Diary of Orrin Brown, Jenkinsville, South Carolina
Monday–Feb. 20th
We were on the road at 6 AM marched about 5 or 6 miles came in with the 1st Div. and went into camp for the night. Our company and 2 others of our regt. had to go on Picket tonight, the day has been warm and pleasant but it is getting a little cooler this evening. I read 1 chapt. in the Testament today.
The Ebenezer Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, located near Monticello in Fairfield County, SC, also known simply as the Old Brick Church, was built in 1788 by Scots-Irish Presbyterian settlers. According to the HABS record, it is one of the few extant examples of a rectangular 18th-century meeting house in the state. The flooring and some interior woodwork is not original, as they were used by Union troops as explained by an apology left written on a wall:
“Please excuse us for defacing your house of worship so much. It was absolutely necessary to effect a crossing over the creek. A Yankee.”
This building saw the organizational meeting of what became the Synod of the South (1822) of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church denomination, and continues today as a conservative descendant of the Reformed Covenanter tradition of 17th century Scotland and the 18th century Seceder movement, in dissent from the mainline Presbyterian Church. Members of the Southern denomination were heavily involved in the Confederate cause. Today the ARP has about 40,000 members in 300 churches, with headquarters in Greenville, SC, and is a member of the North American Presbyterian & Reformed Council along with a dozen other dissenting denominations.
Read More:
- Sherman’s March Through the Carolinas by John Gilchrist Barrett (Univ North Carolina Press, 1956)
- Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman by Robert L. O’Connell (Random House, 2014)
- The March to the Sea and Beyond: Sherman’s Troops in the Savannah and Carolinas Campaigns by Joseph T. Glatthaar (New York University Press, 1985)
- The Memoirs Of General William T. Sherman by W.T. Sherman (Library of America, 1990)
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