St. Peter’s Church, 8400 St. Peter’s Lane, in New Kent is thought to be the church that George and Martha Washington were married in. General J.E.B. Stuart rode by the church on his ride around McClellan prior to the onset of the Seven Days campaign. In May 1862 General Edwin Sumner’s II Corps was camped here. The pews were removed and the church was used as a stable.

The picture below was taken by Alexander Gardner of General Sumner and his staff. The trees and the stairs in front of the church leading upward are no longer present. The image below appeared in the book- The Photographic History of the War in Ten Volumes by Francis T. Miller Editor-in-Chief from the Chapter called Fair Oaks in Sight of Richmond in Part III, page 297. In this reference the men in the picture were identified as Major A.M. Clark, volunteer A.D.C.; Lieutenant Colonel J.H. Taylor, A.G.; Captain F.N. Clarke, Chief of Artillery; General E.V. Sumner, Lieutenant Colonel J. F. Hammond, Medical Director; Captain Pease, Minnesota Volunteers, Chief of commissary; Captain Gabriel Grant.

Taylor, Clarke and Hammond appeared in a previous picture of Sumner’s staff (link). Gabriel Grant on the far right was a surgeon in French’s division of the II Corps and a subsequent Medal of Honor recipient.

The history of the church during the Civil War from a presentation by Steve Avent to the New Kent Historical Society is described on the church’s website– In the summer of 1862 war came to New Kent County, and the church paid a high price due to its central location in the county and its proximity to the main roads. The historian Douglas Southall Freeman wrote: “St. Peter’s is located in a district that had strategic importance during the Revolution and during the War Between the States. Past it moved armies and raiders. Hundreds of soldiers, Confederate and Union, rested in the churchyard. Confusing reports of hurried marches often are clarified by references to halts at St. Peter’s. It is one of the few famous buildings in New Kent that survived the devastation of war, which makes it doubly precious.” The division of Union General “Bull” Sumner camped here much of May 1862 (there are several Matthew Brady photographs of Sumner and his men camped here hanging in the parish house), and the commander of the Union army, General George B. McClellan, an admirer of George Washington, visited the church at that time. He later wrote: “The Washington marriage ceremony took place in St. Peter’s church. Finding one’s self alone within that historic building, it was a natural impulse to invoke the aid of God to enable me to serve the country as unselfishly and truly as did the great man who often worshiped there.” Sad to say, not all of our northern visitors shared General McClellan’s sense of reverence for the old church. The building was used for stables and storage space, and was heavily vandalized. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported in 1871 that “The church itself was broken and battered, and rendered wholly unfit for use. The old massive stone font, in which the children of two centuries had been baptized, was broken and scattered in fragments over the floor. The chancel was torn down, the pulpit and desk broken and defaced, and not a sash was left in the windows.”

General Robert E Lee wrote in 1869: “I visited St. Peter’s this past spring. It is 3 miles from the White House and in better days I was able to give it more attention. During the war it was made a stable of by federal cavalry. The pulpit, chancel, doors, windows, etc. we’re broken and destroyed. Since the cessation of hostilities the neighbors and others have in the best way they could restored the doors, windows, floor and stoves, and procured the services of Mr. Kepler to preach for them every fortnight. On these occasions he makes the White House his resting place, going down every alternate Saturday and returning Monday or Tuesday. The pulpit and chancel ought to be restored, and the whole church made worthy of its associations. It is one of the old colonial churches, is beautifully situated on the road from New Kent courthouse to Richmond in a grove of native oaks, and is the church where General Washington was married and attended in early life.”

Other images of the church

Another war time image of the church.