Today’s session of the Confederate Senate is opened in prayer “by the Rev. Mr. Tichenor, of the Baptist Church,” presumably Isaac T. Tichenor, longtime pastor of First Baptist Church of Montgomery, Alabama, and Confederate chaplain. Also this day, Confederate General Robert E. Lee orders the Confederate Army to suspend military duties for the observance of…
St. Augustine, Florida has been under Union control since March 1862. Along with Beaufort, South Carolina and environs, St. Augustine serves as a Northern-controlled freemen’s colony, providing opportunities for former slaves — or contrabands (the wartime term for slaves freed by the Union Army) — to receive basic education, learn trades and acquire farming skills. Leading…
Dual Baptist narratives continue in South Carolina this month, intertwined yet divergent. Many white citizens (including Baptists) of Charleston, South Carolina, a city besieged by nearby Union naval forces since July, have fled inland and northward to Orangeburg. The roster of refugees, mainly women and children, continues to grow as winter looms. An area with…