In Union-controlled Tennessee, formerly enslaved African Americans, many of them Baptist, are publicly expressing their sentiments to the state’s politicians, including Governor Andrew Johnson. African American attorney John Mercer Langston, born a slave, is one of the most prominent voices. On January 2, he addressed some 3,500 Unionists, 3,000 of them black, declaring that the…
Today in Alabama’s Mobile Bay, the Confederacy’s Fort Gaines surrenders. The Stars and Stripes are raised, and the United States formally assumes control of the bay. Northward in the battle for Atlanta, a Confederate Baptist layman is captured by Union forces, for the second time. Walter Noel Leake (1844-1920), born in Kentucky, as a child…
In an attempt to draw Union forces away from Petersburg, Confederate General Jubal A. Early has for days been ransacking territory behind enemy lines. Now in Maryland, Early’s troops have ransomed Hagerstown and Middletown and hope to take Frederick next. This morning, however, Northern troops on a scouting mission run into a contingent of Early’s…