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…
Today’s Richmond Daily Dispatch reports on the city’s orphans, of which Baptists have a particular interest: The orphan asylums of Richmond, both Protestant and Catholic, are stated to be in state of almost perfect destitution, with a very limited supply of either fuel, food or clothes. This is doubtless true, and the sufferings of the…
Today’s Virginia Baptist Religious Herald examines the prospects of denominational reunions in the aftermath of the war. Most will probably remain separate, the editorial suggests. Baptists, however, are the main focus of the author. “The Baptists, with as many discordant elements among them as any other denomination, but having no general ecclesiastical government, are left…