Today, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, recently named commander of the District of West Tennessee, launches the Vicksburg Campaign, a Union offensive to seize total control of the Mississippi River by capturing the fortified river city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. It will be months before Grant reaches Vicksburg, but the campaign will prove to be one…
Some Northern Baptist families contribute multiple men to the war effort of the United States of America. Such is the case with the Robison family of Illinois. One of four brothers who serve in the Union Army, Thomas L. Robison, a farmer’s son, enlisted on November 7, 1861 in the Company K, Fifty-sixth Regiment, Illinois…
A new chapter in Baptist life has been unfolding this month as freedmen on St. Helena Island off the coast of South Carolina, under the protection and with the assistance of the United States Army, form an autonomous Baptist congregation and establish a Baptist-related school, the Penn School. The school teaches reading, writing, agricultural and…