Within the Confederacy, church, culture and government are so intertwined in support of African slavery that they often speak and act in unison. Southern elites, mostly large-scale slaveholding planters who occupy government offices and other public positions of various kinds, are grateful that Southern Christian leaders (many of whom are also slave owners of considerable…
This year, in the wake of the Emancipation Proclamation, the founding of African Baptist churches proliferates. Unfortunately, the details of the formation of many of these congregations are nebulous. According to one early source, the Fourth Baptist Church, African (later Metropolitan Baptist Church) is formed this month in the District of Columbia “by a few holding…
Nashville, occupied by the United States Army, has become a significant Union supply and medical center in the South. All the Baptist churches in the city have been appropriated by federal troops, and many, including Second Baptist Church, are serving as hospitals. Known as the “Prison Hospital,” it houses both Union and Confederate prisoners, the…