Children still found Christmas morning joyful in this 1864 Harper's Weekly edition. Note that the youngster on the right is equipped with sword, drum, kepi and a haversack with "U.S." prominently displayed.
This year saw the battles of Gettysburg and Vickburg and the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. Thomas Nast portrayed Santa Claus in a patriotic uniform, distributing to Yankee soldiers to raise their morale. Southern parents were gently preparing their children that Santa Claus may not "make it through the blockade" to deliver presents this year. Harper's Weekly depicted a tender reunion scene of a soldier husband and father briefly reunited with his family during furlough.
Holiday boxes and barrels from home containing food, clothing and small articles of comfort were highly anticipated by soldier recipients. Depending on their duty assignment, Christmas dinner may have consisted of only crackers, hard tack, rice, beans and a casting of lots for a single piece of beef too small to divide. Those lucky enough to receive boxes from home could supplement a meager meal with turkey, oysters, potatoes, ham, cabbage, eggnog, cranberries and fruitcake.
One of the dreariest accounts of Christmas during the Civil War came from Lt. Col. Frederic Cavada, captured at Gettysburg and writing about Christmas 1863 in Libby Prison in Richmond:
"The north wind comes reeling in fitful gushes through the iron bars, and jingles a sleighbell in the prisoner's ear, and puffs in his pale face with a breath suggestively odorous of eggnog."
Cavada continued:
"Christmas Day! A day which was made for smiles, not sighs - for laughter, not tears - for the hearth, not prison."
He described a makeshift dinner set on a tea towel-covered box. Each prisoner brought his own knife and fork and drank "Eau de James" (water from the nearby James River.) Cavada reported he combed his hair for the occasion and further related that the prisoners staged a "ball" with a "great eal of bad dancing" during which hats were crushed and trousers torn. Sentries called "lights out" at 9 p.m.
General William Tecumseh Sherman is host at a celebratory Christmas dinner in Savannah after presenting the captured city to President Lincoln as a holiday.
The final wartime Christmas came as the Confederacy floundered, Lee's Army behind entrenchments in Petersburg and Richmond. Abraham Lincoln received a most unusual holiday - the city of Savannah, GA - presented by General William Tecumseh Sherman via telegram. Union and Confederate sympathizers were hoping this Christmas would be the last at conflict.
Johnny Green, of the 4th Kentucky's Orphan Brigade, expressed this sentiment:
"Peace on Earth, Good will to men should prevail. We certainly would preserve the peace if they would go home and let us alone..."
Green further reports he and his comrades received an unexpected and very welcome holiday:
"Our commissary sends word for each Orderly Sergeant to come to his wagon & he will issue one piece of soap to each man. This is indeed good news. Since the Skirmish began at Stockbridge Nov 15 we have not had a chance to wash any more than our faces occasionall & never our feet or bodies until now...."
Holiday season charity was not forgotten this year. On Christmas Day, 90 Michigan men and their captain loaded up wagons with food and supplies and distributed them to destitute civilians in the Georgia countryside. The Union "Santa Clauses" tied tree branches to the heads of the mule teams to resemble reindeer.
Many other units, however, were on the march, either trying to evade capture or pursuing the opponent for better position. Soldiers left in the squalid conditions of prison camps spent the day remembering holidays at home, as did others in slightly more comfortable settings. Confederate General Gordon, writing from his headquarters near Petersburg, wrote of fighting famine as well as General Grant:
"The one worn-out railroad running to the far South could not bring us half enough necessary supplies: and even if it could have transported Christmas boxes of good things, the people at home were too depleted to send them."
His wife, who was with him at headquarters, presented him with a most precious treat for Christmas 1864 - "real" coffee brought from home 'to celebrate our victories in the first years and to sustain us in defeat at the last.'
Moods were more bouyant in Washington and New York, where celebrants supped on substantial feasts and attended the theatre.
"Snowy Morning on Picket" from Harper's Weekly January 30, 1864.
