Section 87 of the Doctrine and Covenants is a curious document. It is a revelation Joseph Smith received on December 25, 1832 that foretold a war beginning with the rebellion of South Carolina, spreading to conflict between the Southern and Northern U.S. states, drawing in foreign powers, sparking slave uprisings, and culminating in global calamities including famine, disease, and widespread suffering. Early Latter-day Saints viewed this as proof of Smith’s prophetic authority. Today, however, the prophecy is mostly used by church leaders to encourage members to “stand in holy places” amid trials. In a recent interview at the Latter-day Saint history blog, Scott C. Esplin discussed some information about the document. What follows here is a copost to the full interview.
One interesting aspect of the section is that its history reflects the moment in which it was revealed, but came to also reflect another time in U.S. history. Scott C. Esplin explained:
While most associate the American Civil War with tensions regarding slavery, this wasn’t the issue that immediately drew forth Joseph Smith’s prophecy.
Late in 1832, the world was grappling with reports of cholera globally and, in India specifically, an outbreak of the plague. Closer to home, tensions simmered over protective tariffs imposed on foreign-manufactured goods that disproportionately impacted economic interests across the agrarian south. The state of South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union over the issue, believing it had the power to nullify the tariffs….
The conflict was averted when the federal government and the state of South Carolina reached a compromise in February 1833. However, the word of the Lord had been delivered, and Joseph Smith and his associates believed the revelation would still take effect.
In the short-term, the prophecy seemed to fail, but in the long term, aspects of it came true.
When the U.S. Civil War erupted, there was some recognition of the prophecy in the newspapers.
In May 1861, just a month after the first shots were fired in the American Civil War, the Philadelphia Sunday Mercury referenced the early British printing of the text, noting, “We have in our possession a pamphlet, published at Liverpool, in 1851, containing a selection from the ‘revelations, translations and narrations’ of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism.”
It continued:
The following prophecy is here said to have been made by Smith, on the 25th of December, 1832. In view of our present troubles, this prediction seems to be in progress of fulfilment, whether Joe Smith was a humbug or not.
Clearly aware of the language of the revelation, the Philadelphia Sunday Mercury concluded:
The war began in South Carolina. Insurrections of slaves are already dreaded. Famine will certainly afflict some Southern communities. The interference of Great Britain, on account of the want of cotton, is not improbable, if the war is protracted. In the meantime, a general war in Europe appears to be imminent. Have we not had a prophet among us? (A Mormon Prophecy,” Philadelphia Sunday Mercury, May 5, 1861, cited in Robert J. Woodford, “Historical Development of the Doctrine and Covenants” (Ph.D. dissertation, Brigham Young University, 1974), 2:1110, emphasis added.)
Church members thought the same and made good use of the prophecy in missionary efforts in the coming years.
Not every aspect of the revelation was fulfilled by the Civil War, however, leading to additional interpretations of the prophecy.
Church leaders like B. H. Roberts, Bishop Joseph L. Wirthlin, and Elder Neal A. Maxwell noted that the revelation did more than predict the Civil War between the states. …
Interpretations of Doctrine and Covenants 87 have shifted over time. Initially, applications of Joseph Smith’s Civil War prophecy focused on the conflict between Northern and Southern States. Later, the revelation was increasingly applied to other global conflicts. As the Church has grown globally, interpretations have evolved to emphasize how section 87 represents the Lord’s solution for living in times of conflict.
Today, the injunction to “stand ye in holy places” (D&C 87:8) exceeds all other recent uses in General Conference. For example, Church presidents like Harold B. Lee, Gordon B. Hinckley, Thomas S. Monson, and Russell M. Nelson have quoted it in that context.
I’m not convinced that the revelation was fulfilled to the letter (i.e., the Civil War didn’t spiral into a world-wide war with Britain and then other nations getting involved). But there are still useful ways to study the text, as indicated above.
For more about D&C 87, head on over to the Latter-day Saint history blog From the Desk to read the full interview.
Comments
6 responses to “The Civil War Prophecy”
I think D&C 87:3 was at least partially fulfilled in incidents such as the Trent Affair of 1861 and the rising tensions with Great Britain over British-built Confederate ships like the CSS Alabama. While this did not escalate to a full military alliance, it reflected the kind of foreign entanglement the prophecy describes.
Although the Civil War did not directly trigger worldwide conflict, Section 87 can be read as an unfolding prophecy, with the Civil War serving as the first domino leading toward the prophesied world wars. The war devastated the Southern cotton economy, disrupting Britain’s textile industry and forcing it to seek alternate sources such as Egypt and India. This strengthened Britain’s imperial presence in Africa and Asia, contributing to the imperial rivalries that fueled World War I. At the same time, wartime manufacturing and postwar industrial growth transformed the United States into an emerging economic power, shifting global balances of power by the late 19th century. These imperial expansions and rivalries fed into the web of alliances and animosities that exploded in 1914.
Notably, Britain did “call upon other nations” in both world wars, precisely as the prophecy in verse 3 describes.
Also, Joseph Smith’s Civil War prophecy complicates the ex eventu argument often used in biblical criticism to support the late dating of certain texts (most famously Matthew, based on Jesus’s prediction of the temple’s destruction). It’s a well-documented, pre-event prophecy (naming South Carolina, national division, widespread death and mourning, etc.) that was recorded decades before fulfillment. Whatever one thinks about the actual reality of predictive prophecy, this case shows that political predictions (prophecies) are not necessarily post-event fabrications, and accuracy alone cannot serve as definitive proof for late authorship.
I’ve had similar thoughts about some of the NT dating, Stephen S, particularly with Mark. I’m not a biblical scholar, but I’ve often heard statements about Mark dating related to Jesus making vague statements about the temple’s destruction, and I’ve often thought of the Civil War prophecy. Even from a “secular” point of view, prophesying of coming destruction is pretty common for prophets.
Depending on how one interprets the prophecy the events can be surprisingly specific in their fulfillment.
Stephens S. and F. – I’ve seen similar cases for late medieval prophecies that were once dated to the 16th century because they seemed to clearly refer to the Reformation, when in fact earlier versions of the prophecies are clearly attested by the mid-15th century. One aspect of this is survivorship bias – the prophecies that get preserved and recopied are those that manage to at least partially come true.
I sometimes write essays to myself to help me sort out for me what I think about some issues. Here is something I wrote about Section 87 a couple of years ago. “This section is generally thought of as about the Civil War. A careful reading shows that the Civil War references end in the middle of verse 3 when Great Britain calls upon other nations, which did not happen in the Civil War but did during WWI and II. Then “after many days” the slaves rise up against their masters…… and “shall vex the Gentiles with a sore vexation”. I see this as the end of colonialism and oppression everywhere, including among women and Black and Native Americans and other oppressed minorities even in our own country. The prophesied “full end of all nations” will be especially startling.
When I was in 6th grade we had a world map with the British Empire is pink. It was said that the sun never set on the British Empire. It was also the time of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation with representatives of all the colonial nations. There was no “empire” for the latest British coronation, in 2023. In fact many of the former colonies want jewels and other things stolen from them by the empire, returned. I even think the commonwealth is on its way out.
But it wasn’t just Britain with colonial holdings. France and Belgium were other big ones. Even the United States does not have clean hands. I think we had no business in Vietnam where we were basically trying to uphold the last of French colonialism in what was, before WWII, French Indochina.
3 Nephi 20 is also relevant here and it also ought to give us pause as Native Americans are asserting treaty rights that have never been honored. As this continues to unfold it will create many sticky situations, especially around water and mineral rights. Blacks and women and newly powerful Asian rights groups are also certainly “vexing” the Gentiles. Native Hawaiians are asserting their rights to land and culture. I wonder how this will play out. In any case we are seeing prophecy being fulfilled.
Verse six lists disasters of various sorts and I have never seen, in my earlier lifetime, the likes of what is happening now. In about March of 2025, the Washington Post had an article about disasters since 1960. It said that between 1960 and 1980 the number of billion dollar disasters world wide (standardized to 2025 dollars) had doubled. They had doubled again between 1980 and 2000 and doubled again between 2000 and 2020. I wish I had kept this article. Verse six ends with “a full end of all nations.” It doesn’t say everyone but us. “All” includes us. We aren’t there yet, but I have no problem seeing how this could all play out in a ways that seemed impossible earlier in my lifetime or even since 2000. Verse 7 tells us why this is happening and verse 8 tells us what to do about it–”stand ye in holy places and be not moved”.