The war has barely ended and already restrictions are being placed upon freedpersons in the former Confederate capital of Richmond, restrictions in which federal military officials play a notable role. Fields Cook (1817-1897) is a former slave who while a slave learned how to read and write, learned the precepts of Christianity through the kindness…
In the trenches around Petersburg, Union General Ulysses S. Grant sends Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock off on an offensive against Richmond. For the next six days Federals and Confederates skirmish in the Second Battle of Deep Bottom. In the end, the Confederates win the battle by successfully thwarting the attack on the Confederate capital.…
The New York Times today reprints a speech on slavery delivered by Kentucky Baptist layman and U.S. Congressman Green Clay Smith (1826-1895). Smith served as a Second Lieutenant in the Army during the Mexican War, after which he graduated from Transylvania University and then practiced law with his father, John Speed Smith, an attorney and…