Today Confederate President Jefferson Davis replies to Gen. Robert E. Lee‘s recent letter to him concerning the devastating loss at Gettysburg. Davis expresses confidence in Lee and assures the general that no one is capable of taking his place as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. Richmond, Va., August 11, 1863. General R. E.…
While slaveholders, politicians, civil servants, religious leaders and newspaper editors in the Confederacy lament over the losses at Gettysburg and Vicksburg and try to sort out the meanings and repercussions thereof, many ordinary Southerners do the same. Mary Beckley Bristow is one of those ordinary Southerners. She is a member of the Sardis Baptist Church…
What do the losses at Gettysburg and Vicksburg mean for the Confederacy? This week, while the facts of battle are yet fuzzy and news stories often contradict one another, Southern newspaper editors begin trying to make sense of the recent battlefield defeats. Not atypical of the larger discourse in the Southern religious press this week,…