In South Caroline a new Baptist church is formed this day: the First Baptist Church of Inman (as it is later named). A season of revival following the war provides the impetus for the formation of the new congregation. A growing Temperance movement in Spartanburg County contributed to the revivalism. Historically, Baptists had not been…
Tens of thousands of former slaves were fighting for the United States against the Confederacy by the end of the war. One was Paul Sandridge. Born into slavery near Lynchburg, Virginia in 1841, Sandridge was liberated from bondage upon the death of his owner in 1853. As a free man he settled near Portsmouth, Ohio,…
Missourian Franklin (“Frank”) James (brother to Jesse James) is the son of a now-deceased Baptist minister (Robert James, who assisted in the formation of William Jewel College) and a Sunday School teacher in his Baptist church. Enrolling in the Confederate Army early in the war, Frank soon returned home. When Union soldiers raided the family…