In the middle of the bitter winter cold, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, embedded in the trenches near Petersburg, writes to the Confederate Secretary of War in the nearby Southern capital of Richmond. The subject is army desertion. “I have endeavored to ascertain the causes [of the] alarming frequency of desertions,” the general writes. Lee…
In Kentucky, the state House of Representatives today passes an “An act for the benefit of the Baptist Colored Church of Shelbyville, Kentucky,” of which no further explanation is offered. The official action comes at a time when black Baptist churches are rapidly forming in areas of the South under Union control. Meanwhile, in the…
The Confederacy is losing the war, but the entire American nation is suffering. This week, long-time Kentucky Baptist layman and former state politician Leonard Stephens (illustration) writes his brother William (now living in Missouri), bewailing what the war has wrought in his home state. Stephens letter offers insight into race relations as the end of…