Today the African Baptist Church of Darien, Georgia, the oldest black church in the county, is destroyed by the Union 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Colored Regiment and the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers. Most of the town, in fact, is looted and destroyed by the Union troops, under the orders of the 2nd’s commander, Colonel James Montgomery.…
Today newly-freed former slaves gather in the Baptist Church of Beaufort, South Carolina, a coastal town under Union control and a base of operations for the housing, training and education of freedpersons, many of whom are now serving in the United States military. The story of the gathering of these freepersons in the Baptist Church…
As U.S. General Ulysses S. Grant‘s army marches southward through Louisiana, a contingent of Union naval vessels prepares to slip by Vicksburg’s batteries under the cover of darkness. A key city in the war against the South, the capture of the Mississippi city would split the Confederacy east and west while giving the United States…