Canadians in the Civil War

Civil War-6 Earl Plato
The Dunkers: Because of my own Pennsylvania Dutch background I researched the Mumma Dunker church and their beliefs. Their worship services included washing the feet of their brethren. It was an act of love as their Lord Jesus had done. They served lamb stew in a communal pot eating from it to demonstrate a humble oneness. They advocated baptism by complete immersion. It was this practice from which they were called in their German language - Dunkers.
Picture these simple, peace loving farmers following the church service of Sunday, Sept. 14, 1862. They must have talked about the news that two great armies were in their midst. That afternoon they could hear the distant thunder of artillery from South Mountain. Remember that these Dunkers had a faith that included not only simplicity in their faith but they were also devout Pacifists. Like the Quakers they believed in not being involved in warfare. They believed that the Prince of Peace, the Lord Jesus, wanted them to practise loving one’s enemies. Little did they know that soon their little white-washed church would be the centre of a maelstrom of a terrible conflict.
Union General Joe Hooker had placed his finger on a tactical map the next day. His finger was right at the height of land on which the Dunker Church was located! That same day 8,000 Confederate troops moved onto the Dunker Church site. Their leader? One of the most devout Christian generals of the Civil War, Stonewall Jackson. Ironic?
Next day, at 9 a.m. that fateful September 17 the Mumma Dunker Church was the focal point of repeated clashes as both armies sought to occupy and hold the high ground around the little church. During the battle the church served fittingly as a hospital. We learn that both sides fought and found sanctuary for their wounded. First one side then the other fought over the church and surrounding grounds. How many times the little church exchanged hands I don’t recall but it was several. Union artillery finally battered the walls of the church but in the end Jackson and his men held fast. Secure in the surrounding woods the Confederates could not be dislodged from the higher land. “Stonewall” Jackson became his lasting appellation. The Miller Cornfield: We stopped the car and got out to examine the site where more fighting took place than anywhere else on the Antietam battle field. Basking in the sunlight of that April day we read the plaque. Here was a cornfield just as it was 140 years ago. Corn would grow taller than a man’s reach in the month’s ahead. The plaque quoted the words of General Hooker who wrote: “... every stalk of corn in the field was cut as closely as could have been done with a knife, and the slain laid in rows...” The battlelines swept back and forth across the field for three hours.
The large majority of the 12,410 Union soldiers killed and the 10,700 Confederates killed at Antetiam occurred here. Guess what? Remember General Stonewall Jackson? He moved his troops from their secure position at the Dunker church a half mile north and met Hooker’s forces head on in that Miller cornfield. History records that his men eventually stopped the Union advance.
Hooker’s words written after the war’s cessation: “It was never my fortune to witness a more bloody, dismal battlefield than Antetiam.”
Next: Bloody Lane - The Battle of Antetiam concludes.