplain of the 18th Virginia in 1861 and the parson-adjutant to Stonewall Jackson during the Valley and Peninsula Campaigns of 1862. Poor health forced Dabney eventually to resign, but his "sturdy piety," gripping sermons, and fervent prayers were "a great impetus" to the religious awakening which later swept through the Army of Northern Virginia. In the 1880s, Dabney wrote out a number of his wartime sermons which "were formed indelibly impressed upon [his] memory," hoping to have them published under the title, Army Sermons, or Discourses. This compilation lay forgotten in the archives of Union Seminary for a century, but Sola Fide Publications presents it now for the first time with a new title, glossary, and introduction, along with some additional sermons. Eyewitness accounts are also included to illuminate Dabney's effectiveness as a minister of the Protestant faith in the Confederate armies. Never before has such an extensive set of Civil War camp sermons been published.