Christmas in Gettysburg 1863
by Diana Loski
Gettysburg's historical Old Dorm in winter
(Author's photo)
After the dedication ceremony of the Soldiers National Cemetery in Gettysburg, the crowds dispersed, President Lincoln returned to the White House, and there was a temporary halt to the burials of the myriad dead from the Battle of Gettysburg. While the day of the dedication was a mild one, the cold arrived soon afterward, and with the cold front came a welcome relief from the terrible stench of death that had pervaded Gettysburg since the summer.1
There were still corpses strewn on the battlefield, but the numbers had begun to dwindle as the Union dead who had not been retrieved by families were largely buried in the National Cemetery; the Confederate dead were buried in large areas on the fringes of the former fields of fire, and away from farmer’s fields. The burials would begin again in March the following year.2
Earlier that autumn, on October 3, in recognition of the Union victory at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln endorsed the national observance of Thanksgiving – to be held on the last Thursday of November. With the coming of that day, on Thursday, November 26 that year, the event marked the beginning of what we now recognize as the holiday season.
The holidays then were markedly different, far simpler, from the way they are celebrated today. Nevertheless, the people of Gettysburg were in a festive mood. They had realized that the war had turned in favor of the Union, and many hoped that the following year, 1864, would bring the conflict to an end. A letter sent by Company K, of the First Pennsylvania Reserves, men from Adams County, echoed that sentiment: “We are nicely fixed in good winter quarters,” the letter read, “we still hope…that ‘ere six months roll their rounds that ‘this cruel war will be over.’”3
There was good reason to suppose the end was near. No one knew better than the Gettysburg civilians how many Confederates had been lost in the recent battle. Additionally, General Grant had continued to make inroads to the west after his victory at Vicksburg. The Battles of Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain, and Missionary Ridge that autumn had led to the abrupt dismissal of Confederate commander Braxton Bragg. There was news of Union troops approaching Charleston, South Carolina, hoping to take the city in the near future. Moreover, Congress passed unanimously a raise in pay for Union soldiers. The news cheered the people of Gettysburg.4
There were a few wounded soldiers left in Gettysburg by Christmastime in 1863. Dr. Jonathan Letterman commanded the large tent hospital known as Camp Letterman east of town for months after the battle. In early December he requested a transfer, and by January 1864 Camp Letterman had closed. During the month of December many of those soldiers who remained in hospital care were transferred out by train to other hospitals, or were taken home.5
While Christmas was less extravagant in the 19th century, there were still festivities. In 1867, a civilian who had lived during his youth near Gettysburg wrote, “Christmas Day! What a beautiful thought…Often, in the pre-Christmas season, I get homesick for the good old time I knew as a youth in Dutch Pennsylvania. What a pleasure Christmas was then. People did not work on Christmas Day. Instead, in the morning, church bells used to peal forth an invitation over field and wood to all within hearing to come to God’s House for the Christmas service. One saw old men smiling through their beards. Grandmothers had faces as bright as the full moon. And children! Children shouted for joy! And a week or two before Christmas, what an endless baking of cookies – horses, rabbits, stars, hearts, birds and many shapes more….Then it was truly a pleasure to be a child.”6
Though times had been tough for the people of Gettysburg, the baking, caroling, festive dinners and exchanging of gifts still prevailed.
With many soldiers away at Christmastime because of the ongoing war, gifts were sent by families to their loved ones in the field. Cookies, pies, knitted scarves and socks, jams and any remembrance of home that could fit in a package was shipped. One veteran recalled that “a number of Massachusetts sailors who happened to be quartered in Philadelphia at Christmas time…were invited to a Christmas dinner by some Quaker City ladies… with a turkey so large that its breastbone could be used for a boat keel.”7
Prices were high, however, due to the war. One contemporary penned, “However much men may complain of high prices, they have by no means reached the height, after three years of war, that they did in time of peace in 1837.” A depression caused by bank failures had occurred that year, the first year of Martin van Buren’s Presidency. It was called “The Panic of 1837.” At the close of 1863, the people of the North fared far better than those in the South.8
In addition to gifts sent to loved ones away at war, letters were also exchanged. Sallie Myers, a young school teacher who lived with her parents on West High Street, had been a nurse during and after the battle. In caring for a fatally wounded Pennsylvania soldier, Alexander Stewart, in his final hours, Sallie wrote to his family at his death. The father came to retrieve the body, and told his surviving son, also a Civil War soldier, of the kindness exhibited by the young woman. The brother, Henry Stewart, began writing to Sallie, and by Christmastime 1863 a warm friendship had begun. In December, he sent Sallie a note, accompanied by his ambrotype. Sallie remarked in her diary that “I liked his appearance.” Romance blossomed and eventually culminated in marriage in 1867.9
Another touching episode is detailed in a letter sent to Sallie by a widow from Alabama, Julia Graves, whose fatally wounded husband Sallie had attended during his last hours after the battle. Sallie had written to the widow, detailing the grave of her husband, and explained that she had laid flowers at the site. At Christmastime in 1868, the widow asked Sallie to “Please visit the graveyard and hunt for his grave.” Sallie did this out of kindness for many of the families of the dead, in 1863 and years afterward.10
There was no snow in Gettysburg during Christmas in 1863. The snow, however, arrived by New Year’s Day. An enormous snowstorm hit the Midwest during Christmas, blanketing those states in snow, and then pushed eastward, covering Gettysburg in time to welcome 1864.11
On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, the various churches in Gettysburg held services. The Reverend Doctor Michael Jacobs of the Lutheran Theological Seminary officiated at the Christ Lutheran Church on Christmas Eve, a Thursday, in 1863. The Sunday School children sang Christmas carols, with addresses following by Dr. Jacobs and his assistants, Dr. Henry L. Baugher (the President of Gettysburg's Pennsylvania College) and Dr. Schaeffer.12
Some of the carols that were popular in that day included The First Noel, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, and O Come All Ye Faithful. The carol Silent Night (Stille Nacht) was also known, and was usually sung as a choir or solo number rather than by the congregation. Other songs sung outside of the churches for the holidays included Deck the Halls and Here We Come a Wassailing.13
Christmas trees, a German tradition, were set up in many Gettysburg homes, but were usually on a table top. Small gifts, such as dolls, musical instruments, and toy soldiers, were placed within the boughs of the tree on Christmas Eve. The trees were rarely lit, as candles were the only means at the time of bringing light, with a bucket of water nearby to douse the tree in case of fire. Others, who continued more of an English tradition than a German one, used a Yule log – a large log that burned throughout the holiday week. It was a tradition to drag a sled to the woods and bring back the largest log that would fit in the fireplace.14
For those in the field, as war continued, both Union and Confederate soldiers went into winter quarters. The Christmas letter from Company K detailed what their lives were like in December 1863. “The health of our company is excellent, with the exception of slight colds,” their captain wrote, then explained “one of the most trying days of our lives”: “We paced in the woods to keep from freezing, not being allowed a spark of fire for fear of drawing the fire of the enemies’ batteries.” In northern Virginia, their duty at the time was “patrolling the railroad and keeping it clear of guerillas that infest this whole section of the country.” Hoping for the end of war in the near future, the letter ended with a wish “that our Nation will once more be free. Wishing our many friends in Adams a ‘merry Christmas and a happy New Year.’”15
The coming year did not bring the desired end of the war, but by the following Christmas, with the reelection of Abraham Lincoln, the end was in sight.
The plight continued for the starving South – and the hapless captured Union soldiers who remained prisoners of war in various Confederate prisons. If the Confederates had no food for themselves, they also had none for their prisoners. One Union officer, in Libby Prison in Richmond, managed to smuggle a letter detailing their poor conditions. “The Rebels reduced our rations,” he wrote, “to one gill of rice and 8 ½ pounds of cornbread for every ten men.” There was no meat, he explained, which “stopped a week ago”.16
In spite of this worrisome news, the civilians and soldiers in 1863 had great hope that the future would bring good news and peace on earth. It remains the wish of people everywhere, at Gettysburg and beyond.
Sources: The Adams Sentinel, 8 December, 1863. The Adams Sentinel, 22 December, 1863. The Adams Sentinel, 29 December, 1863. Cole, James M. and Rev. Roy E. Frampton. Lincoln and the Human Interest Stories of the Gettysburg National Cemetery. Hanover, PA: Sheridan Press, 1995. Letter, Company K to the People of Adams County, near Bull Run, Adams Sentinel, 29 December, 1863. McGaugh, Scott. Surgeon in Blue: Jonathan Letterman, The Civil War Doctor Who Pioneered Battlefield Care. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2013. Rodgers, Sarah Sites. Ties of the Past: The Gettysburg Diaries of Salome Myers Stewart, 1854-1922. Gettysburg, PA: Thomas Publications, 1996. Shoemaker, Alfred L. Christmas in Pennsylvania. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2009 (reprint, first published in 1959). Whitney, David C. and Robin Vaughn Whitney. The American Presidents. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1993 (reprint, first published in 1967). Historical newspapers accessed through newspapers.com.
End Notes:
1. Adams Sentinel, 8 Dec., 1863.
2. Cole and Frampton, p. 8.
3. Letter, Co. K, Adams Sentinel, 29 Dec., 1863.
4. Adams Sentinel, 22 and 29 Dec., 1863.
5. Adams Sentinel, 22 Dec., 1863. McGaugh, pp. 208-209.
6. Shoemaker, p. 135.
7. Ibid.
8. Adams Sentinel, 29 Dec., 1863. Whitney, p. 77.
9. Rodgers, p. 167.
10. Ibid., p. 180. The letter detailing the request was sent in 1867, but Sallie did place flowers on the graves of the men she had nursed in 1863.
11. Adams Sentinel, 29 Dec., 1863.
12. Adams Sentinel, 22 Dec., 1863.
13. Shoemaker, p. 20.
14. Shoemaker, pp. 85, 200.
15. Letter, Co. K, Adams Sentinel, 29 Dec., 1863.
16. Adams Sentinel, 8 Dec., 1863.
