This month the state Baptist Association of Illinois convenes and, following the lead of other state Baptist groups of the North earlier this year, affirms as God’s will freedom for all humans and the righteousness of the war against Southern slavery. In the midst of many dangers and reverses which have overtaken our arms during…
Today the First Kansas Colored Infantry, the first African Americans recruited in the Northern states for service in the Civil War, experience their first battlefield engagement. At Island Mound in Missouri’s Bates Country, a detachment of some 225 Kansas African American soldiers clash with five hundred Confederates. Although ten Kansas soldiers are killed and twelve…
In the Deep South town of Savannah, Georgia, blacks — enslaved and free — increasingly seek autonomy as the war rages on. Not allowed to gather except for religious purposes, some turn to the Masons, creating the Eureka Lodge. Eureka Lodge has the proud distinction of being the first Black secret organization to be formed…