The closing months of the war have been a bitter time for many white Floridians. Florida governor John Milton, despairing of the collapse of the Confederacy early in the year, had committed suicide on April 1. His last words to the legislature had been, “Death would be preferable to reunion.” When news of the Lee’s…
Some five weeks after the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, the ripples of the South’s defeat continue to spread. Today Jacob Elliot, a lawyer and Texas Baptist, hears rumors of the surrender of the Trans-Mississippi Department of the Confederate Army: “May 19: — Mr. S. Williams reports that the…
The Second Baptist Church of St. Louis, Missouri is the host of the 33rd anniversary meeting of the American Baptist Home Mission Society. Those gathered celebrate the end of the war. In his opening address, host pastor Galusha Anderson rejoices that “as an evidence of the new era on which we have entered, a convention…