Charleston, South Carolina wakes up the day after United States armed forces seized control of the city. Many white citizens fled before Union forces marched into the city yesterday. Wealthy white residents yet remaining are fearful for their future. Many poor whites are hopeful of relief from their impoverished condition. Black residents, suddenly free, are…
During the war years Southern Baptist elites have constructed a narrative of a Christian Confederacy and a Satanic Union, at least one to the point of labeling the abolitionist North as the “final Antichrist.” Abolitionist Christians—and that includes a seeming majority in the North by this point—are, according to this storyline, the very instruments of…
Prior to the war, “Lee Town” in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa became a refuge for escaped slaves fleeing from Missouri, as well as slaves freed by Missouri slave owners who came to oppose the peculiar institution. The Underground Railroad was nearby. Some freedman passed through Lee Town; others, finding protection, stayed. Soon after the Civil War…