New Hope Baptist Church was organized around 1860, burned in 1863, and rebuilt in the fall of 1864. Once called the Harris Colored Baptist Church, it received the name New Hope because it represented the hope of people struggling for a new beginning and a place to worship God. Its graveyard is the burial place of members of the United States Colored Troops, veterans of the Civil War. The war also reached the Harrisburg area when units of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan’s raiders rode through northern Gallia County on July 18, 1863, taking horses, food, and valuables, and pursuing Union forces confiscated horses, hay, and other goods from area residents, including those of two men from Harrisburg.