In their own words
by bruce gourley, Online Editor
AND THE AMERICAN Chattanooga is the major focus of the war this month as the Union solidifies control of the city and environs
150 years ago
October 1863
against the backdrop of infighting among opposing Confederate officers.
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eanwhile, Southern Baptist news editors and pastors sing the praises of the revivals taking place within the Confederate Army. The Central Baptist Association of Alabama’s Coosa County meets and, like many other Baptist associations of the South this fall, affirms army missionary work: …. great good has been, and is now being accomplished through the labors of our missionaries and colporteurs in the armies o f the Confederate States in awakening our noble soldiers to their great spiritual interests, and enabling them to enlist in the service of the King Emmanuel … Special prayer meetings also take place in some churches. Local church delegates to the Mississippi Baptist Association resolve: That this Association do most earnestly recommend the churches to meet on the first Lord’s day in every month at ten o’clock to offer up special prayer for the success of our cause and the spiritual welfare of our armies. The United Baptist Association of North Carolina expresses other sentiments shared by many Confederate Baptists: Resolved, That we as an Association fully endorse the cause of the Southern Confederacy; and we advise all our brethren to discountenance desertion and to inculcate the principle that resistance to a tyrant is loyalty to God. God is also on the minds of the public and Baptists of the North. U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issues a Thanksgiving Proclamation to be observed on Nov. 26:
October 2013
I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union. This proclamation is the beginning of an annual national Thanksgiving observance. Many Baptist congregations of the North embrace Lincoln’s call. The Pennsylvania Baptist Convention passes the following resolution, invoking Baptist principles and Christian duty: Whereas, Our national Government grew out of Baptist polity, exemplified by men of whom Roger Williams was the type at the North, and a little Baptist church near the residence of Thomas Jefferson, from whom he declared he obtained his first ideas of Republican Government, was the type at the South: Resolved, That we should be derelict to our principles as Baptists, and
unworthy sons of worthy sires, if, in this crisis in our existence, we withheld our support, influence, and sympathy from our Government. 2. That it is our duty, both as citizens and Christians, to speak boldly our sentiments with regard to the causes of the existing rebellion, that ministers should speak boldly on the subject, and that those who take offence at such utterances are unworthy of a place in the Christian church. 3. That we, the members of this Convention, as patriots, as Baptists, and as Christians, do express our unqualified support of our National and State Governments, in their efforts to suppress the present rebellion. 4. That we have occasion for gratitude, that not only the full apostolic proportion of eleven-twelfths of the Christian ministry among us are truly loyal Government supporters, but that the mass of the piety of our churches and the intelligence of our country occupy the same position. 5. That the recent victories at the ballot-box should be accepted with thanksgiving to God, as exhibiting the loyalty of the people, and as an evidence of the continued blessing of God on us as a nation. 6. That in the President’s Proclamation of Emancipation, made valid by the exigency which called it forth, and in his recent declaration to abide by it, we see the progress of Christ’s kingdom, which will proclaim liberty to all the earth. 7. That we urge the churches throughout the Commonwealth to observe the last Thursday In November next, according to the recommendation of the President, as a day of public Thanksgiving to God. The appeals to God South and North will only grow in the coming months of war. BT —For a daily log of “This Day in Civil War History,” see civilwarbaptists.com.
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