St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church and Cemetery

The church building was used as a hospital during the war, and the cemetery holds the remains of Roger Brooke Taney and several Civil War soldiers.

St. John’s Catholic Church, dating to 1837, was used as a hospital during the Civil War.  The church was used specifically for the care of Confederate wounded, and an unsubstantiated story attributes that to the church’s high windows hindering any escape attempts.

St. John’s Cemetery is one of the rare examples in which the graves of Confederate soldiers, Union white soldiers, and Union African American soldiers co-exist. [There is one grave of an African American soldier, George Washington, who served with the 23^rd U.S. Colored Infantry.  Before the war, he worked at the nearby Jesuit Novitiate.]  Also buried in the cemetery is Roger Brooke Taney, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.