Church recalls a Civil War president—and it’s not Lincoln

WASHINGTON — Most churches in the nation’s capital proudly promote their ties to American presidents, hanging prominent plaques and pictures to commemorate the men who once sat in their pews. Not so the Church of the Epiphany, an Episcopal parish in this city’s downtown. Not when the man is Jefferson Davis, the first and only […]

(RNS6-MAR10) Confederate President Jefferson Davis was a member of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Washington when he served as a senator and secretary of war. For use with RNS-CIVILWAR-CHURCH, transmitted March 10, 2009. Religion News Service photo courtesy Library of Congress.

(RNS6-MAR10) Confederate President Jefferson Davis was a member of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Washington when he served as a senator and secretary of war. For use with RNS-CIVILWAR-CHURCH, transmitted March 10, 2009. Religion News Service photo courtesy Library of Congress.

(RNS6-MAR10) Confederate President Jefferson Davis was a member of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Washington when he served as a senator and secretary of war. For use with RNS-CIVILWAR-CHURCH, transmitted March 10, 2009. Religion News Service photo courtesy Library of Congress.

(RNS6-MAR10) Confederate President Jefferson Davis was a member of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Washington when he served as a senator and secretary of war. For use with RNS-CIVILWAR-CHURCH, transmitted March 10, 2009. Religion News Service photo courtesy Library of Congress.

(RNS6-MAR10) Confederate President Jefferson Davis was a member of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Washington when he served as a senator and secretary of war. For use with RNS-CIVILWAR-CHURCH, transmitted March 10, 2009. Religion News Service photo courtesy Library of Congress.

(RNS6-MAR10) Confederate President Jefferson Davis was a member of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Washington when he served as a senator and secretary of war. For use with RNS-CIVILWAR-CHURCH, transmitted March 10, 2009. Religion News Service photo courtesy Library of Congress.


(RNS6-MAR10) Confederate President Jefferson Davis was a member of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Washington when he served as a senator and secretary of war. For use with RNS-CIVILWAR-CHURCH, transmitted March 10, 2009. Religion News Service photo courtesy Library of Congress.

(RNS6-MAR10) Confederate President Jefferson Davis was a member of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Washington when he served as a senator and secretary of war. For use with RNS-CIVILWAR-CHURCH, transmitted March 10, 2009. Religion News Service photo courtesy Library of Congress.

(RNS6-MAR10) Confederate President Jefferson Davis was a member of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Washington when he served as a senator and secretary of war. For use with RNS-CIVILWAR-CHURCH, transmitted March 10, 2009. Religion News Service photo courtesy Library of Congress.

(RNS6-MAR10) Confederate President Jefferson Davis was a member of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Washington when he served as a senator and secretary of war. For use with RNS-CIVILWAR-CHURCH, transmitted March 10, 2009. Religion News Service photo courtesy Library of Congress.

(RNS6-MAR10) Confederate President Jefferson Davis was a member of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Washington when he served as a senator and secretary of war. For use with RNS-CIVILWAR-CHURCH, transmitted March 10, 2009. Religion News Service photo courtesy Library of Congress.

(RNS6-MAR10) Confederate President Jefferson Davis was a member of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Washington when he served as a senator and secretary of war. For use with RNS-CIVILWAR-CHURCH, transmitted March 10, 2009. Religion News Service photo courtesy Library of Congress.

WASHINGTON — Most churches in the nation’s capital proudly promote their ties to American presidents, hanging prominent plaques and pictures to commemorate the men who once sat in their pews.

Not so the Church of the Epiphany, an Episcopal parish in this city’s downtown. Not when the man is Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America.

“We don’t focus on Jefferson Davis and what pew he did or didn’t sit in,” said Epiphany’s rector, the Rev. Randolph C. Charles. “This congregation is focused on a mission to help the people of downtown Washington — rich, poor, black, white — right now.”


2009 is supposed to be the year of Abraham Lincoln, as Americans across the country — including President Obama, an ardent admirer — celebrate the bicentennial of the Great Emancipator’s birth.

So what’s the one-time spiritual home of Davis, Lincoln’s greatest rival, to do? And how does a church commemorate a man who used the Bible to condone slavery?

“That’s a good question,” said Tripp Jones, a member of Epiphany and the church’s archivist. “He was a man of faith, but he certainly was on the wrong side of history.”

So Epiphany decided to put on a play.

Donning fake beards and studied accents, parishioners have twice performed “A Place of Healing,” a play written by Jones based on letters, diaries and other primary sources.

In truth, Davis played a modest role in the life of the congregation and in the play, which dramatizes Civil War events, including Epiphany’s stint as a war hospital and its rector’s Easter sermon after Lincoln’s assassination on Good Friday in 1865.

But Jones said he couldn’t ignore Davis’ place in Epiphany’s history. Davis rented a pew at Epiphany from 1845 to 1861 — while he was a loyal congressman from Mississippi and Secretary of War, Jones hastens to add. Epiphany members also like to point out that Edwin Stanton, Lincoln’s secretary of war, rented Davis’ pew when the Southerner left Washington to head the Confederacy in 1861.


“Part of my purpose in doing this play was to remind the parish of its roots,” Jones said. “With parishioners such as Jefferson Davis as well as some African-Americans, we begin to see the rich diversity that has been a part our parish from the beginning.”

Davis biographer William J. Cooper said the future rebel was raised a Baptist, attended a Roman Catholic boarding school, and married into the Episcopal Church. After the Civil War broke out, Davis became more religious, Cooper said, and joined an Episcopal parish in Richmond, Va., the Confederate capital.

Davis’ letters from Fort Monroe, Va., where he was imprisoned for two years after the war, teem with religious reflections, Cooper said.

“He spoke time and time again of the solace the Christian religion gave him.”

When Davis officially left the church in 1865, he requested that a name plate mark his family’s pew. After “considerable discussion” the parish agreed. But someone stole the church’s keys, removed the plate, and returned the keys, according to “Washington’s Epiphany,” a history of the parish.

Now, sitting in a dark corner of the church is a pew with a small circular plaque dedicated to Davis and donated in 1947 by the “Daughters, Sons, and Children of the Confederacy.”

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The Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in Biloxi, Miss., where Davis became a member in 1888, shows none of Epiphany’s ambivalence about its historical ties.


Before it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Redeemer was “virtually a shrine for veterans of the Confederacy,” including Davis, according to the parish history.

More than 50 brass plaques honored the Davis family and Confederate veterans and the Stars and Bars hung in a corner, said Faye Jones, the parish administrator. The church still uses the Davis family’s Communion vessels. Each week, a few tour buses would roll through, depositing clumps of tourists, she said.

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In the play at Epiphany, Uchenna Alexander, a three-year member of the church, portrayed a beaming bride who married there in 1849.

Alexander, who is black, said she hadn’t been aware of the Davis tie before the play, but draws a theological lesson from the association.

“It makes me think of the wonders God works,” she said. “It shows how we’re all connected — all of us, people who we like, who we don’t like, who we agree and disagree with, we are all children of God, all under the same roof.”

Beatrice Moulton, an Epiphany parishioner for 18 years, also said she was unaware of the church’s association with Davis, but didn’t seem to mind.


“It’s a weird thing,” said Moulton, 57, who is black, “but I take it in stride. We are Christians. We are here to love each other.”

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