TenthPress: Spotlight on a Tenth member during the Civil War

When you see the TenthPress article this week, you may wonder how it came to be. Here’s the story behind what I am seeing as our commemoration of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War. 

So often when I give the Preservation Alliance tour, Rittenhouse Square Sacred Sites, and tell of an episode in the life of Holy Trinity Church related to the Civil War, I have wondered how Tenth responded or was touched by the events of that war. I had been unable to find anything much in our records. So I was thrilled to receive an email some months ago from Al and Jane Conner, asking if Tenth was aware of the story of Ellen Matilda Orbison Harris (1816–1902).

I was also intrigued by their statements:


“We were also attracted to her evident strong faith and wished to provide as much testimony of its influence on her war service. However, we did not know until digging into her extensive surviving papers and records that she was a Presbyterian and connected substantially with your church.”

“We fully realize that such matters are not usually the concern of “twenty-first century churches;” but, we believe this is a story for the ages in one woman’s amazing wartime experiences. And, the more we learn of her frail health (well documented two decades before the war), her steadfast patriotism, and her indomitable courage and fortitude throughout the four and a half year ordeal of war, the more we believe this story must be rescued from obscurity. Ironically, in her day (as reflected in two large books on women in the war effort, she was one of the best known. We want to restore her story to the common understanding of history.”

The Conners are working on her biography, though that may take some years since they are still in the research phase and are currently also working on other projects. I am especially grateful to the authors for honoring our request to write a TenthPress article for us, which you will see in the bulletin on Sunday, March 25 (or in the online bulletin, which is now posted). Their existing work:

Albert Z. Conner Jr.
A History of Our Own: Stafford County, Virginia (2003)
Union Army’s “Valley Forge” 1863: 93 Days That Saved America (in publisher production)

Jane Hollenbeck Conner
Birthstone of the White House and Capitol (2004)
Lincoln in Stafford (2005)

Sinners, Saints and Soldiers in Civil War Stafford (2010)