Some Northern Baptist families contribute multiple men to the war effort of the United States of America. Such is the case with the Robison family of Illinois. One of four brothers who serve in the Union Army, Thomas L. Robison, a farmer’s son, enlisted on November 7, 1861 in the Company K, Fifty-sixth Regiment, Illinois…
A new chapter in Baptist life has been unfolding this month as freedmen on St. Helena Island off the coast of South Carolina, under the protection and with the assistance of the United States Army, form an autonomous Baptist congregation and establish a Baptist-related school, the Penn School. The school teaches reading, writing, agricultural and…
From the swelling ranks of freedmen, African Baptist churches are now forming in Union-controlled areas of coastal South Carolina. This month freed slaves form the First African Baptist Church of Bluffton, a community just across the inland waterway from Hilton Head Island. The new congregation is the first Baptist church formed in the community. The…