Following a recommendation from a layman the day before, the Madison Baptist Church of Morgan County, Georgia, holds a special day of prayer, “observed by the church as directed by the Executive of the State,” Governor Joseph E. Brown.
A number of Baptist churches in the South during the war years were responsive to directives from state and national Confederate leaders to observe days of prayer and/or fasting. In this case, southern states were gripped with fear over what Abraham Lincoln, the abolitionist candidate, might do should he be elected president of the United States. Political leaders in Georgia differed over whether or not secession would be warranted in order to preserve the state’s slave-dependent economy, society and culture.
Joseph Brown, Georgia’s governor, was a member of Milledgeville Baptist Church during the war years.
