Today in Union-occupied Alexandria, Virginia yet another African Baptist congregation is formed in the aftermath of the Emancipation Proclamation. The church narrates its beginnings in the following way: During the Civil War, the Union Army occupied the City of Alexandria to prevent the Confederate Army from having a route into Washington, D.C., the capitol. Since…
With gathering momentum, African slavery is losing ground following the Emancipation Proclamation. Nowhere is this more evident than within Union-controlled areas along the South Carolina coast. In the state where the first shot of the war was fired, and where prior to the war some of the richest men in the nation lived–all large plantation…
The effects of the Emancipation Proclamation are rippling throughout the South and the North. In the Confederacy, slaves are escaping from their masters in ever greater numbers and many are now in Union Army uniforms, stationed in Union-controlled areas of the Southern Atlantic seaboard. For their part, slave masters and overseers are forced to keep…