Page 21 - Discover Winter 2023

popular national Santa Claus image. He would shot him.
eventually give him his official address as “The
Prior to the war, plantation owners had
North Pole”, since his drawings had become
customarily treated their slaves to small gifts
internationally adopted. Nast was concerned
and special privileges on Christmas, as a gesture
that St. Nick would need an address that was
of “goodwill”. Naturally, that would all change.
not within any official national boundaries, so
However, not everyone went without gifts. The
that no one country could claim him for political
most famous Christmas gift of the times was a
propaganda, even as he had previously done so
telegram that General Sherman sent to President
himself.
Lincoln.
Our Civil War (which I will call it from
On December 22, 1864, it read: “I beg
now on for the sake of brevity) was responsible
to present you as a Christmas gift, the city of
for establishing our true American Christmas
Savannah,” wrote Sherman, “with 100 and 50
traditions. It was a time of great divide in our
guns and plenty of ammunition, also about
nation, but ironically, it was also a time that
25,000 bales of cotton.”
unified our Christmas traditions to a large extent.
Nast’s illustrations also featured the Christmas One of our favorite Christmas Carols was
tree, and many other artists of his time did inspired by the war and its devastating effects.
likewise. The war and its attendant deprivations Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem,
served to increase the sentiments of the season as "Christmas Bells" on Christmas Day 1864, after
many soldiers would find themselves encamped his son, Lieutenant Charles Appleton Longfellow,
far from home at Christmas. Soldiers in some was seriously wounded in November during the
camps set up little Christmas trees as they Mine Run Campaign. Having lost his wife a few
endeavored to make whatever merry that they years earlier, Longfellow had already been mired
could among themselves. in a deep depression. John Baptiste Calkin set the
poem to music sometime after 1872, and today it
For their part, their families back home
is known by the more familiar title, "I Heard the
also experienced increased angst over the
Bells on Christmas Day". Originally intended as
separation, and its effect on family traditions. That
an anti-war protest, it has become a more classic
widespread experience was in part what motivated
spiritual hymn over the years. The present day
Harper’s Weekly to portray Santa Claus giving
version does not include two stanzas from the
comfort to the soldiers.
original poem that focused on the war.
Along with that, partisan sentiments also
The heightened sense of war-time
sprang up. The ravages of war naturally resulted
separation, combined with the mingling of sub
in the scarcity of most commodities, and for
cultures in the armies, and the popularity of
children, Christmas was altered. Presents were
Nast’s illustrations, all served to coalesce our
fewer, especially in the war-torn South. By 1863,
nation into a more uniform and widely popular
the Union blockade of the Southern coasts had
observance of Christmas.
made it nearly impossible for goods to come
through, so Santa Claus was unable to visit the It is truly ironic that a war that sent brother
average Confederate home. More than a few against brother, neighbor against neighbor, and
mothers explained the austerity to their children states against states, would bring us closer together
by telling them that Santa Claus would not be in this way.
able to run the blockade, or that the Yankees had

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