The North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
“Christmas in Wartime -- 1861-1865”
Black Santa's Save Christmas in 1864
"It
was a grim hour for all of the South when William Tecumseh Sherman
(was) marching relentlessly through Georgia...(and) A young mother has
caught much of the pathos of the hour in several brief entries in her
diary. Dolly Sumner Lunt, from Maine, married a planter who lived near
Covington, Georgia. Three years before the start of the war her husband
died, and as Mrs. Thomas Burge, Dolly continued on the estate with her
daughter "Sadai" Sarah. The Burges were still there when Sherman's men
passed, and many of the plantation Negroes, afraid of the soldiers,
slipped into the house to be with their mistress.
On
Christmas Eve, Mrs. Burge described her preparations for a bleak meal,
her attempts to provide the plainest of presents for her remaining
servants. "Now how changed!" she wrote, "No confectionery, cakes or pies
can I have. We are all sad...Christmas Eve, which has ever been gaily
celebrated here, which has witnessed the popping of firecrackers and the
hanging up of stockings, is an occasion now of sadness and gloom."
Worse, she had nothing to put in her Sadai's stocking, "which hangs so
inviting for Santa Claus."
On
Christmas night Mrs. Burge penned a sorrowful afternote: "Sadai jumped
out of bed very early this morning to feel in her stocking. She could
not believe but that there would be something in it. Finding nothing,
she crept back into bed, pulled the cover over her face, and I soon
heard her sobbing." A moment later the young Negroes had run in:
"Christmas gift, Mist'ess! Christmas gift, Mist'ess!" Mrs. Burge drew
the over her own face and wept beside her daughter.
The
next year, Christmas came more happily to the Burge plantation. On
December 24 (1865) the mother gave thanks to God for His goodness "in
preserving my life and so much of my property." And on Christmas Day she
added:
"Sadai
woke very early and crept out of bed to her stocking. Seeing it
well-filled, she soon had a light and eight little Negroes around her,
gazing upon the treasures. Everything opened that could be divided was
shared with them. "Tis the last Christmas, probably, that we shall be
together, freedmen! Now you will, I trust, have your own homes and be
joyful under your own vine and fig tree."
Christmas After Fredericksburg, 1862
“After
the battle of Fredericksburg [December 11-15, 1862] the fine weather,
clear, cold and bracing, which we had been having, changed into a real
Virginia winter with a good deal of the Northern thrown in. It snowed,
froze, thawed and rained by turns, with here and there bright days. All
military operations were brought to a close, and both armies went into
winter quarters. The latter part of December was fearful; a long rain
followed the battle , then a hard, bitter freeze came. So intense was
the cold that the men did nothing but cower over the fire piled high
with wood night and day….the earth was frozen as hard as granite; the
streams were solid: Ice King held all nature in a relentless grasp.
The
Christmas of 1862 was cheerless indeed; the weather was frightful, and a
heavy snowstorm covered everything a foot deep. Each soldier attempted
to get a dinner in honor of the day, and those to whom boxes had been
sent succeeded to a most respectable degree, but those unfortunates
whose homes were outside the lines had nothing whatever delectable
partaking of the nature of Christmas. Well! It would have puzzled
[anyone] to furnish a holiday dinner out of a pound of fat pork, six
crackers, and a quarter of a pound of dried apples. We all had apple
dumplings that day, which with sorghum molasses were not to be despised.
Some
of the men became decidedly hilarious, and then again some did not; not
because they had joined the temperance society nor because they were
opposed to the use of intoxicating liquors, but because not a soul
invited them to step up and partake. One mess in the Seventeenth
[Regiment] did not get so much as a smell during the whole of the
holidays; and a dry, dismal old time it proved.
We
read in the Richmond papers of the thousands and thousands of boxes
that had been passed en route to the army, sent by the ladies of
Richmond and other cities, but few found their way to us. The greater
part of them were for the troops from the far South who were too distant
from their homes to receive anything from their own families. The
Virginians were supposed to have been cared for by their own relatives
and friends; but some of them were not, as we all know.”
Christmas Letter to Lee’s Daughter
Coosawatchie, South Carolina, December 25, 1861
“My Dear Daughter,
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 in
these war times, and you must not therefore expect more. I have sent
you what I thought most useful in your separation from me and hope it
will be of some service.
Though
stigmatized as “vile dross,” it has never been a drug with me. That you
may never want for it, restrict your wants to your necessities. Yet how
little it will purchase! But see how God provides for our pleasure in
every way. To compensate for such “trash,” 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 great beauty and sweetness which could not be
fabricated by the expenditure of a world of money.
May
God guard and preserve you for me, my dear daughter! Among the
calamities of war, the hardest to bear, perhaps, is the separation of
families and friends. Yet all must be endured to accomplish our
independence and maintain our self-government. In my absence from you I
have thought of you very often and regretted I could do nothing for your
comfort. Your old home, if not destroyed by our enemies, has been so
desecrated that I cannot bear to think of it. I should have preferred it
to have been wiped from the earth, its beautiful hill sunk, and its
sacred trees buried rather than to have been degraded by the presence of
those who revel in the ill they do for their own selfish purposes.
I
pray for a better spirit and that the hearts of our enemies may be
changed. In your homeless condition I hope you make yourself contented
and useful. Occupy yourself in aiding those more helpless than yourself.
Think always of your father. R.E. Lee.”
Very touching, thank you.
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas,
Tino