Privately determined to free the South’s African slaves, U.S President Abraham Lincoln today ratchets up Northern military might while maintaining a cautious public profile regarding slavery. The Union Army receives a boost from the president’s order to draft 300,000 militia for a period of nine months. It is doubtful that Lincoln believes he will need…
Today is the Sabbath, and James W. Stovall, an Alabama slave born in 1837–the son of a white slaveowner and his house mistress–secures permission to attend a Baptist church that is now located behind federal lines in Union-occupied Decatur (at the time known as Cater), Alabama. Stovall, years later and living in Winona, Illinois, describes…
While white Southerners carry on about the sins and evilness of the North, the Confederacy, albeit God’s chosen nation in the minds of many, is not without fault. An article in a Southern Baptist newspaper this week offers an analysis of the shortcomings of the South. Everybody is crying out against extortion, and every one…