Evangelical Reformed Church

Confederate General Stonewall Jackson attended services here on September 7, 1862, during the Confederates’ first foray into Maryland that would end at the Battle of Antietam.

In the Antietam Campaign, the Confederate Army first entered Maryland on September 4, 1862.  The CSA soldiers stayed in the Frederick vicinity for several days, until September 12.  General Stonewall Jackson, deeply religious, planned to attend Sunday evening church services on September 7 at Frederick’s Presbyterian Church, where the minister, Rev. Dr. John Ross, was a personal friend.  But services were not held that evening at the Presbyterian Church, so Jackson and a few fellow officers attended the services of the Evangelical Reformed Church just down the street.  The pastor of the Evangelical Reformed Church, Dr. Daniel Zacharias, was a strong Unionist but also had two sons fighting on the Confederate side.  Dr. Zacharias was later praised for his courage in offering a prayer for President Abraham Lincoln while Confederate officers were in the congregation, but according to one of Jackson’s aides, the General, as was his custom, promptly fell asleep when the sermon started and never heard the prayer.  Henry Kyd Douglas, the aide, later wrote that if Jackson had been awake to hear the prayer, “I’ve no doubt he would have joined in it heartily.”  It is unclear whether General Jackson was awake when the hymn, “The Stoutest Rebel must Resign,” was sung.