“So I give you all at home a Merry Christmas in this missive, and here’s a health to next Christmas with the war over.”
–Union officer Wilder Dwight to his mother, December 25, 1861
Library of CongressRobert E. Lee
“Having distributed such poor Christmas gifts as I had to those around me, I have been looking for something for you. Trifles even are hard to get these war-times, and you must not therefore expect more…. I send you some sweet violets that I gathered for you this morning while covered with dense white frost, whose crystals glittered in the bright sun like diamonds, and formed a brooch of rare beauty and sweetness which could not be fabricated by the expenditure of a world of money.”
–Robert E. Lee (above), in a letter to his daughter, December 25, 1861
“I hope you enjoyed your Christmas holidays, and no doubt you danced away all the roses from your cheeks. did you flirt with any of the gentlemen, if so, I hope some of them spilt a plate of oyster soup on your nicest dress and that you caught a terrible toothache from eating sweetmeats, and in addition to these terrible misfortunes I hope you stumped your toe and fell over a chair at the ball….”
–Confederate officer Green Berry Samuels to his wife Kathleen, December 30, 1861. Samuels followed up: “Am I not real brave to talk thus when I am fifty miles from you?
Harper's WeeklyCivil War era illustration of soldiers in camp during the Christmas season
“Tomorrow will be Christmas, and the boys in all the camps are making great preparations for the coming event…. I hope they will not be disappointed. Santa Claus is expected here tonight with our Christmas dinners, but he may be delayed and not get here for a week to come.”
–David Day, 25th Massachusetts Infantry, December 24, 1861
“The boys had a fine time today…. There was no roast turkey with cranberry sauce and we all missed mother’s mince pies, cake and doughnuts. But we bought some pies and cakes of the citizens here, which with our regular army rations made a good dinner and something like a square meal.”
–Union soldier Alexander G. Downing, December 25, 1861
“Our jolly German neighbors have begun upon their Christmas eve with such rolling choruses right behind my tent, that I must step out to see…. [T]hey have a row of Christmas trees through their camp, all a-twinkle with candles, and hung with ‘hard-tack’ curiously cut into confectionary shapes, and with slices of salt pork and beef. Sedate, heavy-bearded Teutons are sedulously making these arrangements, retiring a few paces to observe through severely studious spectacles the effect of each new pendant.”
–Dr. Francis Bacon, surgeon, 7th Connecticut Infantry, December 24, 1861
Sources
O.B. Clark, ed., Downing’s Civil War Diary (Des Moines, 1916); John W. Jones, Life and Letters of Robert E. Lee (Washington, DC, 1906); Georgeanna W. Bacon and Eliza W. Howland, eds., Letters of a Family During the War for the Union, 1861-1865 (1899); Carrie E. Spencer, et al, eds., A Civil War Marriage in Virginia: Reminiscences and Letters (Boyce, VA, 1956); David Day, My Diary of Rambles with the 25th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (Milford, MA, 1884); Wilder Dwight, Life and Letters of Wilder Dwight (Boston, 1891).
