Virginia churches suffered heavily in the Civil War as contending armies used them as headquarters, hospitals, and barracks, and Zion Church was no exception. In August 1862, Union soldiers stopped briefly at the church during an expedition to southern Spotsylvania County, and within minutes, a Union soldier wrote, the quiet meeting house became “a perfect bedlam…filled with soldiers, some scuffling, some whistling, some playing cards on the little plain table in front of the pulpit, while one independent gentleman in his shirt sleeves occupies the minister’s chair in the pulpit and is engaged in…combing his hair.” In May 1864, as Union and Confederate armies fought at nearby Spotsylvania Court House and the shifting battle lines moved southward, Zion Church found itself in the center of the conflict. Gens. Robert E. Lee and A.P. Hill met with officers at the church, while in the upstairs gallery Southern signal men equipped with high-powered telescopes kept watch on Union troops one mile east of here. Union gunners, noting the activity, peppered the building with shot and shell, and one Southern signalman recalled that during their stay every glass in the window was broken out by shells and Minie Balls. Three Confederate soldiers were buried at Zion Church, including Corporal Thomas A. Harris of the 9th Virginia Cavalry, whose regiment screened the Confederate army’s right flank at Spotsylvania and engaged Union troops at Myers Hill.