In Lockland, Ohio the Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian congregations join together for a Thanksgiving service preached by Silas Hawley, a Presbyterian minister. Entitled, “National Reconstruction: The Glory and Shame of a Nation,” the sermon celebrates the securing of human equality in the Union victory over the Confederate States of America. America is a “righteous” nation,…
Today’s Virginia Baptist Religious Herald examines the prospects of denominational reunions in the aftermath of the war. Most will probably remain separate, the editorial suggests. Baptists, however, are the main focus of the author. “The Baptists, with as many discordant elements among them as any other denomination, but having no general ecclesiastical government, are left…
It is two-and-one-half years after U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and two months after the war came to an effective end. And on this day, in the far reaches of the old Confederacy, Union Major General Gordon Granger arrives in Galveston, Texas bearing startling news for black persons living in Texas: you…