Cook County, Georgia
Many white southerners, Baptist and otherwise, view the Civil War as the means of preserving the freedom of the white race, which they equate with God’s will for the world. The Richmond Daily Dispatch (Virginia) reports:
Yesterday witnessed a nation at prayers. It was a day ever to be remembered. From one end of these glorious Confederated States to the other, the prayers of three millions of freemen went up to the throne of the Most High, supplicating. His aid and comfort, in this their hour of trial, in establishing a free and independent Government, founded upon justice, equality, and the rights of freemen. The people of Norfolk, in this hour of darkness, have responded with a unanimity of action worthy of the feelings and principles that actuated their sires of the days of ’76.–At early morn, are the glorious sun with his scintillating beams had thrown a glory around on the new born day, the bells from the different church towers rang out their calls to prayer. Every house of business was closed, and at a later hour every bell tolled out its invitation to the house of God. Never was an invitation to join in prayer more graciously accepted by a people, and soon the streets were crowded with forms and faces of every color and age, from the child of four to the old man and matron of seventy years and upwards. No light or trifling word marks their conversation as they wend their way to the sacred house. We will follow their footsteps inside the church doors, up the long aisle; aye, close up to the chancel, and watch the head of infancy mingling with that of silvery age, bowed in humble submission, and list to the chorus of strong and infirm, as with tear dimmed eyes they lift their hearts and trembling voices to our Heavenly Father for his blessings in times passed, and asking His aid in our struggle for independence, peace and prosperity a second time.
Meanwhile, beyond the religious nationalistic rhetoric, in the Deep South an all-to-common scene unfolds in south Georgia today: a young man enlists to fight for the Confederacy.
Robert and Nancy Parrish, plantation owners in Berrien (now Cook) County, are Primitive Baptists who are members of the Primitive Baptist Church in the community of Salem (now Adel). Born in 1806, Robert is a veteran of the 1836 Indian War.
As had Robert, son Ansel chooses the life of a warrior, today enlisting in the Co. “I” 112th Georgia Volunteer Infantry Regiment. But unlike his father, Ansel does not survive military service. A month after his enlistment, the young man is dead, a victim of disease at Camp Allegheny, Virginia. Left behind are mourning parents, who live many years beyond the war, Nancy dying in 1879, and Robert in 1889.
Sources: Richmond Daily Dispatch, June 14, 1861 (link); Parrish family history (link)
