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…
For many if not most southerners, the Civil War is an emotional roller coaster. War-time diaries often capture the emotional nature of the war, as is the case with the diary of Mary Beckley Bristow, a member of the Sardis Baptist Church in Union, Kentucky. The Battle of Shiloh, fought in the neighboring state of Tennessee…
Kentucky is engaged in a see-saw battle for control between Union and Confederate forces. Refusing to secede, the state nonetheless harbors many Confederates. This month, Union forces in northern Kentucky visit the Sardis Primitive Baptist Church in Union, a congregation with Confederate sentiments. One member, Mary Beckley Bristow, comments upon these recent events: Have just…