Dunker Church

One of the more well-known sites of the Battle of Antietam is the Dunker Church.  The Dunkers were a German pacifist sect whose place of worship was a simple structure, in keeping with their beliefs.

During the battle, this modest church saw action as Union troops attacked Confederates in the woods behind the building.  Eventually, the building was pressed into service as a battlefield hospital.

Now it stands quiet on a small hill, witness to imaginable horror.  It’s loveliness is deceptive but no less real; a testament to the horror that mankind seems determined to enact against one another.