Other than the first year of the war, the South Carolina coast remained under the control of Union Armies during the great conflict, driving white citizens off the large plantations that marked that part of the state. Tens of thousands of slaves fled to their freedom behind the protection of Union lines, where Northern Christians…
On Hilton Head Island on the coast of South Carolina a convention of Colored Baptist churches assembles this day at Mitchelville. The South Carolina coast since 1862 has been home to tens of thousands of freedmen. The initial free blacks in the area were liberated during the war by the Union Army during the war…
In the fall months of 1864 many newly-freed blacks from the Border State of Kentucky enrolled in the Union Army. Also in late 1864, more and more emancipated black Baptists, no longer forced by their masters to attend white churches, began meeting autonomously. The ensuing months have witnessed a continued exodus of black Baptists from…