Today in Greene County, Georgia the Springfield Baptist Church of Greensboro is established. The founding of the congregation takes place at a time when many Baptist churches in middle Georgia are striving merely to keep their doors open nearly three years after the beginning of the Civil War. In the midst of such struggles, church…
Union Gen. Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts is commander of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina. Butler is hated among white Southerners for his distinction of authoring the designation of fugitive slaves in Union controlled-territory as “contraband,” an order he had issued in May 1861 while commanding the Department of Eastern Virginia. While prior…
The war, well into its third year, is a canvas upon which countless human stories unfold. Tragedy is often the theme of such stories, yet spiritual victories and simple stories of human inspiration are also splayed across the canvas of war. Baptist newspapers North and South often carry short items of interest, little stories that…