The steady drip of bad news within the Confederacy continues. The summer and fall of 1863 witnessed a growing number of soldier desertions, a problem that only worsens during the cold days of winter. Already short of manpower, military officials (unlike earlier in the war) now routinely execute deserters who are unfortunate enough to be…
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln‘s program of Southern reconstruction occupies much of his time and thought. Announced on December 8, the now six-week-old effort has proven more successful than many Northerners had hoped, while causing consternation among the political and military leaders of a fraying Confederacy. At the heart of reconstruction is the eradication of slavery…
The war grinds on in the midst of winter, the cold largely confining the conflict to winter army camps, Union-held towns and cities, freedmen camps, war prisons,army hospitals, statehouses and courthouses, newspapers, street corner conversations, sermons, and sparse kitchen tables. Many white Baptists of the South keep abreast as best as they can of the…