Civil War Era Missouri Map
Today in Alabama, Confederate General John Bell Hood moves his army from Gadsden to Guntersville in order to cross the Tennessee River and move northward.
Yet in a sign of the ongoing haplessness of Confederate armies, Hood had forgotten to bring along his pontoon bridge. Located on the Coosa River in eastern Alabama, it does the general no good.
Hood orders the bridge to be brought up, but then decides to cross the Tennessee River at Courtland, some fifty miles to the west. By so doing, the general forsakes a surprise attack into Tennessee. By the time his army finally does march into Tennessee, Sherman is waiting for him.
Farther to the West, even as Missouri remains roiled by Confederate guerrilla attacks, a new Baptist association is birthed.
Three churches in Greene (Union Baptist Church and New Prospect Baptist Church) and Lawrence (Mt. Comfort Baptist Church) counties organize the New Prospect Association, an aptly chosen name reflecting the forward looking vision of the three American (Northern) Baptist congregations, all of which themselves have only recently been organized late in the war.
Sources: “Confederates Arrive at Guntersville, Alabama,” History.com (link); Robert Samuel Duncan, A History of the Baptists in Missouri, St. Louis: Scrammel, 1882, p. 710
