Since my last report, we have been called to pass through great trials, and to endure grievous anxieties; but under them all our Heavenly Father has been very gracious to us.

Edward J. Stearns, Rector, St. Matthew’s Parish, Prince George’s Country, 1862

As our nation commemorates the sesquicentennial, or 150^th anniversary, of the beginning of the American Civil War, we are reminded of the horrors endured as a people, both north and south.

During the conflict, in which more would die than in all our other wars combined, some 620,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians died from wounds in battle, disease and starvation.

The devastation and disruption of lives on a national level was reflected on the local level, among the 32 of our own parishes that were part of the Diocese of Maryland during the war. (The Diocese of Washington wasn’t established until 1895.) Though not in the thick of battle on the scale endured by Episcopal churches in other areas of the country, these parishes suffered the uncertainties that come with conflict: dwindling food and medical supplies, separation from loved ones, travel restrictions, and even loss of the church building to other purposes.

On Trinity Sunday, 1862, this Church, with others, was taken possession of by the military authority, and held as a hospital for six months, under plea of necessity. The Methodist church, on the corner of G and 14^th streets, and Willard’s Hall, were kindly offered us, and used until our restoration.

            Charles H. Hall, Rector, Epiphany Parish, Washington, D.C., 1863

Diocesan records chronicle five years of adapting to the heart-breaking and the unforeseen on a daily basis, as people attempted to maintain a sense of normalcy and order in their lives. On the diocesan level, normalcy adapted to needs must. The 1861 Diocesan Convention was canceled because of rioting in Baltimore between secessionists and Union troops, a situation which raised tensions even higher in Maryland, where slavery was legal.

Reading between the lines of Maryland Bishop William Rollinson Whittingham’s opening address at the 1862 convention, the emotional residue of the Union occupation of Baltimore is apparent: “I should have much to say, were my unaided private sense of duty to dictate my course. But I defer to the judgment of respected brethren of both orders when I waive all discussion of the reasons why so long an interval has elapsed since last we were assembled, and forego, together with the exercise of my official privilege of discoursing to my brethren of the Clergy in the delivery of a Charge touching on their duty and mine in our present trials, the gratification of my own earnest longings to set before the people of my Diocese views which seem to me of great concernment, in relation to our common obligations as Christian men in the conjunctures which have been and still are so seriously pressing on us.”

Throughout the war, accommodation had to be made for priests who had come north without regular canonical transfer, and for churches here whose priests had left their parishes to serve as military chaplains. The Diocesan Mission Committee reported, “The visitation with which it has pleased God to afflict our beloved country has well nigh paralyzed the recently very promising Missionary movements of the Church in this Diocese,” while rectors such as Joshua Morsell of Christ Church, Washington Parish, gamely stated, “This church still continues amid all the trying discouragements of the time to maintain a moderate degree of healthfulness and prosperity.”

Port Tobacco being a military post, I have been appointed Post Chaplain. The soldiers are well supplied with Testaments, Prayer Books, and Tracts. When circumstances admit, they attend Church, and conduct themselves with order and propriety.

            Lemuel Wilmer, Rector, Port Tobacco Parish, Charles County, 1863

Not all parishes were so lucky. “The Parish has suffered very materially during the past year in consequence of the presence of a large number of regiments. Our Church building in the village has been occupied, and somewhat defaced…and the old Church building utterly ruined,” reported William H. Trapnell, rector of St. Peter’s Parish in Montgomery County, in 1863.

Parishes in the city of Washington weren’t spared similar occupations. In addition to Epiphany, Grace and Trinity churches also were commandeered for a time as military hospitals, and the tower of Christ Church, Capitol Hill was used as a Union lookout post.

The same discord that caused the war was sometimes evident in congregations. Parish lore has more than one rector preaching with a gun on his pulpit because of his having different allegiances than some of his parishioners.

Still, Bishop Whittingham could write in 1864, “A growing disposition to fulfil [sic] the law of Christ, by bearing one another’s burdens, proving our own work, and so seeking rejoicing in ourselves alone, and not over others, has been manifest in all directions.” This was written soon after the Battle of the Wilderness in central Virginia, where 30,000 men died in combat and hundreds of the wounded burned to death, trapped in the dense underbrush. The horrors of war were never far from the daily ministries of parish life.

This Parish is still suffering from the effects of the war, though we hope by the Divine blessing it will speedily recover therefrom; the inability adequately to support the Gospel so sensibly felt during our political troubles will, we trust, cease with returning prosperity.”

William H. Trapnell, Rector, St. Peter’s Parish, Montgomery County, 1865

On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. Soon after, other Confederate forces began their surrender and the war came to an end.

At the Diocesan Convention in Baltimore on May 30, Bishop Whittingham began his address with “Dear Brethren, our customary record of events and changes must begin with recognition of God’s gracious mercy, through which we are permitted once more to assemble in such strength of numbers and of means, to take counsel for the prosecution of the work committed to us.”

Through their faith in God and in each other, these parishes had weathered the conflict and would now turn to their new ministry of healing the wounds of war.