Everyone with a rightly formed conscience aligned with biblical values understands and believes that freedom is right and tyranny is wrong. Therefore, it was right for the United States to declare war on the Axis Powers of Japan, Germany, and Italy during World War II. Throughout this bloodiest of all wars, millions of young American men left their homes and families to combat the forces of evil on the islands of the Pacific, the beaches and fields of Europe, and the deserts of North Africa. As a result of the valiant efforts and brilliant ingenuity of the American people, the forces of freedom broke the backs of the tyrants
This is a historical truth that, thankfully, most Americans are familiar with. It’s a testament to our collective memory as a society and the theatrical bravery of 1940s Americans that Hollywood and academia alike have rightly remembered the heroic role of the United States in fighting the forces of wickedness in World War II. But what is often not realized is that World War II was not an isolated example of American heroism and principled selflessness. In fact, the people of this great country have been fighting evil for over 250 years, going all the way back to before our independence was declared.
Modern Americans may have a hard time viewing the British as evil, since the England of today is clearly not. Aside from the United States, it can be argued that the British were the leading promoters of peace in the 20th century and continue to advocate for human rights in the 21st.
But the American Revolution was not fought against 20th or 21st century England. It was fought against 18th century England. The British Empire of the Georgian Era (18th century) was not the proper, polite, and principled Britain that emerged in the Victorian Age of the 19th century. Rather, it was a nation so thoroughly infiltrated by secularism and moral relativism that British people of later centuries would hardly recognize it. Religious piety was scoffed at as painfully out of date. All forms of vice ran rampant through the streets of London, from prostitution and domestic violence to gambling and animal cruelty.
This lack of virtue was on full display when the British army invaded the American colonies. British officers openly mocked the religiosity of Americans. One example of this occurred during the Siege of Boston in 1775. British General John Burgoyne took over Boston’s largest church and ordered his men to chop up the pulpit and pews to use as kindling. He then converted the sacred space into a cattle stall. British officers derisively called Puritan ministers the “Black Robe Regiment,” mocking the very concept of clerical vestments. British plays were performed that mocked passionate preachers like George Whitefield, and some British officials referred to the American Revolution as “the Presbyterian Rebellion,” a slur to imply the colonists’ “fanatical” faith was treasonous.
But what was perhaps even more shocking was the way the British treated American soldiers they captured as prisoners of war. The rules of “sophisticated” warfare at the time demanded that, if the enemy surrenders, the victor was to take them as prisoners and treat them humanely while detained. But since the British saw the Americans not as civilized men deserving of dignity, but rather as treasonous, backwater rebels, the British often did not give Americans the humane treatment their own code of conduct demanded. Rather, when Americans would try to surrender during a battle, British soldiers would often be commanded to bayonet them to death rather than take them prisoner.
And when the British did take Americans as prisoners of war, they were treated unspeakably. The conditions of these POW camps and ships were infamously brutal. The prison ships were called “floating hells,” in which American POWs were treated similarly to enslaved Africans during the Middle Passage. Hundreds of men were stuffed into the cargo holds of British ships that were so suffocating and foul-smelling that it’s a wonder any survived. But of course, many did not. Disease was rampant, as typhus, yellow fever, smallpox, and dysentery spread from the fecal matter festering in the dungeon that POWs were never allowed to leave. Every morning, the British guards would shout, “Rebels, turn out your dead!” Disease, suffocation, and starvation in these prison ships led to 11,500 American deaths: more than those who died in all the battles.
Fighting evil is not something the United States did once against the Nazis. It is something interwoven into America’s tapestry, from our humble founding to our ascendancy as a global superpower. America has made many mistakes in our quest to impose virtue on resistant nations, but amidst them all has been the moral compass that points true north toward the values of liberty, virtue, and faith in our Lord. And any nation that tries to destroy these pillars of America’s national and global vision, any nation that attempts to oppress their people or terrorize the innocents of the world, runs the risk of facing the forces of American justice.
Jonathan Kettler is a history teacher at Brandon High School.
