Shiloh Baptist Church - Stanardsville, Virginia

In 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, the first Baptist congregation in the town of Stanardsville, Virginia, was established. In 1907, the congregation built a wood frame, Carpenter Gothic church. There were Confederate graves, some unmarked and some marked with up-turned stones, on the building site.

These are the graves of  men who died of a mysterious fever while encamped near Stanardsville in April and May of 1862 as General Richard S. Ewell was moving his troops to the Shenandoah Valley. These soldiers are commemorated by a small marker erected on church property by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The stone, which is scarcely legible, is inscribed to the "UNKNOWN DEAD OF EWELL'S ARMY."

Behind the church, a county schoolhouse still stands. It was built shortly after the church and was used as a school into the 1950s. The building now belongs to the church.

See last Sunday's church