On the West coast, the First Baptist Church of Santa Clara, founded May 14, 1850, has since then longed to build a meeting house. Today, far from the ongoing skirmishes in the vicinity of the Tennessee city of Chattanooga, Santa Clara church members dedicate and celebrate their first facility. “A brick church building was erected…
Today Union raiders create havoc in Wright City, Missouri, a town in a border state evidencing mixed, vocal loyalties. Targeting buildings where Southern sympathizers are known to gather, the militia first strike the Baptist church, torching the meeting house. As the church blazes, the raiders move on to two local businesses, setting fire to a…
Nearly two months after the African American 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment unsuccessfully but heroically attacked the Confederate’s Fort Wagner on Morris Island, South Carolina, the rebels — following constant bombardment for weeks on end that has damaged the fort, in the face of low provisions, and due to the decomposing bodies of dead Union soldiers…