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After the battle of Perryville, which was fought on October 8, 1862, there were 2,851 Union wounded and 2,635 Confederate wounded. Every home, warehouse, and church was converted into a field hospital. The Antioch United Methodist Church, which was located four miles from the battlefield, was converted into a Union field hospital. Most of the wounded from Union General James S. Jackson’s 10th Division were sent to the Antioch Church.
Cleveland Sutherland’s father witnesses the battle from the corner of the Antioch Church. After the battle, he witnessed the results from the surgeons who were operating in the makeshift hospital. He saw piles of amputated legs and arms of soldiers stacked up near the church doors.
Dr. William Wagner, of the 24th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, was assigned the Antioch Church. He wrote in the Chicago Tribune newspaper: “There was a church three miles behind our position, which had been assigned to the medical director as a temporary hospital for the wounded, who, aside from the pains caused by their wounds, had to suffer very much from the utter want of water. The transporting over the uneven road, now up a hill then down another again added to their sufferings. My means of transportation were very limited. Just in the beginning of the battle my largest ambulance had been shot to pieces, and thus there remained only two small ones, which were kept busy the whole of [the] next day until dark, to pick up on the hill and underbrush, our poor wounded, and to carry them back. Already in the night after the battle, I had tried, with the assistance of my indefatigable steward, Mr. Wild, to reach the battle field of our first position with some brancard bearers, but by a fierce fire the rebels compelled us to retire. I am sorry to say that I was not allowed to stay in the hospital to nurse the wounded, as a renewal of the struggle was momentarily expected, and I had to return to the regiment; but I hope that the medical director ordered a sufficient number of surgeons to proceed to the hospital . . .”
During the battle of Perryville, Ormund Hupp, of the 5th Indiana Artillery, Simonson’s Battery, was severely injured when his limber chest blew up, which threw him ten feet into the air. When he landed, “he jumped up and saw that I was badly wounded, my clothes were all torn off, and the burn from the powder set me near crazy.” While the battle was raging, he decided to seek out a surgeon, fearing that he would suffer from blood loss from his arm wound. The first hospital he reached was a log house within a quarter of mile to the left of the battle lines. He tried to have his wounds dressed but the surgeon was so frightened by the condition of Hupp’s wound he wanted to remove the arm. But Hupp knew the bone had not been damaged, so he left the hospital and looked for another hospital, which was more than likely the Russell House, which had three hundred wounded in the yard. Hupp was becoming weak from the blood loss and could barely stand. He collapsed and gave up all hope when “J. Countz [Jacob Kurtz] who had been sent after water for the boys in the battery came along, recognized me at once, got off and poured some water on my head and face, gave me a drink and with some help got me on his horse and started for the hospital a half mile distant.” He reached a farmhouse and his wound was dressed. Kurtz brought him a quilt and he slept under a tree. The next morning, orders were given that Hupp was to be taken to Antioch Church. He got in the company ambulance which happened to come along and he arrived at the makeshift hospital. He got off the ambulance and he lay under a large oak tree till 3 o’clock p. m. without any thing to eat since he was wounded. During this time Kurtz came back to attend to Hupp and made him some coffee. Hupp lay under the oak tree for two nights with only the one quilt. The weather was quite cold and chilling and many of the wounded suffered under the harsh conditions. On the second morning Andrew Pettit who had been slightly wounded came to Hupp and wanted to take him to a barn where the Union soldiers had been collected together about a mile away, so Pettit got a citizen’s horse and helped Hupp on the horse and they reached the place about 10 a.m. On October 13, 1862, Hupp managed to gain access to an ambulance and arrived in Louisville, but his ordeal would not stop at Louisville. He continued onto New Albany, Indiana and arrived at Hospital Number 4. While in the hospital, he finally received a decent meal, his wound was cleaned and dressed and he was given morphine for the pain. The doctors told him that if he had waited one more day before he arrived at the hospital, they would have had no choice but to amputate his arm.
According to the Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion, Volume 7, Private John Tucker died at the Antioch Church on October 13, 1862 and buried in the local cemetery. He was not the only soldier buried in the Antioch cemetery. In 1867, Edmund Whitman was assigned the task of finding Union graves so that the soldiers could be buried in the Perryville National Cemetery. According to Whitman’s diary, he wrote that when he arrived at the Antioch Church he found in the fenced field adjoining the open churchyard in the rear, over the fence and near the church were 75 to 80 graves, of which he was able to identify fifteen Union soldiers. He noted that “all traces of many of these graves are entirely obliterated. Some are covered with rocks, others with fence rails, overgrown with brush and thorns, and two or more covered by a large fallen tree. The burials are upon the whole compact, and the graves are not scattered.” One of those soldiers he identified and transferred to the Perryville National Cemetery was Private John Tucker. Unfortunately the Perryville National Cemetery closed when the land was in dispute and the 969 Union soldiers had to be reinterred at Camp Nelson National Cemetery, including John Tucker.
In 1908, the Court of Claims handed down a ruling in the case of Antioch Methodist Episcopal Church South against the United States government. The Senate and House of Representatives ruled that the Secretary of the Treasury was authorized to pay the trustees of the Antioch Church the sum of five hundred dollars in full compensation for the occupation, use, and incidental injury to the church by the United States military during the Civil War. The court ruled that during the Civil War, the Union army took possession of the church and used the church as a hospital from October 8, 1862 to March or April of 1863. All the pews in the church were destroyed and the property was “greatly injured.” The reason why the church was given money by the Union government was the courts found the church trustees had “true allegiance” to the United States government and did not aide, abetted, or gave encouragement to the Confederate government.
In 1913, Cleveland Sutherland was tearing down the old Antioch Church in order to build a new building church on the site. When he tore down one of the walls, he found a copper tube. The tube was about twelve inches long, solid on one end and closed with a cork on the other. The tube contained a beautiful silk Signal Corps Flag that had been placed in the foundation during the Civil War. The signal flag is six by ten inches and was in a remarkable state of preservation. During the excavation under the foundation for the new church, he made several gruesome finds, including the complete bones of a hand and foot.
Today, one can still visit the Antioch Methodist Episcopal Church and reflect on the horror and sadness that once took place on the grounds and sanctuary at the church. How the madness of war converted the quiet place of worship into a place of pain, suffering, and death. The voices are not silent, but history still reminds us of their ultimate sacrifice that many Union soldiers made within the walls of the church.
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