This famous sermon by the most popular American preacher during the Civil War, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, was delivered in 1861 to the two Civil War Regiments of the “Brooklyn Fourteenth . ” Many of them members of Rev. Beecher's Plymouth Church , located in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of New York City. The Church on that day contributed $3,000 to aid in the equipment of this Regiment. “Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth.” – Psalms 1x. 4. FROM the earliest periods nations seem to have gone forth to war under some banner. Sometimes it has been merely the pennant of a leader, and was only a rallying signal. So, doubtless, the habit began of carrying banners, to direct men in the confusion of conflict, that the leader might gather his followers around him when he himself was liable to be lost out of their sight. And thus in our day every nation has its peculiar flag. There is no civilized nation without its banner. A tho...
Stories from Brooklyn's historical Plymouth Church and Henry Ward Beecher, America's most famous Abolitionist Preacher during the Civil War era.