This is John Batchel. Later this week, I speak with Professor Richard Carwadee of Oxford University.

His new book is Righteous Strife, How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln's Union.

Here's a small piece of it in which I asked the professor about Lincoln's fast day, his first fast day,

in which the deeply religious abstained from eating all day long and prayed for deliverance for the nation.

The first fast day, there were others, for Lincoln was September 26, 1861.

And I asked the professor, well, you'll hear it here.

Much more of this later in the week.

A two-hour conversation with Professor Richard Carwoodine, Righteous Strife.

These are the pulpits that fought the war also, dueling pulpits, not just one side of the other, all sides.

And Lincoln listened to all of them, always.

Much more of this later.

Here's Richard Carwedeen answering my question about the first fast day.

Professor, to interrupt, Lincoln, was he satisfied with the results of his fast day,

September 26, 1861?

Did it achieve what he imagined it would?

We have about a minute.

What a good question, and I wish I knew the answer.

I think the simple answer is he must have been because it was not the last of the fast days that he called.

He called two more during the course of the war as well as course days of Thanksgiving.

I think what he knew he was doing when he called these days was to reach out to, as he, not only to reach out to the churches,

but to prepare the ground for the visits that he was encouraging from denominations of all kinds.

Throughout the war, he was always open to visits from the different denominations when they approached him.

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