Today Union Navy Admiral David Farragut manages to slip two of his ships back past the forts of Vicksburg, Mississippi in preparation for a campaign to attack the city. Having probed the city’s defenses, Farragut now prepares for an impending rendezvous with land forces. The Vicksburg campaign officially commences six days hence, when U. S.…
As battles rage on the outskirts of the Confederate capital of Richmond, Henry Martin Tupper, born in 1831 in Monson, Massachusetts, today graduates from American (Northern) Baptists’ Newton Theological Institution (otherwise known as Newton Seminary). The war may have seemed distant to Tupper during his studies at Newton, but within weeks of graduation, on July…
Today, a father and son – both Baptists – enlist in Company B, Thirty-third Illinois Volunteer Infantry. Marching off to war together, Edward T. Durant (born 1819) and son William E. (born 1843) serve the United States in its time of greatest need. Like many other soldiers, they are common folk: Edward is a farmer-turned-carpenter,…