While the just-concluded annual meeting of the Georgia Baptist Convention focused primarily on supporting Confederate soldiers through the evangelistic efforts of army chaplains and missionaries, delegates, many of whom were well-to-do pastors of larger churches, made no formal mention of what is arguably the most pressing issue among the soldiery: that of desertion. Baptist churches…
Confederate leaders’ mounting fears of insurrection find evidence in the activities of Newton (“Newt”) Knight (1837-1922), Primitive Baptist and Unionist in Mississippi. Knight is leader of the Knight Company, a group of Confederate Army deserters and Confederate dis-loyalists who banded together in late 1863 to form the “Free State of Jones” in the Mississippi counties…
In a winter of discontent, deserters and dissenters are fair game in the Confederacy. From Texas to the Eastern seaboard, white southerners with wavering loyalties are caught in a tug of war playing out between lowered Confederate rifle barrels and the extended hand of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. In the crossfire hangs liberty, property and…