Editing Shakers (section)

===American Civil War period===
As pacifists,{{#tag:ref|[[Church of the Brethren|Brethren]], [[Mennonites]] and [[Quakers]] are the three "historic peace churches". Other religions were pacifists who eschewed violence and war, including the Shakers.<ref>John Whiteclay Chambers; Fred Anderson. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=_Rzy_yNMKbcC&pg=PA522 The Oxford Companion to American Military History]''. Oxford University Press; 1999. {{ISBN|978-0-19-507198-6}}. p. 522.</ref>|group="nb"}} the Shakers did not believe that it was acceptable to kill or harm others, even in time of war. During the [[American Civil War]], both Union and Confederate soldiers found their way to the Shaker communities. Shakers tended to sympathize with the Union but they did feed and care for both Union and Confederate soldiers. President [[Abraham Lincoln|Lincoln]] exempted Shaker males from military service, and they became some of the first [[conscientious objector]]s in American history.

The end of the Civil War brought large changes to the Shaker communities. One of the most important changes was the postwar economy.<ref name="NPS">{{NPS|url=http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/shaker/shakers.htm|title=The Shakers" Shaker Historic Trail|accessdate=March 23, 2014}}</ref> The Shakers had a hard time competing in the industrialized economy that followed the Civil War. With prosperity falling, converts were hard to find.