Today U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs the Thirteenth Amendment, thus sending it to the states for ratification. Also today, from Savannah Assistant Adjutant-General E. D. Townsend writes to the U.S. War Department concerning the January 12 meeting that took place between General William T. Sherman and “the colored ministers in Savannah.” From that meeting, during…
Confederate General John Bell Hood, marching through northern Alabama with some 39,000 soldiers and en route to a planned invasion of western Tennessee, today arrives at Decatur, Alabama. Here he encounters some 3,000-5,000 Union soldiers defending entrenchments, two forts and a rifle pit, in addition to two Federal gunboats patrolling the Tennessee River. Needing to…
John R. Bowles, born June 13, 1826 in Lynchburg, Virginia, is a free black and a Baptist minister. As a young man, Bowles settled near Chillicothe in Ross County, Ohio, marrying Sarah Jane Bryant in 1848. There the couple grew their family, in addition to participating in the Underground Railroad. At thirty years of age,…