Civil War Prophecy
- stephenstrent7
- 19 hours ago
- 13 min read
Bombardment of Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor: 12th & 13th of April, 1861, Published by Currier & Ives; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C
Where Science Meets the Doctrine and Covenants, for the Come Follow Me lesson August 4-10; Doctrine and Covenants 85-87
Doctrine and Covenants 87:1-4 states, “Verily, thus saith the Lord concerning the wars that will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls; And the time will come that war will be poured out upon all nations, beginning at this place. For behold, the Southern States shall be divided against the Northern States, and the Southern States will call on other nations, even the nation of Great Britain, as it is called, and they shall also call upon other nations, in order to defend themselves against other nations; and then war shall be poured out upon all nations. And it shall come to pass, after many days, slaves shall rise up against their masters, who shall be marshaled and disciplined for war.”
Although I have been aware of the “Civil War Prophecy” for many years, I have never studied it very deeply, until now. One question that came to my mind is: why did this prophecy come at this early date, sandwiched, as it is, between other revelations? It seems somewhat out of place. The heading to section 87 states:
“Revelation and prophecy on war, given through Joseph Smith the Prophet, at or near Kirtland, Ohio, December 25, 1832. At this time disputes in the United States over slavery and South Carolina’s nullification of federal tariffs were prevalent. Joseph Smith’s history states that ‘appearances of troubles among the nations were becoming ‘more visible’ to the Prophet ‘than they had previously been since the Church began her journey out of the wilderness.’”
Slavery was the most contentious issue during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and the so-called “Three-Fifths Clause” of the US Constitution (part of Article I, Section 2, Clause 3; 1879) stipulated that three of five enslaved persons would be counted when determining a state’s total population.1 The clause was a compromise aimed at resolving the conflict over slavery between Northern and Southern states, but gave non-slaves in the south disproportionate representation in congress, because although slaves could not vote, three-fifths were counted when determining the number of congressional seats. However, the Fugitive Slave Clause (Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3) stated that “No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.”2 By these compromises in the Constitution, its drafters had merely kicked the slavery can down the road, which nearly almost everyone knew, some later generation of Americans would have to deal with. But who and when remained undetermined—until 1860.
The slave issue had a lot to do with members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints being expelled from Jackson County Missouri in 1833 and all of Missouri in 1838. Missouri had joined the Union in 1821 as a slave state, because of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which admitted Maine as a free state to maintain the power balance between slave and free states in Congress.3 Church members began moving into Missouri in 1831, after Joseph Smith received the revelation identifying Jackson County, Missouri, to be the centerplace of Zion (Doctrine and Covenants, Section 57). Most Church members, who began to arrive in Missouri in ever-increasing numbers, were from the north, were anti-slavery, and tended to function as a single voting bloc, which began to greatly upset the local pro-slavery political environment.
The tariff bills of 1828 and 1832 were designed to protect northern industries from foreign competition by raising the cost of imported goods. Southern states, however, whose economies were heavily dependent on the export of cotton and other agricultural products to foreign markets, saw the tariffs as detrimental to their business interests, because they raised the prices of imported manufactured goods upon which the Southern, agrarian states relied, and could potentially lead to retaliatory tariffs by other countries, thus hurting southern exports. The South saw the tariffs as an overreach of federal power, and South Carolina viewed their nullification of the tariffs as a state’s right.4
In theory, nullification, advanced the argument that states, as semi-autonomous entities, could declare federal laws unconstitutional and prohibit them within their own borders. Thus, any state could resist federal actions it considered detrimental to its own interest. John C. Calhoun, a South Carolinian and US vice president at the time, developed the theory as a way for Southern states to protect their interests, including the weightier issue of slavery, against a potentially hostile Northern majority. Who had the greater power, the state or the federal government?5
A compromise tariff bill was signed into law on July 1, 1832, by President Andrew Jackson. The bill had been supported in congress by most Northerners and half the Southerners. South Carolina, however, remained unsatisfied, and on November 24, 1832, the state convened a convention, which adopted the “Ordinance of Nullification”, declaring the tariffs to be unconstitutional and unenforceable in South Carolina. Calhoun resigned as vice president in December 1832, becoming the first of two vice presidents to ever resign. (The second was Spiro Agnew, who resigned on October 10, 1973.) Calhoun immediately became a senator for South Carolina. He was replaced as VP by Martin Van Buren.6 Those were the conditions under which the revelation in Doctrine and Covenants 87 was received.
Did Joseph Smith ask God about the greater implications of the activities at the end of 1832, such as the Ordinance of Nullification? In 1994, the then Elder Russell M. Nelson stated, “The Lord can only teach an inquiring mind.”7 Joseph Smith certainly had an enquiring mind, but to my knowledge, we do not know what specific questions he may have asked that lead to section 87.
Joseph Smith’s more complete entry for Tuesday, December 25, 1832, states, “Appearances of troubles among the nations became more visible this season than they had previously been since the Church began her journey out of the wilderness. The ravages of the cholera were frightful in almost all the large cities on the globe. The plagues broke out in India, while the United States, amid all her pomp and greatness, was threatened with immediate dissolution. The people of South Carolina, in convention assembled (in November), passed ordinances, declaring their state a free independent nation; and appointed Thursday, the 31st day of January, 1833, as a day of humiliation and prayer, to implore Almighty God to vouchsafe His blessings, and restore liberty and happiness within their borders. President Jackson issued his proclamation against this rebellion, called out a force sufficient to quell it, and implored the blessings of God to assist the nation to extricate itself from the horrors of the approaching and solemn crisis…On Christmas day [1832], I received the following revelation and prophecy on war.”8
Footnote #4 to that material in the History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Volume 1, states, “The Prophet states subsequently that he wrote this communication by commandment of the Lord. The general condition of the world as noted by the Prophet at the commencement of this chapter, was doubtless the occasion of the Lord sending forth such a note of warning to the inhabitants of the earth as is here presented. It should be said, however, in addition to what is here set down, i.e. at the beginning of the chapter that the ‘plague,’ or Asiatic cholera, which first broke out in India, spread also throughout the United States in that same year. One historian, speaking of its ravages in the United States, says: ‘It was on the 21st of June, 1832, that the eastern plague, known as the Asiatic cholera, made its first appearance in the United States, in the city of New York. Its rapid spread produced universal panic, though it was less fatal in the South Atlantic States than in the north and in the valley of the Mississippi. Thousands of persons of all ages and conditions died of it within a few months. The most robust constitutions in many instances became victims of its malignancy within thirty-six hours from its first attack.’”9
Therefore, the “appearances of troubles among the nations” to which Joseph referred, does not appear to be world wars, but rather, a cholera epidemic, which was affecting “almost all the large cities on the globe”.
South Carolina began military preparations to resist an anticipated, forceful federal reaction to their Ordinance of Nullification. On March 1, 1833, congress did pass a Force Bill—authorizing the use of military force against South Carolina, but it also passed the Compromise Tariff of 1833, which South Carolina found more satisfactory. The South Carolina convention was reconvened and repealed its Ordinance of Nullification on March 15, 1833. However, on March 18th, the convention nullified the Force Bill, just to show it could in principle, as a symbolic gesture.10
Doctrine and Covenants 87:1 states, “Verily, thus saith the Lord concerning the wars that will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina…”
Joseph Fielding Smith stated, “It may have been an easy thing in 1832, or even 1831, for someone to predict that there would come a division of the Northern States and the Southern States, for even then there were rumblings, and South Carolina had shown the spirit of rebellion. It was not, however, within the power of man to predict in the detail which the Lord revealed to Joseph Smith, what was shortly to come to pass as an outgrowth of the Civil War and the pouring out of war upon all nations. It must be conceded that no one, except Joseph Smith, ever entered into such detail in relation to this conflict or stated with such assurance that the time would come when all nations would be involved in war…”11
B. H. Roberts said, “Why did not some of the brilliant minds in the Senate or House of Representatives in 1832 make such a prediction? There was not a lack of brilliant minds in either Senate or House at that time, yet none seemed equal to the task.12
A San Francisco newspaper article from 1857 reported the following: “…methinks the Mormons can entertain but little hope of the fulfillment of that prophecy, as the Union has stood the strongest test and did not even shake. But when I shall see the above prophecy come to pass, I shall probably then change my mind about the truth of the revelation. At present, I see no chance of its verification within the time specified.”13
James Fuller stated, “In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was labeled by southern Democrats as “…a ‘Black Republican’ whose election would lead to slave rebellions, tyrannical government, and even the end of the family and true religion. They painted Lincoln as a radical who would tear apart the society and culture of the United States…Southerners refused to accept him as their president. South Carolina led the resistance to Lincoln, passing an ordinance of secession in December 1860…Desperate attempts at compromise gave way to conflict in April 1861.”14 None-the-less, it doesn’t even appear that those opposing Lincoln during the 1860 campaign predicted that his election would result in war.
Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States on Tuesday, November 6, 1860. He was the first president elected from the newly created Republican Party, which had been organized to limit the expansion of slavery. There had been warnings from some southern states, that at least seven of them would take steps to leave the Union if Lincoln was elected. Most left before he was even inaugurated as President in March 1861, and all before Lincoln’s election was certified by the Electoral College on February 15, 1861.15 South Carolina was the first to secede, as prophesied, and the only state to secede in 1860 (December 20). Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana all seceded in January 1861, with Texas seceding February 1, 1861.
Doctrine and Covenants 87:1 continues, “…which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls;”
Nearly everyone involved expected a peaceful surrender of Fort Sumter in April 1861, and the Confederate forces around Charleston Harbor only reluctantly opened fire on the fort. “The Confederate States now held Fort Sumter. Would there be war or compromise? James Hammond, former South Carolina Governor and recent US Senator, said he was amazed that war should have come even after seven states had seceded. The passionately opinionated Charleston Mercury thought no war would ensue after Major Anderson surrendered Fort Sumter. Many South Carolinians reading the editorials in newspapers and listening to political harangues for the last several months believed the disunion was to be resolved peaceably…Some, however, predicted that secession would lead to war. William H. Gist, governor of South Carolina… predicted that ‘two battles will end the war and our independence will be acknowledged.’”16
Apparently, it was only after the First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas), July 21, 1861, that both the North and the South realized that neither side had a clear advantage over the other and that the Civil War was going to be a long and bloody affair.
Doctrine and Covenants 87:2 says, “And the time will come that war will be poured out upon all nations, beginning at this place.” The statement, to me, does not mean that the global wars that followed were caused by the US Civil War, but that this was to be the starting date, after which war would be “poured out upon all nations”.
Wikipedia has a list and a bubble chart of wars occurring over the past 2000 years. I evaluated the chart based on a threshold of 21 million deaths per war. Between 1 AD and 1832: 120 million people died in large wars, with over 21 million deaths. That is, in 1832 years, 0.066 million (66,000) died per year. Between 1832 and 2000: 166 million died in large wars; 80 million died in WW II alone. That is, in 168 years, 1 million died per year. Therefore, since the prophecy on war in December 1832, the death rate from war has been 15 times as great as it was before 1832.17
The American Civil War was a watershed in military weapons. At the beginning of the war, both the Union and Confederate armies carried mainly smoothbore muskets, such as the US Model 1816/22, .69 caliber, which had a maximum range of about 150 yards under ideal conditions. By the Battle of Gettysburg, in July 1863, around 90% of the infantry on both sides were employing modern rifled muskets, such as the Model 1861 Springfield, with an effective firing range of around 500 yards. One of the main reasons for the inhalation of the Confederate troops during Pickett’s Charge was that they were charging across a mile of open ground toward Union lines protected behind stone walls on Cemetery Ridge, firing rifles that were deadly against the attacking army, especially over the last one third of the distance.18
Rifled cannons, with a range of 2-3 miles, were also introduced during the Civil War. Rapid-fire Gatling Guns were first introduced as well, but saw only limited action. By WW I, machine guns had been developed, which could cut down whole swathes of soldiers a mile away. The Civil War saw a limited use of observation balloons. By WW I, biplanes were employed, and by WW II, modern monoplanes played a major role in both military and civilian casualties. The US entered WW II because of a carrier-based airplane attack on our fleet at Pearl arbor.
And plagues returned. Around one-third of all World War I casualties, both military and civilian, resulted from the 1918 influenza pandemic. Nearly half of all US military deaths, some 45,000 soldiers, died from influenza. Across the globe, the pandemic killed an estimated fifty million people—one fifth of the world’s population.19
Doctrine and Covenants 87:3 states, “For behold, the Southern States shall be divided against the Northern States, and the Southern States will call on other nations, even the nation of Great Britain, as it is called, and they shall also call upon other nations, in order to defend themselves against other nations; and then war shall be poured out upon all nations.”
James Talmage said, “It is known the Confederate States solicited aid of Great Britain. While no open alliance between the Southern States and the English government was effected, British influence gave indirect assistance and substantial encouragement to the South, and this in such a way as to produce serious international complications. Vessels were built and equipped at British ports in the interests of the Confederacy; and the results of this violation of the laws of neutrality cost Great Britain fifteen and a half millions of dollars, which sum was awarded the United States at the Geneva arbitration in settlement of the Alabama claims. The Confederacy appointed commissioners to Great Britain and France; these appointees were forcibly taken by United States officers from the British steamer on which they had embarked. This act, which the United States government had to admit as overt, threatened for a time to precipitate a war between this nation and Great Britain.”20
Doctrine and Covenants 87:4 states, “And it shall come to pass, after many days, slaves shall rise up against their masters, who shall be marshaled and disciplined for war.” The “who” in this sentence is not clear. Grammatically, the pronoun “who” should refer back to the nearest noun, which would be “masters”. However, the subject of the sentence is “slaves”, so, “who” may refer back to them. “Slaves” were indeed “marshaled and disciplined for war”. Some 179,000 black soldiers and another 19,000 black sailors served in the Union Army and Navy during the Civil War.
The unrest of 1832 was quieted; the cholera epidemic abated for a while and civil war was avoided. However, nearly thirty years later, in 1860, everything began to change. The earth has been in nearly constant turmoil since that date, with no sign of relief—apparently not until the arrival of the Savior Himself.
Trent Dee Stephens, PhD
References
2. Ibid
3. Hammond, John Craig, President, Planter, Politician: James Monroe, the Missouri Crisis, and the Politics of Slavery, Journal of American History. 105:843–867, 2019
4. Freehling, William W., Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836, Oxford University Press, 1992, p. 143
5. Ibid
6. Ibid
7. Nelson, Russell M., in M. Russell Ballard, “What Came from Kirtland”, Brigham Young University fireside, Nov. 6, 1994
8. Historical Department journal history of the Church, 1830-2008/1830-1839/1832; catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/00a31d46-d634-4776-9923-4ce217df0599/0/352?lang=eng
9. History U. S., Stephens, p. 450; The Project Gutenberg eBook of History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Volume 1; gutenberg.org/cache/epub/47091/pg47091-images.html
10. Freehling, 1992
11. Joseph Fielding Smith, Church History and Modern Revelation, Deseret Book Co., Salt Lake City, UT, 1947, 2:123; as cited in FAIR, the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, 2022/2023; fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Joseph_Smith%27s_prophecy_of_the_Civil_War
12. Roberts, Brigham H., New Witnesses for God, 3 Vols., Deseret News, Salt Lake City, 1909 [1895, 1903], 1:319; cited in fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Joseph_Smith%27s_prophecy_of_the_Civil_War
13. "O.P.M.," "Mormonism and its Origin, Number 4," The Golden Era San Francisco (18 October 1857; cited in fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Joseph_Smith%27s_prophecy_of_the_Civil_War
14. Election of 1860 A James Fuller, Bill of Rights Institute
16. Rembert, James AW, The Bert and Peggy Dupont lecture: prelude to war, a gentlemen's affair: the story behind the Battle of Fort Sumter, April 1861, Trans Am Clin Climatol Assoc, 125:250-267, 2014
17. These data are based on table data from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll. It shows wars with deaths over 1.5M across time
18. Coggins, J, Arms and Equipment of the Civil War, Dover Publications, 2012
20. Talmage, James E., The Articles of Faith, Deseret Book Company, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1981 [1899], p. 25-26