Baptists provide a prism into the diversity of American responses to the Civil War. Northerners, Southerners, White, Black, Native American, men, women, officers, soldiers, politicians, civilians, preachers, laity, elites, common folk — Baptists represented the full spectrum of the Civil War experience. This site is devoted to understanding Baptists during the Civil War through more…
INTRODUCTION Baptists and other white Americans North and South during the Civil War-era were unequivocal: secession, the existence of the Confederate States of America, and the Civil War were all the result of slavery, the immoral (or moral, depending on one’s race, political persuasion and/or geographic location) institution that served as the economic engine of…
by Bruce Gourley From its earliest days, the colonial experience in the New World was infused with human inequality. Theocratic colonies through both government institutions and establishment churches refused to allow freedom of conscience or religious liberty. Many poor whites were indentured servants and many blacks either indentured servants or slaves. White women were denied…