As the second day of fighting pushed on, confederate forces, including a portion of Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry stood in defense of the Confederate left flank, which had extended since the day before, and now anchored on the town of Sudley Springs in Virginia. One of the units there was E company, 9th Virginia Cavalry, and one of its men was a rider named Charles R. Chewning.
In his journal, published after the war, he told of the pitched fight against union solders where his unit was rushed by a group of federal infantry who closed the range quickly, intent on breaking the Confederate lines and retaking the city. Charles found himself with his sidearm, a 6 shot revolver, as the only thing between him and hand-to-hand combat. He fired every shot he had "into the fleeting mass of men ahead", but before he could retreat, or reload, he was face to face with a union officer with their sword drawn.
“He struck me hard on my left leg, cutting all the way to the bone and knocking me to the ground,” Chewning wrote. “I pulled out Pa’s old horse pistol and shot him dead before he could strike me again.”
Dennis Gallahan, the historian for Zion United Methodist Church, believes that Charles probably kept the sword he used as a crutch that day as a keepsake from that fateful battle. Staying with him through the rest of his life, it is possible, and some would say likely, that some of his friends hid the weapon under the floorboards of the church as part of a private commemoration, or maybe even a joke between them in memory of Charles. Given what is known about the church and the people associated with it, its one of the stronger circumstantial cases that could be made for the weapons presence.
Seriously injured, Chewning was unable to walk, so he used the dead man's own sword, which was still slick with his own blood, as a makeshift crutch to help him retreat from the front lines and find help.
The hard fact of what happened to that sword are up to some speculation, and we will probably never know for sure. But, the historian of Zion United Methodist Church in Spotsylvania has an interesting theory based on a few pieces of evidence and some remarkable coincidence.
The first is that Charles R Chewning, long after his time in the Confederate army, and still walking with a limp from that same injury, eventually settled down to live in Spotsylvania, Virginia. And in 1912, he was laid to rest in the church's cemetery before friends and family.
Then, almost half a century later, in 1957, a member of the church discovered a old style cavalry saber hidden under the floorboards of the church.
The two facts were brought together in 1976, when the sword was returned to the church, and its pastors and deacons were able to more fully examine the blade.
It was made in 1862 at the Providence Tool Co. in Rhode Island, almost certainly part of a wartime purchasing contract by Washington, made while the Union was facing the very real possibility of defeat at the hands of a capable Confederate army. By all logic, there was no reason for such a weapon to be buried in a church in the state of Virginia.
Yet, here it was.
This month (January, 2020) the sword in question was handed to the Spotsylvania County Museum on loan from Zion United Methodist Church for public display, a compliment to the museum's collection of civil war artifacts and records.
References:
Original article from www.fredericksburg.com
Spotsylvania County Museum
The Journal of Charles R. Chewning: Company E, 9 Virginia Cavalry C.S.A (google books listing)
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