This month the Siloam Baptist Church of Greene County, Georgia meets and does something unusual for Baptist churches of the South during the war: they formally discuss the death of a soldier member. Baptists, long accustomed to not allowing the outside world to infiltrate worship services and business meetings, typically do not officially discuss in…
For months, many Northern Baptists have been agitating the U.S. Congress to pass a confiscation act that will permanently free African slaves. Today, their wishes, as well as those of many Northern Christians at large, are granted, as Congress passes the Second Confiscation Act that is, in effect, an emancipation proclamation that grants permanent freedom…
While momentum has shifted to the Confederacy in the wake of the recent, successful repulsing of the Union offensive against the nation’s capital of Richmond, much of Tennessee remains under Union control. In response to the U.S. presence in Tennessee, Confederate Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest for several weeks has been conducting calvary raids in…