The voice of renowned Virginia Baptist minister — and president of Richmond College (later University or Richmond) — Robert Ryland is appealed to this month in the pages of the Virginia Baptist Religious Herald. Ryland’s pastorate is that of the First African Baptist Church of Richmond, where he has served from 1841 (the year of…
This month the First African Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia licenses Deacon James M. Simms to preach. Born in Savannah, Georgia in 1823, Simms for much of his life was not involved in church. But in 1857 he had purchased his freedom, and in 1858 returned to the church and within a few months had…
Today Joseph Andrew Jackson Lightburn, a Baptist minister and boyhood friend of Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, is appointed a brigadier general and ordered to report to the Army of Tennessee. He serves admirably throughout the war, afterwards retiring to spend the rest of his life serving as a minister, including at the Broad Run…