The day after the bloodiest day in the war, the sun dawns on an apocalyptic scene in and around a small Baptist church near Sharpsburg, Maryland. Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s invasion of Maryland has turned into a disaster of unimagined proportions. Some 12,000 soldiers lie dead or dying in a cornfield, as the Confederates…
Many extended Northern families send a number of male members to serve in the Union Army. Such is the case with the Barrage family of Massachusetts, a family of Baptists. Henry S. Burrage, born in 1837 in Fitchburg, graduated from Brown University (Providence, R.I.) in 1861, then enrolled in Newton Theological Institution (Centre, Mass.) on…
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, growing impatient with Gen. George McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac, orders the general to launch offensive operations no later than February 22. Thus far, McClellan has exercised too much caution, in the estimation of Lincoln and many northerners. Meanwhile, on New York’s East River, the Union ironclad Monitor…