SUMC members retell how Union soldier paid for repairs to Southern church

It’s a story of opposites: North and South, wins and losses, giving and receiving. It’s about the spirit of reconciliation and the widespread healing it brings.

The National Park Service invited two members of Sudley United Methodist Church to do a retelling of the Benson-Rice story. The program took place Dec. 6 at Manassas National Battlefield Park’s Henry Hill Visitor Center auditorium. Fred Eckstein dressed in a Confederate gray uniform, played the part of Amos Benson. John Myers in Union blue played John Rice.

The performance was a back-and-forth conversation between the two men–reminiscing about the days of war and the decades that followed.

Although Benson was in “Confederate country,” he and his wife, Margaret, helped Union soldier Private John L. Rice of the 2nd New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry. They did so, because they felt it was their Christian duty.

Roberta “Bobbi” Wilhelm, outreach coordinator at Sudley Church, said, “The first retelling of this story was this summer at a sesquicentennial event. I sent Ray Brown, my contact at the battlefield, a video of the program, and he arranged for us to offer it at the park. He liked that it was about reconciliation and that it happened at this time of the year, near Christmas. Since it involves the people of Sudley during the Civil War, we sort of claim the story.”

The Bensons lived near the Manassas battlefield in Groveton. When the opening shots of the Civil War broke out Sunday morning, July 21, 1861, they were at Sudley Church.

During the retelling, Benson, played by Eckstein, said, “All these blue uniforms were coming from Sudley Springs; I never saw so much blue in all my life.”

After the battle that day, Rice, played by Myers, remembers “hundreds of men on the fields screaming in pain; I’ll never forget it.” A musket ball ripped through Rice’s left lung. “They left me and placed my lifeless body by a fence,” he said. Two days after the battle (July 23), the Bensons were returning home that evening and heard a cry for help under the fence. It was Rice.

Sudley Church was being used as a hospital for Union soldiers with pews removed to make room for the injured, and even the communion alter was turned into a surgery table.

The Bensons asked a surgeon for help, but he didn’t want to “waste his supplies” on Rice since he was half dead.

Rice was placed on a rail car at Manassas Junction to Libby Prison in Richmond. However, Rice survived and rejoined the war.

In the spring of 1862, Benson enlisted with Company A of the 4th Virginia Calvary. At the age of 37, he was considered old for a soldier.

Margaret Benson’s nearby cousins, the Cushings and the Lynns, had also joined the Confederate army. As it turned out, both Benson and Rice would, unknowingly, end up fighting on the same battlefields against one another.
Rice returned to the area and fought at Second Manassas, August 29-30, 1862; this time, he didn’t get shot. During Second Manassas, Sudley Church was used again as a hospital–for Confederate soldiers.

At the close of the war, Benson ended up at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865, when “Lee surrendered our Army of Northern Virginia to Grant,” he said. “Then, I headed back to Sudley.”

Rice left the Union army in 1865 as a full colonel. He eventually settled in Springfield, Mass. He married in 1867, but six years later, “Mary went to be with the Lord.” Rice became a lawyer and married again in 1879. He became Springfield’s chief of police and then became postmaster.

For Benson, things were rough. Fields were wasted and fences torn; devastation was all around. Sudley was still a church and a school during the week. The preacher, Rev. Blackwell, got Benson back into farming, and the Bensons moved near the Bethel Military Academy in Warrenton. In the 1880s, the Bensons moved back to Sudley to a farm called Christian Hill across from Sudley Church.

In October 1886, Benson got a knock on the door. It was Private John Rice who came seeking the family who had rescued him from the Manassas battlefield 25 years earlier. “I never forgot their kindness or the debt I owed them,” Rice said.

During Rice’s visit, Benson walked the fields, showing him where they had found him by the fence, and they showed him Sudley Church.
Rice insisted he wanted to repay them for their kindness but Benson refused to accept anything. But Margaret said if he really wanted to help, he could help pay the $200 still owed for the church rebuilding costs.

When Rice returned to Springfield, he wrote a letter that was published on Nov. 24, 1886, in his local newspaper, The Republican, asking the community to raise money to help pay back the good people of Sudley.

Only four days later, Rice wrote Benson a letter that included, “The coming of Thanksgiving reminded me of my pledge; $235 has been paid to me, and I sent it yesterday [Nov. 27, 1886] to the Manassas post office. Most of the money was handed to me in person - with the pressure of the hand - they gave me the money.” Seventy-nine contributors gave to the fund.

In response, Benson wrote Rice a letter dated Dec. 6, 1886, expressing gratitude for helping “our little church.” The letter mentioned the church’s Dec. 2, 1886, oyster supper. (This Sudley meal tradition still continues every fall). His letter ended, “In the name of Sudley, we acknowledge your gift.”

From being an enemy of the north, Rice became a friend of the south.

After Margaret died, Benson moved back to Groveton and passed away in 1901. Rice continued on with his law firm in Springfield and died in 1923.
 
Sudley church member, Joanne Lunceford of Centreville, attended the retelling program at the park’s visitor center. She said, “I’ve seen the play before at the church’s Civil War program. Fred [Eckstein] has spent hours doing research. It was neat to see the camaraderie between the two men.”

Eckstein, who has been a member of Sudley for 10 years, wrote the script. He said, “I counted about eight times when Benson and Rice were unknowingly fighting on the same battlefields.”

Jason Ohnemus of Sacramento was visiting the park during business travel. He came to the battlefield earlier that day, saw the flyer about the program and decided to come back. After the program, he said, “It shows you what an act of kindness can do.”

Wilhelm added, “It’s an amazing story of healing.”

Myers spoke about the conditions up north after the war. “There was still industry, businesses. But here in Manassas, for two summers, 1861 and 1862, everything was wiped out, all the crops, everything gone. I’ve walked the battlefield quite a bit. Taking on this character role makes you really think.”

Myers summed up the moral of the story with one word: forgiveness. “Whoever you are - in this case, the North and the South - you have to move on, forgive and reconcile.”

Sudley United Methodist Church is located at 5308 Sudley Road, Manassas VA 20109.  Call 703-754-4380 or go to http://www.sudley-methodist.org