The religious nature of the holiday season upon us aside, this time of year has been a time of celebration and gift giving for centuries. The Twelve Days of Christmas and many other traditional songs, as well as Dickens’s Christmas Carol, show that this is a celebration time that goes way back in the European culture. This week we are going to trace how the Civil War led to the making of Christmas as a secular, national holiday.
Unsurprisingly, the story is at base a political one. On Christmas Day 1861, President Lincoln chose to host a party at the White House. It was a crucial political moment because Mr Lincoln had a brewing international crisis that he had to stop before it got out of hand.
On Christmas Day 1862, the country was in a national panic. Setbacks in the war had made it anything but a happy season. On this day, Mr and Mrs Lincoln did something that seems so much a part of the responsibility of the POTUS on this holiday that its astounding that it hasn’t always been traditional. And on Christmas in 1863, the Lincoln’s made yet another gesture of good will to the soldiers in the field.
In 1861 President Lincoln sought to limit an international crisis by throwing a Christmas Party at the White House. The Trent Affair had led to the capture of the appointed Confederate representatives to Britain and France, John Slidell and James Murray Mason. War clouds had started to collect as the British Prime Minister insisted that the US had no right to capture these men on open seas. The capture occurred on November 8 and had become an international scandal after November 18. By Christmastime, there were rumors of British preparations for war and also significant diplomatic efforts were in progress. There were rumors of an invasion from Canada .So, there was a lot for Lincoln to “soft shoe” that day.
In 1862, the Lincoln Family began a tradition to counter the public effects of The Battle of Fredericksburg, which had been a military disaster that spawned a political and public relations catastrophe. “What will the country say?” Lincoln asked. But the POTUS was a political mastermind, and he turned crisis into opportunity, The Lincolns pointedly went the various hospitals around Washington and visited and spoke with the wounded. No president had ever done this before. It showed that Lincoln the commander in chief was a sensitive leader who felt the people’s pain.
The hospital visits were so popular, and so necessary, that Lincoln continued them. He brought his son Tad with him on many such days. Tad was deeply moved by the soldiers. So on Xmas 1863, wounded soldiers received gifts of books and clothing from the White House, with a covering note that said, “From Tad Lincoln”.
And in 1864, General Sherman telegrammed Lincoln on December 22, 1864 announcing the capture of Savanah. By 1865, as the image above shows, Christmas was a celebration of victory in. the war.
The soldiers on the battlefield were far away from home, many had never been outside their county in their lives let alone their state. Union soldiers used salt pork and hardtack to decorate Christmas trees. Others were treated to special meals; a captain from Massachusetts treated his soldiers to foods such as turkey, oysters, pies, and apples; Singing carols was popular, ones that remain popular today, but Christmas cards would not become popular until the 1870s.
When we fly or drive home to Grandmothers House for Christmas, the origin of that tradition is the Civil War Fathers on both sides of the war were often given furloughs to return home for the holiday.
Christmas originates with a significant religious meaning and yet it has become secular in its celebration. Almost no one knows that this trend began in the Civil War. And even more surprising to many, without Thomas Nast, Christmas as we know it probably wouldn’t exist. But Nast wasn’t interested so much in Christmas. He was interested in a much bigger issue.
Nast was a cartoonist for Harper’s Weekly during the Civil War. If Nast wasn’t so interested in Christmas, why the recurrent theme? The 2 Nast cartoons depict Christmas experiences during the war. Identify the subjects of each and what was groundbreaking about them.
