Today Union General William T. Sherman’s army moves out of Fayetteville, intent on causing further damage in North Carolina. These are days of intense soul searching, South and North. Although Confederate leaders and large slaveholders (often one and the same) remain largely defiant, many White citizens of the Confederacy have given up all hope and…
Today Edgar Harkness Gray (1813-1894) becomes the first Baptist appointed as Chaplain of the U.S. Senate. A Vermont native, Gray was converted to the Baptist faith at the age of twelve. Following a period of schooling, he was ordained to the ministry and served churches in Maine and Massachusetts before accepting the pastorate of Washington…
Unbeknownst to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, a photograph of him taken this day on the balcony of the White House will prove to be his last. Soon, he will succumb to an assassin’s bullet. Far away in Florida, also this day, Confederate forces triumph in what will prove to be one of the South’s last…