On the northern home front, a strange accident takes the life of one of the most prominent men of the state of Massachusetts. George Nixon Briggs (born 1796), lawyer, former U.S. Whig Congressmen (1831-1843) and seven-term governor of Massachusetts (1844-1851), reaches for an overcoat in the closet of his home in Pittsfield. In so doing,…
A newly-published apologist tract for slavery is circulating and making glad the hearts of white slaveholders in the South. Entitled, “Slavery Sanctioned by the Bible,” the booklet-length volume, written by a Baptist layman, surveys the presence of slavery in the Bible, then concludes: If our Southern slaveholders were all animated by this heavenly spirit of…
In the West today, Union soldiers fight against African slavery even as American politicians force yet another treaty upon Native Americans designed to marginalize Indians. In Missouri, the minor Battle of Dry Wood Creek (also known as the Battle of the Mules) results in Confederate victory. U.S. Col. J.H. Lane, leading some 600 calvary, is…