Frying Pan Baptist Church, Virginia, photo by Debbie Robison
The history of the Frying Pan Baptist Church of Virginia goes back to the Revolutionary War. Today and beyond, however, the church’s meeting house plays a minor role in the story of the Civil War.
The meeting house, located next to a road that is frequently used for troop movement during the war, is the rendezvous point for Col. Maxcy Gregg of the First South Carolina Infantry and his 570 troops, Captain William R. Terry and his seventy-odd cavalrymen plus a battery of two guns and thirty-four men, the battery commanded by Captain James L. Kemper.
This would not be the first time that the church serves as a pre-arranged meeting place for Confederate forces. As Philip St. Geo. Cocke, colonel commanding the Fifth Brigade, Army of the Potomac, reports later in the summer:
Major Wheat’s Louisiana First Special Battalion was added to my command and stationed at or near Frying Pan Church, and Captain Alexander’s troop of cavalry also added to Terry’s at the same place. Subsequently Major Evans was ordered from Leesburg with Sloan’s Fourth Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers to Frying Pan Church with orders to report to me and act as a part of my command stationed at that place.
In addition, on the eve of the war’s first major battle at Manassas in July 1861, nearly a thousand Confederate troops will camp out on church grounds.
Source: Frying Pan Baptist Meeting House History by Debbie Robison (link)
