The Civil War was one of the most horrendous periods in American history, but God can, and does, bring good things out of bad.  While many thousands of lives were lost, there were also thousands of soldiers on both sides of the conflict who threw themselves on the mercy of God, trusting Him for their eternal salvation.
On this day in 1863, one of the South’s great armies, began to experience a revival of God’s grace under the preaching of J. J. Hyman, the chaplain of the 49th Georgia Brigade.  To meet the demands of the scattered regiments, for some time, he preached from four to six times every day, wearing himself out in the process.  When he was about to break down, E. B. Barret, another Baptist pastor stepped up, preaching where Hyman couldn’t.
Historian William Jones says that Hyman had the privilege of baptizing 238 soldiers, seeing 500 others profess conversion, preaching about 500 sermons and distributing thousands of pages of tracts and many Bibles.  On the day when the Georgia Brigade was ordered toward Gettysburg, Hyman was in a creek baptizing 48 new believers.  Only eternity will be able to reveal how many of those soldiers entered heaven, shortly after confession of Christ.
Source – “This Day in Baptist History II” by David Cummins and E. Wayne Thompson