Charleston, after the surrender
Today Confederate Brigadier General Mark Perrin Lowrey (1828-1885) resigns his commission, due to bad health.
A Southern Baptist preacher who became known as the “Preacher General” during the war, after the war Lowrey moves back to his home state of Mississippi, where in 1873 he founds Blue Mountain Female Institute. He also serves as president of the Mississippi Baptist Convention from 1868 to 1877.
Meanwhile, today’s Richmond Daily Dispatch reports on events happening in Union-occupied Charleston, including a recent Sunday in the city. In this city in the heart of the Confederacy, Union armies, accompanied by Northern philanthropists and missionaries, are hard at work reconstructing the city and helping former slaves settle into lives of freedom.
Sunday was a day of jubilee at all the colored churches. General Littlefield and Mr. Redpath (of Boston) addressed all the congregations on their positions and duties to their race and country.–The colored people say that there have been no such scenes witnessed in these churches during living memory. The speakers made very radical anti slavery addresses, and were listened to with the utmost eagerness. Bursts of joy, shouts of thanks to God, laughter, tears — every human emotion seemed to be moved to their depths. One of the speakers, after shaking hands with nearly all the congregation before he got half-way down the alley, was astonished by being suddenly hugged by one old colored lady.
Sources: Mark Perrin Lowrey (link) and (link); “A Sunday in Charleston,” Richmond Daily Dispatch, March 14, 1865 (link)
