We Find the Blood Stains Whenever We Scrub: Dunker Church in 1884

Touring the western edge of the Antietam battlefield in October 1884, George Alfred Townsend of the New York Tribune newspaper received a tour of Dunker Church from the local sexton. “The sexton woman, who has built a log house just by the Dunker Church, brought the key and opened the door,” he wrote. “Within is the pulpitless plainness of Dunker meetings, a long table for the preacher and three seats facing it. All of the furniture is of yellow pine planed smooth and the plain square room with one end door and one side door is hardly 30 feet square. ‘We come to the blood stains whenever we scrub,” said the woman.

          “The Dunker Church is one of many in that section of the country. The Dunkers settled on the headwaters of Antietam Creek in Pennsylvania, where their chief place is Waynesboro, now one of the most growing towns in the Cumberland Valley and approaching Hagerstown in importance. This is 25 miles above the battlefield, which latter region is nearly all Dunker. These people of peace, like the Quaker people on Brandywine battlefield years before found their lawns, dwellings, cribs, barns, and even hog pens fully of bloody men and doctors. The leading Dunker about the fight was the Mummas,” Townsend continued.

This image of the Dunker Church near Sharpsburg was taken in August 1884, within a few months of when our correspondent visited the site. 

          “Antietam field church is one of their smallest and they go elsewhere to hold their love feasts. The memorable woods which surrounded it of oak, shellbark, walnut, and locust trees are now yielding to the ax and the portable sawmill. Pile of wood were piled up where the dead had been piled. The saw now and then strikes a bullet in the tree and breaks its teeth, as surgeons’ saws did not. That woods was the chief Rebel position; the Federal woods were half a mile away. Between were the green cornfields waving as now for it was near the time of year of the battle. Said my conductor, ‘I came out here the day after the battle. It made me sick. Amputated limbs and members were piled up like old shins and pieces of beef. This church was a lot of holes held together by some bricks. I don’t see how they ever fastened the holes together.’ Yet the queerly shingled roof looks already old and black,” he wrote. ‘We can’t keep any shoe-scraper on the stone steps,” said the madam. “Folks think it is the old one and steal it.”

A few months later, another reporter shared the story of Cornelius Smith, the contractor responsible for cutting the Antietam logs into lumber.

    Cornelius Smith has the contract for sawing into lumber a large number of logs cut from trees standing on the fields of Antietam at the time of the battle. He says that all sorts of missiles from cannon balls to buckshot are almost daily met with in the timber and that it is really dangerous to stand near the saws when such lumber is being cut. A number of saws have been snapped into fragments when running at a high rate of speed by striking iron shot embedded in the logs. A large, angular fragment of shell was struck by a saw a few days ago and a perfect shower of sparks rained about the mill, the saw being finally snapped in several pieces. In another instance a grapeshot was cut through by a saw, leaving a bright , polished surface on each hemisphere of the missile. Many leaden bullets, which offer little or no resistance to the saws, are revealed in boards and planks.

Sources :

“The Battlefield of Antietam,” from "Gath," George Alfred Townsend, Cleveland Plain Dealer (Ohio), October 14, 1884, pg. 2 

“Sawing Logs at Antietam,” Marion Star (Ohio), May 1, 1885, pg. 1

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular Posts

Arming the Union: Federal Contract Model 1861 Springfield Rifle Muskets

Image
A t the outset of the Civil War, the Federal government ran into a serious issue when the Confederacy occupied Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, the home of one of the nation’s two armories, and carted the gun making equipment off to Richmond, Virginia. This left just the Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts as the sole government-operated entity to produce longarms for the Union army.           But it quickly became apparent that production at Springfield would have to be supplemented, so the War Department pursued two tracks to increase the weapons supply. Agents were dispatched to Europe to purchase suitable weapons from England, France, Austria, Belgium, and Prussia. Over time, these agents acquired hundreds of thousands of European arms of different designs and origins that equipped Federal regiments in the first years of the war.           In the meantime, operations at the Springfiel...
Read more

Arming the Buckeyes: Longarms of the Ohio Infantry Regiments

Image
     A common question that comes up in conversation about Civil War Buckeye regiments is "What were they armed with?" We are fortunate in that the state of Ohio kept good records of how the regiments were armed when they went into service, this being especially true for those regiments which went into service in 1861 and 1862. The state adjutant general's reports for 1861 and 1862 have been heavily drawn upon to construct this article, as well as consultation with Phil Spaugy who has done extensive research on how Ohio's troops were armed during the war.      Buckeyes carried a fairly wide variety of weapons into the field, and the below article breaks this down into weapons of both domestic manufacture and imported arms. The early days of the war found the state of Ohio practically bereft of longarms; as an example, when the 1st and 2nd Ohio Volunteer Militia left the state in late April 1861, they left unarmed, being armed at Lancaster, Pennsylvania on t...
Read more

Bullets for the Union: Manufacturing Small Arms Ammunition During the Civil War

Image
       Civil War bullets are perhaps the most common item collected from the era; the two armies expended bullets by the millions during the four years’ conflict and spent or deformed bullets of all shapes and sizes have made fascinating and affordable collectibles since the guns went silent in 1865.       I recently acquired a display piece featuring 35 different types of small arms ammunition used during the Civil War, including everything from a small .28 caliber ball up to a .69 caliber three-ring Minie and it triggered some questions: how did the Federal army obtain its small arms ammunition during the war? Where did the lead come from to make the bullets, and where and how was the ammunition manufactured? This post seeks to answer those questions. A typical .58 caliber 3-ring Minie bullet   “Whenever the blasts of war blow in the ears of men who trade in the implements of destruction, they are apt to experience more joy than the true ...
Read more

Meeting "Old Rosey": General Rosecrans Reviews His New Command

Image
On October 26, 1862, newly promoted Major General William S. Rosecrans departed Corinth, Mississippi under orders to report to Cincinnati, Ohio. Rumors had been rampant for weeks that President Lincoln had desired removing General Don Carlos Buell from command of the Army of Ohio, and now it was clear that Rosecrans would be Buell’s successor. The War Department’s handling of the removal of Buell is worthy of a story in its own, but today’s post will examine how Rosecrans introduced himself to his men. General Rosecrans atop "Boney" leads a contingent of staff officers and leading generals of the Army of the Cumberland in this watercolor painting by William Travis.  The differences between the leadership styles of Buell and Rosecrans could hardly be more pronounced. Buell, despite his competence and recognized ability at organization, came across to his volunteer soldiers as a haughty, stiff, humorless West Pointer, unapproachable, and unpopular. Rosecrans, as the following...
Read more

The Vaunted Enfield Rifle Musket

Image
     The English-made Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield Rifle Musket was widely regarded as the best infantry arm in the world at the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861. Favorable international press describing its efficiency in the Crimean War and in suppressing the Indian rebellion led to the widespread desire of American infantrymen (both Federal and Confederate) to be armed with these accurate and well-made arms. The lock plate of this well-worn P1853 Enfield rifle musket produced in 1862 shows the typical markings of a British-made weapon that made it through the Federal blockade.  ( Army of Tennessee Relics ) Enfield-pattern weapons were imported into the states by the tens and hundreds of thousands during the war years; one estimate stated that the Federal government purchased 500,000 while the Confederates purchased another 400,000. The Confederate government dispatched Captain Caleb Huse to Europe in April 1861 to purchase weapons and Huse focused on se...
Read more

With a Yell and a Charge: Captain Morton’s Artillery Charge at Brice’s Crossroads

Image
A mong the more extraordinary incidents of the Battle of Crossroads was the artillery charge by Captain John W. Morton and his battery. The 21-year-old, General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s chief of artillery, recalled the charge in a letter to his father a few days after the engagement.           “About 1 o’clock, everything, artillery and all, was ordered to charge,” he noted. “Our line moved promptly with a deafening shout and hail of bullets and balls which told terribly upon the enemy which broke their lines and put them in perfect confusion and rout. I charged with the batteries nine times. Once I had two pieces a little in advance of the others and with them in a charge was 20 or 30 yards in advance of our line when we drove the enemy. Just before we captured their wagons, they made a desperate stand and with their reserves concentrated, charged our right flank which gave way and fell back upon the two right pieces of my battery. The en...
Read more

The Forlorn Hope at Vicksburg

Image
“The forlorn hope.” The very words are chilling and evoke a desperate and deadly military enterprise which has little or no chance of success; a guaranteed ticket to the grave. On May 22, 1863 outside Vicksburg, Mississippi, 150 volunteers from General Frank Blair’s division of William T. Sherman’s 15 th Army Corps signed up for just such a desperate endeavor. The men were to carry logs, planks, and ladders. Their mission was to approach Stockade Redan near the northeast corner of the Vicksburg fortifications and bridge the ditch in front of the fort so that the onrushing Union infantry behind them could reach the works. The end goal was worth the sacrifice: the capture of Vicksburg was the primary aim of Grant’s army and here existed an opportunity to seize the jewel prize of the campaign. The Forlorn Hope at Vicksburg on May 22, 1863             Among the 150 volunteers were two men from Co. I of the 30 th Ohio Volunteer Inf...
Read more

Grant's Bodyguard: An Illinois Trooper at Fort Donelson

Image
Continuing on last week's theme of brushes with the legends of the Civil War, this week's post features a letter from Illinois trooper Private George M. Bradley of Co. A, 4th Illinois Volunteer Cavalry. Bradley, a native of Akron, Ohio, enlisted September 26, 1861 in the 4th Illinois Cavalry and served three years as a Private, mustering out November 3, 1864.  Perhaps one of the most noteworthy things about his service was the time he spent as a bodyguard for General Ulysses S. Grant during the Battle of Fort Donelson in February 1862. Interestingly, Bradley joined up with the 2nd Iowa Infantry on February 15, 1862 and participated in their celebrated attack that broke the Confederate right and precipitated the surrender of the fort on the following day. The charge of the 2nd Iowa will be the feature of my next blog post as I have a number of accounts from Ohioans who participated as members of the 2nd Iowa. Bradley's letter saw print in the March 13, 1862 issue of the...
Read more

A Different Vista on the Civil War: An "Ohio" Marked Lorenz Rifle

Image
          While the focus of this blog has been almost exclusively on chronicling the services of Ohioans during the Civil War through their own words, once in a while it is worthwhile to look into object-based history to help further illuminate the times. Object-based history provides a different vista through which to view past events, by studying the manufacture, use, and history of the objects themselves. Today's post marks my first entry into studying the Civil War through its relics and objects. Unidentified Yankee private holding a Lorenz rifle and Colt revolver (Library of Congress)            I recently acquired an Ohio-marked M1854 Austrian-made .54 caliber Lorenz rifle from a longtime Civil War collector. When I decided to purchase the rifle, I knew little beyond the fact that I had come across dozens of references to this usually well-regarded longarm in my research over the years and it was one of the more att...
Read more

It is a Rough Life: Taking New Orleans with the 12th Connecticut

Image
F irst impressions often make lasting impressions, and for Sergeant Charles Evans of the 12th Connecticut, the first impression made by the citizens of New Orleans boils down to one word: surly. One example of this was when his regiment disembarked on the afternoon of May 2, 1862, the 12th Connecticut being among the first Union troops to occupy the city.  “Late in the afternoon of May 2 nd , we were ordered to land in the midst of thousands of secessionist soldiers and citizens,” he wrote his brother back home in Connecticut. “As each company descended from the ship to the dock, they were brought to a front and ordered to load which gave the Rebels to understand what they had to deal with in case of a street fight. And we confidently expected it. The bitterness exhibited by the vast gathering boded nothing else. The women were more insulting than the men owing, I suppose, to the worldwide reputation of gallantry on the part of Yankee soldiers. The taunts were intolerable and onl...
Read more