December 25, 1864---Christmas Day; The First Battle of Fort Fisher (Day Three); The Battle of Devil's Gap; A Purloined Leg of Lamb; No Dinner For The Troops

DECEMBER 25, 1864:      

It is the fourth Christmas of the war. People are praying for peace on Earth and goodwill toward men, but for most, particularly in the ravaged South, peace with the Yankees and goodwill toward them both seem afar off.  Thomas Nast publishes this drawing of President Lincoln greeting wandering Confederate soldiers into the White House for Christmas, using Harper’s Weekly to promote reconciliation between the two halves of America. 

Mary Lincoln spends much of the day with her friend, Elizabeth Keckley. It is a difficult Christmas for most Americans. In the North there are far too many empty chairs. In the South, the empty chairs have long since been burned to keep warm.

While Washingtonians, Philadelphians, New Yorkers, and Chicagoans sit down to sumptuous Christmas dinners and speak excitedly about the prospects of a fast end to the war, outside the war goes on. In Georgia, former Atlantans are moving back into their deserted homes for shelter. They spend their days in the ruined downtown searching for food and firewood, and wondering what will come next. A few churches hold Christmas services.

There is little (but some fierce) fighting this day. Overall, this Christmas, which turns out to be the last Christmas of the war, is cold, miserable, and snowy. Virtually everyone spends it hunkered down. People are simply trying to keep warm, particularly the bone-thin Confederates. 

In places on the Richmond-Petersburg line, men in blue begin hollering “Truce! Truce!” and carry food and drink (and even a little purloined liquor) over to their Confederate counterparts:

“Merry Christmas, Johnny Reb!”

“Merry Christmas, Billy Yank!”

“See you in hell, then --- tomorrow.”

“Sure thing --- tomorrow.” 

Someone begins to sing Battle Cry of Freedom and both sides join in with their own words, followed by Silent Night. 

Confederate soldiers for the most part go hungry this Christmas. The Federals by and large, eat well. But there is no cheer this year for the ordinary man in uniform; for most soldiers, Blue and Gray, the day passes drearily. They dream of Christmases gone by. Many men have not been home for Christmas since the tense, secession-haunted winter of 1860. Large numbers of Southerners know they have no homes to return to.

Joseph Cockerham, a Confederate soldier writes to his niece:

Dear Martha,

Your letter came to hand a few days since . . . I have but little news times is very dull out here . . . The soldiers all look sad and lonely.  We have nothing spiritual or refreshing in camp . . . All is calm on the lines in front of Petersburg and Richmond . . .  Rations are rather scanty...

Yours affectionatly, 

Jasper

A Union Private, Levi McCormick, writes home to his wife:

Dear wife  

I will send you a few lines stating how we are  I have bin down with the diarier for about a weak  it has bin the most sevear that I hav ever ha but I feel better to day & I hav washed all of my cloaths & I borrowed some cloathes while mine are drying  I cant write you mutch this time but if I keep wel I will try and write you a interesting leter some of those days  we hav got houses built up wonce more but Christmas was a very dul day hear  we have not had it yet but the war news is good  we have had a despatch from G Shairman  he has done more than we could of asked of him  I hope this will find you all wel  Samey is not very wel  he had a cold  we hav bin very mutch exposed but I dont want to write about   You can sea the reason why I hav not wrote 

I send my love to all from you ever true and loving 

Husband

General John Brown Gordon C.S.A., serving near Petersburg, wrote: 

The one worn-out railroad running to the far South could not bring us half enough necessary supplies: and even if it could have transported Christmas boxes of good things, the people at home were too depleted to send them.

General Josiah Gorgas C.S.A., knowing that the Officer Corps is enjoying hot Christmas dinners while fighting men go hungry and their families starve this winter, wrote bitterly:

A despondent Christmas has just passed, yet people contrived to eat hearty and good Christmas dinners.  The soldiers unfortunately have not even meat, and have had none for several days.  The Commissary General has singly failed in his duties; while there is plenty of food in Georgia there is none here.  There is no sufficient excuse for this.  The food must be brought here, and the means to so provided and organized.

Mary Chesnut confides to her diary:

Oh, why did we go to Camden? The very dismalest Christmas overtook us there. Miss Rhett went with us - a brilliant woman and very agreeable. "The world, you know, is composed," said she, "of men, women, and Rhetts" (see Lady Montagu). Now, we feel that if we are to lose our negroes, we would as soon see Sherman free them as the Confederate Government; freeing negroes is the last Confederate Government craze. We are a little too slow about it; that is all.

Robert E. Lee and John Singleton Mosby confer together over a leg of lamb which Lee admits ruefully, “must have been purloined somewhere.”  He promotes Mosby to a full Colonelcy.

Union soldier Elisha Hunt Rhodes wrote in his diary:

It does not seem much like Sunday or Christmas, for the men are hauling logs to build huts. This is a work of necessity, for the quarters we have been using are not warm enough. This is my fourth Christmas in the Army. I wonder if it will be my last.

Merry Christmas to you all and thank you to all of our troops past and present who sacrifice the holidays and more for our safety!

At Fort Fisher, the Union continues to bombard the fort all day until late afternoon. Making no headway, finally the assault is called off. Edwin Stanton fumes at the War Department in Washington.  

The Battle of Devil’s Gap: 
      

General Nathan Bedford Forrest C.S.A., covering the slow retreat of John Bell Hood’s men, fights off a pursuing Union column near Pulaski , Tennessee. Forrest, who loses only two fights in the war, is undeterred by the recent reversals in Dixie’s fortunes. A singularly resourceful man, Forrest’s cavalry is warmly dressed, well fed, and well-armed on this day. Forrest habitually ignores the informal cease-fire that usually settles over the Civil War at Christmastime. Forrest was, in fact, a conservative iconoclast. 

Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821-1877) was the son of an upcountry Tennessee dirt farmer who died when he was 17. In 1845, he murdered several men in an honor killing to avenge an uncle who had taken him in when his father died. Although Forrest was no Virginia gentleman (he said “ain’t”, “gittin’ along” and “vittles” in polite conversation) and not formally educated, he was intrinsically brilliant. For a while he was a riverboat gambler; after a time he managed to buy the boat and used the profits to speculate in cotton and plantation land. He was also a slave trader. Eventually, he became a millionaire. These successes presaged his military career. 

General Nathan Bedford Forrest

Using his own money, he enlisted as a private in the Confederate army bringing along with him a fully-equipped squadron of cavalrymen. Immediately promoted to officer’s rank, he showed an innate understanding of military tactics, a compulsion for mobile action, and a propensity to gamble, that was second to none. Several times he bluffed his way into bloodless victories, even capturing Union naval vessels. Northerners called him “That Devil Forrest” but Southerners called him “The Wizard,” and he was both. He had little time for officers and gentlemen unless they fought like demons, and was merciless toward Yankees. It is estimated that he killed at least 37 men in combat, and fought several honor duels with fellow Southerners during the war. When asked how he won so many of his battles, he answered, “I gits there fustest with the mostest.”  

For all his military ability, the man had terrible flaws of character. He was bloodthirsty to a fault, generally incapable of compromise, and reflexively belligerent no matter the circumstances. An inveterate racist, he led his men at the Fort Pillow Massacre, and after the war he became the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. He quit this office when the Klan became too violent (he was too conspicuous a leader for what was becoming an increasingly secret society). Interestingly, he later spoke out for reconciliation between the races. In the early 1870s he volunteered for the Union army when a war with Spain threatened. General-in-Chief William Tecumseh Sherman, his old nemesis, agreed to commission Forrest, but the diplomatic crisis of the moment passed off, and the Spanish-American War did not occur until 1898. But for a twist of history, “Forrest’s Rough Riders” might have gone up San Juan Hill.    


Forrest died in 1877 of diabetes. 

But that lies in the future. On this sad day of rejoicing, Forrest stains the Tennessee snow with fresh blood. 

December 24, 1864---Christmas Eve: The First Battle of Fort Fisher (Day Two); banquets in the North and starvation in the South

DECEMBER 24, 1864:     

On this last Christmas Eve of the war, the Union begins a massive bombardment of Fort Fisher, outside Wilmington. The 60 vessel Union flotilla fires 10,000 shells at the fort. The Union gunners, using the Confederate flagstaff as a target point, aim too high, and more than 3,000 of the projectiles drop harmlessly if dramatically into the Cape Fear River behind the fort. 

Fashioned after the Crimean War’s Malakoff Tower of Sebastopol, the fort itself is earthen, which makes it singularly effective at absorbing punishment without major damage, and today little damage is in fact done.

The big guns of the fort bark defiance. This massive pile of dirt --- the largest fort the Confederacy has ever built --- is armed with 22 large seaward-facing cannon, 25 landward facing cannon, and scores of smaller cannons and rifled guns. About 2,000 men are holding the fort, including its designer, Colonel William Lamb. 

At one point in the bombardment, Fort Fisher’s guns fall silent. Assuming (incorrectly) that the fort is out of shells, General Benjamin “Beast” Butler lands 1,000 Marines on the beach. Tasked to maneuver to the thus far silent landward side of the fort, they are to launch a surprise raid on the defenders inside. When the sea guns begin firing again, Butler calls back his already-positioned Marines. Ulysses S. Grant hears of this, and relieves the much-hated and marginally-competent Butler from command. Butler, using his political contacts, manages to get a hearing on the matter in January. As he is testifying before Congress, the second assault on Fort Fisher succeeds and the fort falls. When he insists the fort is impregnable nonetheless, “Beast” Butler’s checkered military career ends ignominiously.

In truth, Lincoln and Grant had been seeking for months (Grant) and years (Lincoln) to rid themselves of Butler, a political general, a tyrannical commander, a kleptomaniac (he was known as “Spoons” Butler for the many silver ones he stole), a Judeophobe, and a Notusophobe (Southerners had chamber pots made with his face imprinted on the inside). His positive points (and they were few) were that he was a dedicated abolitionist, a good organizer, and a War Democrat. But with the Democrats reduced to a minority in the 1864 election, Butler was dispensable; and so he was dispensed with.   

Edwin M. Stanton

Lincoln, Grant and Stanton

At the War Department in Washington, Edwin M. Stanton, the gimlet-eyed, dour, and indefatiguable Secretary of War, is in a frenzy. He is charging back and forth from his office to the telegraph office, demanding constant updates on Fort Fisher; the fact that the fort is not striking its colors is driving him mad (Stanton’s mania over Fort Fisher will last as long as the fort does). 

Stanton is also beside himself that his General Orders 301, issued on the 19th, to put every able man into the field, is being regarded in the breach. Civilian employees of the War Department are shuttering their offices early since it is Christmas Eve; various Generals, Colonels, and subordinate officers decide that Stanton’s order doesn’t apply to them; men already A.W.O.L. decide to stay where they are for Christmas; numerous men on garrison duty in Washington and other places sneak off for Christmas with their families; bored men in the trenches around Richmond and Petersburg walk off the line. Stanton crosses paths with the President several times, muttering darkly about courts-martial and summary executions. Lincoln calms him down, but surreptitiously orders that all of Stanton’s paperwork pass his desk for review for the next few days.  

Christmas Eve 1864 in the North is memorable for its joyousness, so unlike recent past Christmas Eves. There is still much to mourn, but hope is the intangible gift this year’s-end brings. Washington, D.C. in particular is in a celebratory mood. Brilliantly uniformed officers squire lavishly dressed women to suppers and balls until dawn. The news of the fall of Savannah is on everyone’s lips, as is the victory at Nashville. 

In Savannah, General Sherman hosts a Christmas Eve soiree for the City Fathers and other leading citizens.

Julia Dent Grant, the General’s wife, is visiting hospitals and orphanages this day,  bringing gifts to the orphaned and the wounded.

Julia Dent Grant

Mary Lincoln holds an “At Home” with tea, cakes, and gifts for every guest. Tad Lincoln manages to sneak some street urchins into the White House. When he asks the cook to fix them plates of food, the cook refuses, but Tad, undeterred, goes to his father, who, though he is hobnobbing with ambassadors, generals and cabinet secretaries, says, “Of course they can all come in,” and orders the cook that the hungry boys each get a full turkey dinner. People present at that moment remember the President’s radiant smile: “Tad truly knows how to keep Christmas!” he beams.  Tad had previously begged his father to spare the Christmas turkey for 1863. The President had done so in what was the original, if unofficial, turkey pardoning, and this year “Jack” strutted among Tad’s other pets.

Abraham and Mary Lincoln

Abraham and Tad Lincoln with Jack

Mary Todd Lincoln

As evening falls and Washington blazes with light and music as it hasn’t done in years, Stanton is still muttering about Fort Fisher, but for the moment, he is ignored. Stanton is anxious that the Confederates might launch a surprise attack somewhere on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day; he need not worry. When Robert E. Lee wakes up on Christmas Eve, he gets told that there are huge gaps in the line around Richmond-Petersburg. Lee is philosophical, telling his staff that his “boys” will be back. In the meantime, he spreads thinner his already spread-thin men. In more secure areas, as few as 1-2 Confederates are holding a mile of the line. In other regions of the Confederacy, the men, too, walk off the line. Many do not come back.

Varina Davis

Varina Davis, the First Lady of the Confederacy, speaks of this year’s rather solemn Christmas. The simple gifts in evidence at the Confederate White House and her reflections about “orphans” and “starvation parties” speak of privation and sorrow elsewhere throughout the South:

Rice, flour, molasses and tiny pieces of meat, most of them sent to the President’s wife anonymously to be distributed to the poor, had all been weighed and issued . . . the orphans at the Episcopalian home had been promised a Christmas tree and the toys, candy and cakes must be provided, as well as one pretty prize for the most orderly girl among the orphans.

The ladies dispersed in anxious squads of toy-hunters, and each one turned over the store of her children’s treasures for a contribution to the orphans’ tree . . . But the tug of war was how to get something with which to decorate the orphans’ tree . . .  

[On] Christmas Eve a number of young people were invited to come and string apples and popcorn for the trees . . .our old confectioner friend, Mr. Piazzi, consented, with a broad smile, to give ‘all the love verses the young people wanted to roll with the candy . . . About twenty young men and girls gathered around small tables in one of the drawing rooms of the mansion and the cornucopias were begun . . . Then the coveted eggnog was passed around in tiny glass cups and pronounced good. Crisp home-made ginger snaps and snowy lady cake completed the refreshments of Christmas Eve. The children allowed to sit up and be noisy in their way as an indulgence took a sip of eggnog out of my cup, and the eldest boy confided to his father:  “Now I just know this is Christmas.” In most of the houses in Richmond these same scenes were enacted . . .  A bowl of eggnog was sent to the servants, and a part of everything they coveted of the dainties . . . 

For the President there were a pair of chamois-skin riding gauntlets  . . . There was a hemstitched linen handkerchief . . .  

On Christmas morning the children awoke early and came in to see their toys. They were followed by the negro women, who one after another ‘caught’ us by wishing us a merry Christmas before we could say it to them, which gave them a right to a gift. Of course, there was a present for every one, small though it might be, and one who had been born and brought up at our plantation was vocal in her admiration of a gay handkerchief. As she left the room she ejaculated: ‘Lord knows mistress knows our insides; she jest got the very thing I wanted.’”

For me there were six cakes of delicious soap, made from the grease of ham . . . a pincushion of some plain brown cotton material . . .  and a little baby hat plaited by the orphans . . . Another present was a fine, delicate little baby frock . . .  There were also . . . Swinburne’s best songs . . . a chamois needlebook . . .  

After breakfast, at which all the family, great and small, were present, came the walk to St. Paul’s Church. We did not use our carriage on Christmas or, if possible to avoid it, on Sunday. The saintly Dr. Minnegerode preached a sermon on Christian love . . . 

Our chef did wonders with the turkey and roast beef, and drove the children quite out of their propriety by a spun sugar hen, life-size, on a nest full of blanc mange eggs. The mince pie and plum pudding made them feel, as one of the gentlemen laughingly remarked, ‘like their jackets were buttoned,’ a strong description of repletion which I have never forgotten . . . 

. . . The night closed with a ‘starvation’ party,’ where there were no refreshments, at a neighboring house . . . 

. . . These young people are gray-haired now, but the lessons of self-denial, industry and frugality in which they became past mistresses then, have made of them the most dignified, self-reliant and tender women I have ever known — all honor to them. 

The “starvation party” she wrote of was a Richmond innovation, a social gathering, often a ball, where no food was served. Donations were taken to support the war effort and to aid the men in the lines. Food of any kind was desperately short, both in Richmond and in Petersburg. So was coal and wood.

The Confederate White House

Varina Davis is a lukewarm Confederate at best. With relatives in the South and in the North, her feelings about the war are equivocal, as are her feelings about slavery.  The Confederate Press often questioned her loyalties just as the Union Press questioned Mary Lincoln’s. In fact, the two women had much in common, both being from politically active slaveholding families, both being exceptionally well-educated and literate women for their time and place. After the war, in her widowhood, she becomes friends with, of all people, the widowed Julia Dent Grant. “It would have been a tragedy if the South had won,” the former First Lady of the Confederacy tells her new friend, the former First Lady of the United States. 

Mary Lincoln and Varina Davis shared a seamstress. Elizabeth Keckley had worked for Varina while her husband was a U.S. Senator in Washington. When Jefferson Davis was made President of the Confederacy, Varina asked Keckley (slave-born but now free by her own efforts) whether she would consider relocating to Montgomery, the first capital of the Confederacy. Keckley refused to move, and sought a new job. Using her reference from Varina Davis she was hired by Mary Lincoln when the Lincolns came to the White House.  She became Mary Lincoln’s lifelong friend. 

Christmas Eve cannot but transparently paper over the suffering in the South this year. As one Richmonder joked in this icy cold, hungry and miserable month, “As long as we can hear a dog bark or a cat meow, we know we’re going to win the war.” Confederate civilians became, like their fighting men, like later Londoners during the blitz, singularly adept at keeping their spirits up. Still, there is no denying that hunger, the Captain of the Men of Death, is stalking all Confederates this season.

Richmond, late 1864, city and camp life

 

December 23, 1864---The First Battle of Fort Fisher (Day One)

DECEMBER 23, 1864:      

A Union battle fleet is standing off the North Carolina coast at the mouth of the Cape Fear River. It is there to take Wilmington, the last major port of the Confederacy. The city itself is 30 miles inland, but the approach to the city is guarded by powerful Fort Fisher.

The winter waters off the North Carolina coast are notoriously evil. The Union commanders are hoping to put Fort Fisher out of commission quickly so that they can avoid being swallowed up the gales that tear through the area. The swells in the area are already making operations hazardous. To this end they come up with what they think is a clever ruse: They load the U.S.S. LOUISIANA with explosives, disguise her as a blockade runner, and steer the ship close (but not close enough) to Fort Fisher before they abandon her. The explosion is massive, but it does little more than scorch the seaward face of the fort.