Today James B. Taylor, influential Virginia Baptist minister who is serving as pastor of Richmond’s Grace Street Baptist Church, opens the Virginia House of Delegates with prayer. A large portion of today’s business relates to the problem of alcohol within the Confederacy. An 1863 bill limits the use of grains for distillation into alcohol, yet…
The momentum now seems to be on the Confederacy’s side, but Union armies remain in northern Virginia.Today, the two sides clash in a major battle on familiar ground that becomes known as the Second Battle of Bull Run (and the Second Battle of Manassas). As had been the case in the First Battle of Bull…
Today a career United States military officer accepts U.S. Secretary of War Simon Cameron’s offer of a commission as colonel of the First Cavalry. The officer’s name is Robert E. Lee. U.S. President Abraham Lincoln had submitted the commission to the Senate on March 21, and the offer was formalized four days later. Even as…