St. John's Lutheran Church

St. John's Lutheran Church. Community Sacrifice. During the Civil War, about two hundred members of St. John’s Lutheran Church served in at least eight Confederate army units. The units included companies in the 8th, 20th, 33rd, 52nd, and 57th North Carolina Infantry regiments, as well as a company in the 1st North Carolina Cavalry. Church members were engaged in at least 194 different skirmishes, battles, and campaigns. These included Manassas, Mechanicsville, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Winchester, Petersburg, and Appomattox Court House, Virginia; Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; Charleston, South Carolina; Harpers Ferry, West Virginia; Antietam, Maryland; and numerous battles in the eastern part of North Carolina. The 2nd Regiment Detailed Men, with members of the congregation, served as guards in the prisoner-of-war camp in Salisbury., Approximately a hundred Civil War veterans are buried in the St. John’s cemetery. The congregation lost about one hundred men to wartime deaths. Most of the dead were buried on the battlefield or in prisoner-of-war camps. Here in Cabarrus County, women children, and the elderly found operating their farms and meeting the daily obligations of life stressful with so many of their men away in the army. Sacrifices and challenges on and off the battlefield transformed the St. John’s congregation, and it took the members many years to recover., (sidebar) , St. John’s Lutheran Church was organized by 1745 as Dutch Buffalo Creek Meeting House. The present sanctuary was constructed in 1845. Revolutionary patriots who fought at the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge in North Carolina, Camden in South Carolina, and in several others actions are buried in the older part of the cemetery. The graveyard also contains the remains of pioneers, bishops, pastors, and former slaves. The first full-time Lutheran pastor to North Carolina, German native Adolph Nussmann, is buried here., (captions) , (lower left) Confederate Reunion in front of St. John’s Schoolhouse, ca. 1905 Courtesy Ellen Eich , (upper right) St. John’s Lutheran Church, ca.1880 - Courtesy The St John’s Archive, Major funding for this project was provided by the North Carolina Department of Transportation, through the Transportation Enhancement Program of the Federal Transportation Efficiency Act fir the 21st Century.