Brooklyn's Plymouth Church in the Civil War Era

As the financial capital of the nation, Manhattan had close ties and strong sympathies with the South. But across the East River in Brooklyn stood a bastion of antislavery sentiment--Plymouth Church--led by Henry Ward Beecher. He guided his congregants in a crusade against the institution. They held mock slave auctions, raised money to purchase freedom for slaves and sent guns--nicknamed "Beecher's Bibles"--to those struggling for a free Kansas. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Beecher's sister, wrote the