This is a touching story of Christianity in action during and after the Civil War:
(Reblogged from Juicy Ecumenism)
Post Thanksgiving Hike and a Touching Methodist Civil War Story
by Mark Tooley, President of IRD
There’s no better place for a post Thanksgiving hike than Bull Run Battlefield in Virginia 30 miles outside Washington, DC. Although I’ve walked it dozens of times, yesterday I explored a new area around Sudley United Methodist Church and discovered a touching Civil War story about the congregation. Union troops streamed by shocked church goers on Sunday, July 21, 1861. Service was cancelled as the brick sanctuary quickly became a field hospital for Union troops. After the Union retreat, Confederate doctors joined the northern doctors who stayed behind, helped by church members. One New Hampshire soldier lying under a nearby fence with a chest wound was left for dead by busy doctors. But a local family who belonged to the church tended to him for many days, even building a makeshift shelter over his spot. He finally recovered sufficiently for relocation to a Richmond prison.
Twenty six years later the old soldier returned to thank the family for preserving his life, including the husband who had later served in the Confederate army.
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Here I Sit 