One day after President Abraham Lincoln‘s untimely death by the bullet of assassin John Wilkes Booth, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pulpits in the North and Union-occupied areas of the South address the president’s death. Many Baptist preachers speak of Lincoln, often weaving the president into the Easter theme of sacrifice and renewal. More common yet…
Sunday morning dawns on the smoldering ruins of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, the town having been burned by Rebels the day previous. Some 550 structures are damaged or destroyed. Sunday services are canceled. While the destruction is great, the Confederate raiders, led by General John McCausland, left behind only one dead, an elderly African American. At least…
While Washington D.C. is alarmed at the news of a possible Confederate invasion (which comes of naught in the days ahead), further to the north this month the pastor of the Hanson Place Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York composes a song that will be long remembered. Robert Lowry (1826-1899) is a Philadelphia native who…