Not So Merry Christmas of 1861

 By November and December of 1861, the North and South had been embroiled in a civil war for several months. Early hopes on both sides for a speedy conclusion had been put to rest and the warring sides prepared for a longer conflict. Augusta was far from the front lines, but many of her sons were not.

The city itself was abuzz with industries turning out war material and along the banks of the canal, construction craftsmen labored to build the multiple structures of the Confederate Powder Works under the guidance of George Washington Rains. The previous January the Augusta arsenal had surrendered to the state of Georgia. For months women in Augusta had been sewing, raising money for a gunboat for the Savannah River and taking over the duties of their absent husbands, brothers, sons and fathers.

What we now consider the “holiday season” was a much more low-key period in the mid-19th century. In fact, Thanksgiving was not yet a permanent November tradition and Christmas was in the early stages of its transformation to a major holiday. Hanukkah was only a minor holiday on the Jewish calendar.

Although the first “thanksgiving” feast had been celebrated by Plymouth settlers and Wampanoags in 1621, thanksgivings had remained informal events, usually called for in response to specific occasions. Many of these thanksgivings were days of fasting rather than feasting. Thanksgiving as we know it was not established as an official national holiday until Abraham Lincoln, in response to the urging of Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of the first popular women’s magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book, issued a proclamation in 1863 for a national day of thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November and the United States has celebrated it since that time—although during the Great Depression the holiday was observed a week earlier for a few years.

Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation, of course, had no impact on the seceded states until the end of the war. Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, however, issued his own proclamations. He had called for a day of thanksgiving and fasting on June 1861 and had issued a proclamation on October 31 of that year for the Confederate states to observe November 15 as a national day of “fasting, humiliation and prayer...in their homes or usual places of public worship.”

In Augusta, Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists joined together; observances for the day of “humiliation and prayer” had Baptist Rev. W. T. Brantley preaching at the Presbyterian Church at 10:30 that Friday morning with the public invited. Episcopalians gathered at St. Paul’s at the same time for a special service. Although Augusta had both Catholic and Jewish congregations at this time, sources do not reveal how followers of those faiths may have observed the day. No one, however, had elaborate turkey dinners with cakes and pies on this day of fasting.

Christmas Day has a history that often surprises modern observers. In colonial America, the New England colonies, founded by Calvinist Puritan Congregationalists had laws that forbade its observance along with other religious festivals that they felt were not consistent with Protestantism. The first New Englanders to call for a public observance of Christmas were Unitarians in 1800 and that lasted only a few years. In the Anglican South more festivities occurred and traditions included the medieval Yule log and gift giving to servants—masters to slaves, indentured servants or apprentices. Decorations were mainly greenery, representing renewal, although the German custom of Christmas trees was introduced later.
The day was marked with church services and family dinners. The 12 days following Christmas were sometimes observed with revelry. By the 1820s and ’30s Christmas began a slow transformation that by the time of the Civil War had made it more popular and had brought most Protestant Christians into the fold of observance, although there were hold-outs, especially among some Scots-Irish descendants.

As Christmas approached in 1861, Augustans tried to keep a semblance of normality. Private schools, such “Miss Hansell’s Seminary for Young Ladies,” remained open; hotels including the South’n States still took care of travelers; and cotton factors and commission merchants such as Porter & R.A. Fleming continued their businesses. With Fort Pulaski in Savannah yet to be captured, the blockade remained porous enough that goods were still available. As one advertisement said, some were “direct from England, purchased in the last two months.” For sale at Stovall and McLaughlin were leather, hay, potatoes, feathers, vinegar, peach brandy, gin, rum, coffee, flour, molasses, salt, apples, wines, teas, window glass, paint and other goods. The Augusta Ice House had Norfolk and Savannah oysters for sale. George Oates had “good, useful, ornamental or funny books.” Mustin and Son were “fully prepared for attacks on their stock.” The French Store, one of the most popular, advertised a large assortment of French candies especially for Christmas. Gifts of toys, candy and jewelry could all be found in Augusta stores. Messrs. Tucker and Perkins had a new gift suggestion—photographs and daguerreotypes. Having the image of a loved one was a valued artifact for those away at war as well as for those remaining behind on the home front.

The Philharmonic Society busily prepared for a number of concerts and exhibitions of tableaux. Since some would benefit the poor, the newspaper urged that “our citizens must make up their minds to attend and in this way contribute to the happiness of the needy while they are enjoying a pleasant Christmas themselves.” Funds raised at the concert on December 18 would benefit the Montgomery Guards. As the holiday neared, the Chronicle and Sentinel urged citizens to buy its Christmas edition because young boys would be the carriers and they were often support for families whose husbands were away.

On December 24, the editorial page urged Augusta Christians to keep Christmas saying that although “the country is at war, [and] many dear friends whom we were want to give a cordial Christmas greeting in past anniversaries...are doing the soldier’s duty...Still the good, old fashion of keeping Christmas must not decline in our Southern land, where it has always been celebrated with such spirit. No, let us keep up this holiday, if all others in the year’s round are neglected.” Along with keeping the holiday, Augustans were also urged to buy gifts “for the sake of the children, who are made so happy by the gifts they receive on that glorious annual festival.”

Augustans evidently followed that advice. A few days later, the Chronicle said “all our places of business where gifts could be obtained were crowded on the 24th and sales, despite the hard times, were very large.” Augustan Gertrude Clanton Thomas confirmed that in her diary writing: “The day before Christmas the streets presented the liveliest appearance imaginable.” She noted that the confectionary [candy] stores were particularly crowded. She compared it to Mardi Gras before Lent.

December 25, 1861, was frosty in the early morning and beautifully sunny and warm in the afternoon bringing many Augustans out to walk and visit. While Christmas Eve day had been lively, Christmas day itself was a more subdued affair, passing “off very quietly, save the gunpowder demonstrations by the young folks.” St. Paul’s Church had both a Christmas Eve service and Christmas Day noon service. The Catholic Church had services every half hour beginning at 6 a.m. with high mass at 10:30 a.m. and a vespers at 6:30 p.m. Greenery decorated both. With Christmas Day falling on Wednesday that year, the Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians evidently followed earlier customs and had no Christmas services.

Most families did not yet observe the German custom of Christmas trees and those who did had small trees on a table top. A visit from Santa, however, had become a custom, popularized first by Clement Moore in the 1820s with his now famous poem, “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” which begins: “ ’Twas the night before Christmas.” It was cartoonist Thomas Nast who would plump Santa up a bit. For Christmas of 1861, Santa was able to deliver the gifts of Southern children. It was only for later Christmases during the war that parents had to tell their children that Santa could not get through the blockade. The newspaper noted an “abundance of presents bestowed upon the little ones.” For boys, toy pistols and knives, wind-up wagons were common; babies got rubber animals and rattles; girls received tea sets (china or wooden), jewelry, play furniture, dolls. Boys and girls both loved books and candy. Gertrude Thomas wrote that the gift that outshone them all for her son was a hobby horse. In addition to Santa, parents, grandparents and sometimes older siblings bestowed gifts on children. Adult gift-giving within a family was only beginning to appear and still not expected.

For enslaved African Americans, Christmas briefly brought more freedom and less work. Katherine Cumming noted that even though her mother-in-law, following old Presbyterian tradition, did not observe the holiday, she did give all the servants the day off. Slaves could often travel that day to see family members who might live away. Some used the time for much needed rest. As Gertrude Thomas wrote, “...the servants have a carnival all the time that they are not in the land of dreams during Christmas week.” Observing long-time tradition of gift-giving to those who worked in a household, some families gave gifts to their slaves, apprentices and employees. Money was an especially welcome token. Gertrude Thomas gave money to all the household slaves.

For those who had stocked pantries, a family dinner in mid-afternoon could include turkey and ham, onions and potatoes, perhaps apples. Other fruit would have been dried or brandied. Eggnog was popular as were brandies and punches. Augustans enjoyed all of these in this first year of the war.

The shortages of goods and foods and some of the worst hardships of the war were, for the most part, still to come. The war, however, made its presence felt in the absence of many family members. There were only women and children at many Christmas tables. For some, the Christmas newspapers brought the grim news of loss. Information on war actions and lists of deceased soldiers filled much of the Chronicle’s front page. A song written about this time in the North and published in 1862 would soon become popular on both sides of the lines: “The Vacant Chair.”

Lobbying for a normal Christmas, the paper’s editor had written: “This year, it is true, alas that it should be so—the times are hard.” By the last Christmas of the war, the Christmas of 1861 did not seem so hard after all. But war’s end brought hopes for better holidays to come. By that time, Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation had created the official day of national Thanksgiving every November. Five years later President Ulysses S. Grant made Christmas an official national holiday as well in hopes of bringing reconciliation to the fractured nation. Like other Americans, Augustans have been part of those holidays ever since.