War in a time of Peace on Earth.

Since the very first settlers to the new world brought their holiday traditions with them, this has been a very special time of year for Americans. In the intervening centuries, these holiday traditions have grown and evolved in spite of wars, depressions, recessions, and natural disasters. Maintaining holiday traditions through difficult times is one of the ways that we maintain a sense of normalcy, and the Civil War was no different.

In the period of the Civil War, Christmas was probably second only to Easter as the most celebrated holiday of the year. The American holiday calendar looked a little different in the 1860’s. There was no official Thanksgiving Day until President Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November as a national day of thanksgiving in 1863. July 4th was celebrated as a holiday, but again, not in any official capacity. The relatively small Jewish population of the time, about 100,000 out of a total 31.4 million, and the suppression of African traditions under slavery led to the predominance of the Christian religious holidays.

Of those holidays, Christmas most reflected America’s immigrant heritage. By the 1860’s, the American Christmas celebration was an amalgamation of several Christmas traditions from all over Europe. The Christmas tree had come over from Germany. St. Nicholas came from the Dutch. Mistletoe, Yule logs, greens, and the Christmas feast all came from the English. Most of the Christmas imagery that we are familiar with that pre-dates the Coca-Cola Santa and the TV specials dates from this period. By the time the Civil War broke out in 1861, Christmas was a firmly established American tradition.

The first Christmas of the war, December 25th, 1861, came just about six months into the conflict. For most of the volunteer soldiers fighting in both armies, it was their first Christmas away from home. But, according the book We Were Marching Christmas Day by Kevin Rawlings, many of the soldiers were still caught up in the initial wave of war spirit and were full of vigor and enthusiasm. Letters to and from the front often had the tone of festive correspondence with distant relatives away for Christmas.

But by Christmas of 1862, the tone had changed. The previous year had been heavy with battle and loss. Shiloh, the Seven Days, Perryville, 2nd Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburg had drained the enthusiasm from both the soldiers in the field and their family and friends back home. In dull winter camps or on ships at sea, the men in the service of their country had little to do but reflect on Christmases past and miss home desperately. At home, there was little to for which to be joyful. The war was no closer to over, and too many households had experienced loss.

But as is so often the case in our history, despair leads to action. Those who could not bring the soldiers and sailors home for Christmas sought ways to bring Christmas to those whom they could. Hospitals were decorated for the season, Christmas dinners were held (the bill of fare from one such dinner at the Broad Street Hospital in 1864 is pictured above), and care packages were prepared and sent to the front. For their part, the fighting men of the North and South sought to keep the Christmas spirit with dinners, dances, festivals, and decorations throughout the camp.

Christmas would pass twice more before the end of the war. Each came and went with a measure of the sorrow and homesickness of the year before. Slight changes in the locations where the holidays were observed marked the passing of the war. In 1864, William T. Sherman and the men of his army toasted each other Merry Christmas in Savannah, Georgia, having marched there from Atlanta over the summer and fall. That last Christmas of the war brought faint hope to some, and creeping dread to others that the war may soon be over.

In December of 1865, the Harper’s Weekly newspaper printed a holiday cover that was the first that did not portray some aspect of the war for the first time in four years. Everywhere, men and women, boys and girls, young and old, gathered round table and hearth to sing songs and raise glasses to peace. And even though the Civil War generation has long since passed away, it is still easy to imagine them, huddled in front of fires and candles, reading letters of Christmases past and present, dreaming of loved ones far away and hoping for the end of war.

Today, such scenes are repeated in far away places like Iraq and Afghanistan, where American men and women gather in tents and huts to dream of holidays and home. And here, those who love and miss them wish with all their might for a holiday season when all are home safe.

So, it is with a memory of those in the past and appreciation for their kindred spirits in the present that I and everyone here at the Civil War Museum of Philadelphia would like to wish all of you, and all of your loved ones the very Happiest of Holidays and the hope for peace on earth.