Today John A. Rose, Free Will Baptist, is discharged from the Union Army.
A native of Illinois and resident of Arkansas, Rose enlisted in the Union Army in 1863, prior to his 18th birthday. Serving in Company L, 2nd Kansas Cavalry, the young soldier fought in several small battles before being captured and taken prisoner for a period of eight months.
Surviving the great conflict, Rose returns home and makes a living for his family by farming and operating a mercantile store.
Meanwhile, the annual meeting of the American Baptist Missionary Convention, hosted by the First Colored Baptist Church of Alexandria, Virginia, wraps up today. Delegates depart concerned about the future of black citizens of the South, having received no assurances, from a visit with U.S. President Andrew Johnson, that racial equality and black suffrage will come to pass.
Thus, mere months after the end of the war and the death of Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln’s legacy is in doubt.
Sources: Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Western Arkansas, Chicago, Ill: Southern Publishing Company, 1892, p. 422 (link); “Report of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the American Baptist Missionary Convention : held at the meeting house of the First Colored Baptist Church, Alexandria, Va. from Friday, August 18th, to Sunday, August 27th, 1865” (link)
