After Rev. Holland's departure from First Unitarian in 1848, the congregation entered a period of discord and short-term ministries that lasted until after the Civil War. A history of the church written in 1881 notes that some of its members during that period "were persons of extreme and pronounced opinions, sharply opposed to each other on political and social questions," with slavery a key item of contention. There was also tension between the membership and some of the ministers of that period, not all of whom were as liberal as the congregation and one of whom went on to become a chaplain in the Confederate Army.