Few Baptist churches of the South discuss soldier deaths in church records. When Southern Baptists do formally recognize the death of one of their own serving in the Confederate Army, such notice is more likely to be in a Baptist associational meeting or published in a Baptist newspaper. Today, the Alabama Baptist newspaper highlights the…
Baptist layman and future editor of the Alabama Baptist (the state newspaper of Alabama’s Southern Baptists) from 1884 to 1902, John Gideon Harris, organizer of Company I of the Alabama 20th Infantry Regiment in Greene County, assembles with the full regiment. The regiment is comprised of recruits from Bibb, Dallas, Greene, Hale, Jefferson, Perry, Russell,…
“Will the Sec. of Navy please call on me at once.” Thus Lincoln writes from the “Executive Mansion,” signaling the crisis that is Fort Sumter. Meanwhile, in Montgomery, Alabama, the Confederate States of America issues its first currency. Also in Alabama, the Cedar Bluff Baptist Church (in Cedar Bluff, Alabama) meets for its monthly business…