As the Confederacy’s largest city — New Orleans — is surrounded by the Union Navy, to the East the annual meeting of the Georgia Baptist Convention convenes at the First Baptist Church of LaGrange. The travails of the war are evident from the opening session, as both the appointed preacher, and the alternative, for the…
Today one of the worst fears of Southern slaveholders is realized: the first school for emancipated slaves is established in Alexandria, Virginia by Mary Chase, an African American woman. The laws of southern states, with the lone exception of Tennessee, have long decreed that it is a crime to teach African slaves to read and…
Convening in Athens, delegates (all white, all male, and many slaveowners) to the annual Georgia Baptist Convention meeting issue a “Report of the Committee on the present political crisis,” which reads as follows: “Whereas, the state of Georgia, in the legitimate exercise of her sovereignty, has withdrawn from the Confederacy known as the United States…