Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1898 — IN THE CIVIL WAR. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

IN THE CIVIL WAR.

Holidays Were Not Notably Different from Other Days.

mN the armies during the civil war holidays were not notably diffl ferent from other I | days. This may be accounted for on the C?StZ ground that every I JT; day with armies in active service, liable ‘'Ji*} at any moment to be ryf ordered to engage in j-Jl dangerous undertakings, all had nearly enough to think about without spend-

Ing days or weeks in preparing for a proper celebration of holidays. Of all of the days that attracted unusual attention on the part of the Yankee soldiers, Christmas stood at the head, however. With most of the young fellows Christmas, 1861, was their first away from home. Many of them had hard work to appear happy as they looked at presents /from dear ones and ate the good thing »aent them. But great changes had taken /place before Christmas, 1862. At least 50,000 of the Army of the Potomac ha<i fallen out of line —dead, wounded or prisoners. The track of its inarch was redred from Yorktown to Richmond and from Richmond to Malvern Hill; from Cedar Mountain to Manassas; South Mountain ■to Antietam, and the reddest spot was What a gloomy Christinas it was for the Northerners. They had, only a few days before, been badly defeated in their attempt to drive Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia from the heights of Fredericksburg. The people at home may have started a Christmas dinner to the boys, but it did not reach them. On Christmas, 1863, the army was shivering along the Rappahannock and Rapidan, and as far out as Culpeper Court House. It was too cold, and the men were too poorly housed to enjoy the day. 'Christmas dinners were the order of the -day In 1864. The army was strung along ’behind fortifications from Richmond to •below Yellow House, on the Weldon Railroad, a distance of nearly forty miles. The ■Sanitary and Christian Commissions had arranged to supply the army with a Christinas dinner. Few men were overlooked. Except that in IS6I. it was the happiest Christinas for the Yankee army -since the trouble began. There were many -signs that the next Christmas would be ■enjoyed at home, and so it was by all who escaped from the hot times from March 29 to the evening of April 9, after Grant and Lee had met at Appomattox.