Under an oak tree in the southeastern Virginia town of Phoebus, a quiet revolution begins: Mary Smith Peak teaches the first classes to African American children on the grounds of present-day Hampton University. Born in Norfolk in 1823 to an Englishman and a free black woman, Mary Kelsey received a formal education then returned home…
Baptist layman and future editor of the Alabama Baptist (the state newspaper of Alabama’s Southern Baptists) from 1884 to 1902, John Gideon Harris, organizer of Company I of the Alabama 20th Infantry Regiment in Greene County, assembles with the full regiment. The regiment is comprised of recruits from Bibb, Dallas, Greene, Hale, Jefferson, Perry, Russell,…
In Beaufort, South Carolina, citizens and soldiers wait anxiously for federal warships off the coast. “No Fleet yet, off Port Royal,” reports Thomas R S Elliott to his father. Batteries are being laid out, cannons put in place, a fort on Ladies Island is now finished, and the arrival of Dunnovants Regiment is anticipated. The…