Minor skirmishes continue to mark the month of April, such as today’s Battle of Salyersville. The Kentucky town, like many in that state and in Magoffin County in particular, is by now used to the tug-of-war between Union and Confederate forces. The town’s citizenry is comprised, to a significant degree, of former Virginians. Not particularly…
Mere weeks before the major spring campaigns are to begin, Confederate Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest today attacks Tennessee’s Fort Pillow. Forrest’s Cavalry Corps are known for their guerrilla-like strikes in Union-held territory in Kentucky and Tennessee. Located on the Mississippi River some forty miles north of Memphis, Fort Pillow is manned by 200-295 white…
In the midst of secession fever in January 1861, the (white) First Baptist Church of Nashville, Tennessee established a “Second Colored Baptist Mission” in Edgefield, east of Nashville’s downtown, on Fatherland Street. The mission church was supervised by a white committee and pastored by George Dardis, a free black preacher. Nelson G. Merry, free black…