Understanding Baptists During the Civil War: A Daily War Journal

Baptists provide a prism into the diversity of American responses to the Civil War. Northerners, Southerners, White, Black, Native American, men, women, officers, soldiers, politicians, civilians, preachers, laity, elites, common folk  — Baptists represented the full spectrum of the Civil War experience. This site is devoted to understanding Baptists during the Civil War through more…

A War Long Coming

This is the introductory chapter to Bruce Gourley’s 2015 volume, Baptists and the American Civil War: Crucible of Faith and Freedom. The road to the American Civil War began with the introduction of slavery into the American colonies in the mid-seventeenth century. Slavery was confined to Africans, as English Common Law prohibited the enslavement of…