Prior to the war, the landscape of the South Carolina coast was that of large plantations owned by some of the wealthiest men in America. The vast fields of cotton owned by these planters was worked by hundreds of thousands of black slaves who generated riches for their owners. The population was overwhelmingly black, with…
The Second Baptist Church of St. Louis, Missouri is the host of the 33rd anniversary meeting of the American Baptist Home Mission Society. Those gathered celebrate the end of the war. In his opening address, host pastor Galusha Anderson rejoices that “as an evidence of the new era on which we have entered, a convention…
Three days after the assassination that stunned a war-torn nation, the body of Abraham Lincoln is placed on public display at the White House. Fittingly, the president who maintained an open door to American citizens is now lying in an open casket. Through Lincoln’s presidential door routinely walked poor and rich, whites and free blacks.…