Christmas Customs during the Civil War

[weed]

For anybody wanting to know what were the common Christmas customs at the time of the Civil War, take this hyper link. It will take you to a research article I wrote on them a number of years ago.

John Wedeward

http://www.33wis.com/articles/pdf/Ci...%20Customs.pdf

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: Christmas Customs during the Civil War

Here's one I wrote years ago (and also I guess recently syndicatoed to the NYC weekly, The Irish Emigrant, December 4, 2006 edition) about Irish troops celebrating Christmas in the field during the Civil War:

http://www.thewildgeese.com/pages/civwar.html

[kazrosiecki]

Re: Christmas Customs during the Civil War

Great articles.

Thank you,

[Jubilo]

Re: Christmas Customs during the Civil War

Dear Kevin ,
Don't like to sound like a No -Nothing but aren't you the great one for the Holy Water etc.
all for the old flag ,
David Corbett

[henionjd]

Re: Christmas Customs during the Civil War

And that means?

[Jubilo]

Re: Christmas Customs during the Civil War

Dear Sir ,
No disrespect meant . Kevin's article just a bit heavy on the Holy Roman Catholic Church -----or else . It's always the "or else " that causes one to pause and reflect. There was a recent blog that there were more Protestants than Catholics in the Irish Brigade but it sounds apocryphal . No need for a flame war ; just want Kevin to know that his posts are read.
all for the old flag,
David Corbett

[PvtRJBrown]

Re: Christmas Customs during the Civil War

Hmmmm, Mr. Wewards article interests me alot. I will share this article with my group and fellow friends of the hobby. I think im going to begin doing some of those customs myself on christmas every year, add a little living history flare to my holidays.

[PvtSchultz]

Re: Christmas Customs during the Civil War

Since we are on the subject of Christmas and the American Civil War, thought I would share a few cartoons I came across from the period.

The first is a Thomas Nast cartoon from 1863 originally published in Harper's Weekly, now courtesy of the Library of Congress.

The second was originally published in 1852 in the Brother Jonathan Newspaper (reprinted by Shuman Heritage Printing Co. of York PA) and shows how some Americans viewed Christmas in the 19th. c.

Hope you enjoy and may all of you have a Happy, Healthy & of course Merry Christmas!!!

For more cartoons from the 19th c. you can go to http://www.sonofthesouth.net/Original_Santa_Claus.htm

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: Christmas Customs during the Civil War

Kevin's article just a bit heavy on the Holy Roman Catholic Church -----or else . It's always the "or else " that causes one to pause and reflect. There was a recent blog that there were more Protestants than Catholics in the Irish Brigade but it sounds apocryphal .

I don't think Sparky Henion was "flaming"--just asking about the holy-roller-type comment. :)

The article is heavy on religious observances on Christmas because the sources I consulted during my research of that (and other) articles indicates that religion and attending Mass was an extremely important part of how Irish-Catholic soldiers, particularly in Irish regiments, observed religious holidays such as Christmas and St. Patrick's Day, among others. We're probably a bit more secular today than folks were in the 1860s.

As for the comments (I've seen some too) that certain Irish regiments were more Protestant than Catholic, to that I say "hogwash". The vast majority of Irish immigrants in this country at the time of the Civil War were Catholics and virtually all the first-person accounts I've come across from Irish and Irish-American soldiers during the Civil War indicates a heavy preponderance of Catholics in the ranks. Certainly there were some Protestant Irish; in fact, my favorite memoir by an Irish soldier in the Union army (My Life in the Irish Brigade by William McCarter, 116th Pennsylvania (Kevin E. O'Brien, ed.), Savas Publishing 1996) is by a Protestant-Irish immigrant, who in one part of the book asserts that the Irish Brigade had more Protestants than Catholics. That's one of the only places I've seen such an assertion in a first-person account, and the fact that most "Irish" regiments had Catholic chaplains is perhaps Exhibit 1 about the religious affiliation of the majority of the soldiers in those regiments. Frankly, Catholic priests as chaplains were rare things (see books such as Memoirs of Chaplain Life by Fr. William Corby, CSC, and Faith in the Fight, by John Brinsfield, Ben Maryniak, et. al., Stackpole 2003).

Merry Christmas! :)

[Charles Heath]

Re: Christmas Customs during the Civil War

Not every Christmas was pleasant for those "awaiting word."

This quote drawn from Geo. C. Rable's essay in editor Gary Gallagher's book entitled The Fredericksburg Campaign: Decision on the Rappahannock sets a somber tone for one family during Christmas 1862:

"Aside from the many families in mourning, there were cruel anomalies. In the absence of information about the missing and captured, the fear that a loved one had been rudely thrown into an unmarked grave heightened the anxiety. And there was alwasys the unreliability of early reports. In Madison Parish, Louisiana, Kate Stone learned that a Lieutenant Stone--not related to her family--had been killed at Fredericksburg. On Christmas morning and elderly neighbor informed the family that this Lieutenant Stone was in fact Kate's brother. Her mother collapsed with grief, but one of the family managed to find a newspaper that confirmed the earlier account. Despite an obvious sense of relief, the Christmas celebration was ruined, and they later learned that their boy had been slightly wounded after all."

Source: The Journal of Kate Stone, 1861-1878, ed. by John Q. Anderson.