Weeks before the first major battle of the Civil War, a tragic event takes the life of a Virginia Baptist soldier. The Richmond Times Dispatch thus reports this week: Our citizens were astounded … as if by a peal of thunder from a clear sky, by the intelligence of the death of Captain C. F.…
The First African Baptist Church of Alexandria, Virginia (now Alfred Street Baptist Church), established in 1818, is the oldest African American congregation in the city. It has long been a mission of the (white) First Baptist Church. Two years prior to the present, the church’s first “‘bona fida’ Negro minister/pastor” assumed the pulpit. Then came…
Virginia voters (all men, and many of whom are Baptist) today ratify the Ordinance of Secession adopted by the Virginia Convention on April 17. Voters also amend the state constitution to remove a ceiling on the value of enslaved blacks for taxation purposes. Yet the state is divided on secession, as voters in the western…