Anxieties North and South are high. The moment of truth is mere days to come. The United States and Confederate States, both weary of war, steel for yet another season of bloodshed and anguish. This most uncivil of wars was never expected to last this long. The public is nervous, politicians are wary, and soldier…
Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, yet headquartered in Chattanooga, is making final preparations for the beginning of his spring campaign against Atlanta. Today he sends a coded telegram ordering the requisition and deployment of a manned gun-boat to “patrol the river below Bridgeport to Decatur to cover McPherson’s movements.” General James B. McPherson commands the…
Personal morality is an overriding concern of white Southern Baptists. While black slavery is holy and biblical and killing abolitionists is God’s work, woe to a Southern Baptist church member — whether on the home front or in the Confederate Army — who dances, plays cards, goes to the theater, enjoys other worldly amusements or…