April 18, 2014

**Antietam Friday**

My favorite Dunker Church photos

 

I have a long way to go until my Antietam visits equal my Gettysburg visits, but even though I haven’t yet become an Antietam aficionado, one place I always find time to explore is Dunker Church. It’s so calm and peaceful, out-of-the-way even beside a busy road. Stepping inside catapults you to another time. So I gathered up my favorite personal photos and examined the church from every side.

 

Observations: On the first photo, there are piles of flowers getting ready to open at the left side of the church; there are two upper windows and a door (neither of these features are found on the other side of the building). The second photo shows the right side, and trees from the West Woods are visible. You can almost smell the late-summer air just looking at the blue of the sky. On photo number 3, the back of the church, the blue sky seems to have gone into hiding. This is an angle rarely seen --- or at least I haven’t noticed many similar photos --- which shows a scene unchanged from 1862. No roads, monuments, or power lines in sight.

**HONORED TODAY**

PVT. JAMES H. WILSON

Co. B, 13^TH Vermont Infantry

Born 1842 --- Died July 2, 1863 at age 21

Though all Gettysburg deaths were tragic, some stories have an even sadder ring to them. Pvt. Wilson risked his life by dragging a friend to safety and was subsequently killed by an incoming shell. Mere months later, Delia Porter, whom he intended to marry when peace returned to the nation, passed away, supposedly from a broken heart. Pvt. Wilson was buried at East Warren Cemetery in East Warren, Vermont.


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