Readers of today’s New York Times learn of a meeting of the United States Christian Commission this week in the Baptist Church of Saratoga, New York. The Christian Commission, created in 1861, is an organizational collaborative effort of government social services and Protestant Christians that furnishes supplies, medical services, and religious literature to Union troops.…
Today’s New York Times reports on a correspondent’s visit to the Murfreesboro battlefield, his visit having taken place mere days following the end of the fighting in the Tennessee town. The reporter describes what he sees. …. The field and woods bear marks of heavy firing — scarcely a tree that has not its branches…
The news of the Emancipation Proclamation has now spread throughout the North, as well as much of the South. Southern whites–including Southern Baptist newspaper editors–largely ignore the news, knowing that Abraham Lincoln‘s words are effectively meaningless as long as the Confederacy exists. Some Southern slaves hear whispers of a freedom announced from far away, hoping…