This is the introductory chapter to Bruce Gourley’s 2015 volume, Baptists and the American Civil War: Crucible of Faith and Freedom. The road to the American Civil War began with the introduction of slavery into the American colonies in the mid-seventeenth century. Slavery was confined to Africans, as English Common Law prohibited the enslavement of…
INTRODUCTION Baptists and other white Americans North and South during the Civil War-era were unequivocal: secession, the existence of the Confederate States of America, and the Civil War were all the result of slavery, the immoral (or moral, depending on one’s race, political persuasion and/or geographic location) institution that served as the economic engine of…
Many Baptist churches of the South yet lie in ruins or at least disrepair, a byproduct of the recent war, perhaps none more so than in the state of Virginia. Today’s Richmond Daily Dispatch carries an article about one such church. “The Rev. Mr. Taylor, a native of Richmond, and pastor of the Baptist Church…