Christmas in the Field
Surgeons at Christmas
Thomas Nast’s cartoons captured the separation of families during the Civil War at Christmas time.
During the winter months, both armies set up more permanent camps and built log huts that provided better shelter and warmth. For many soldiers, Christmas was just another day of army life. Two surgeons, one Confederate and one Union, marked the day in letters home in December 1863.
Assistant Surgeon Thomas Fanning Wood, 3rd North Carolina, was stationed in winter quarters near the Rapidan River where his regiment provided picket duty at Mitchell’s Ford. On December 24, 1863, he wrote home to “Dear Pa & Ma:” “I greet you all Merry Christmas and hope it will really be a pleasant day for you. I will enjoy the day in imagination though, even if we will be on duty on the bleak outposts,” Summoned to headquarters, he was invited to join a feast of, “cake, oranges, peanuts and ‘sperrits’,” that had been received in packages from home. “I hope this will be but a fore-taste of what I will get yet for Christmas. An ambulance went today to Orange with instructions about turkeys and the like.” He closed his letter wishing ,“A Merry Christmas to you all!”
Surgeon James Langstaff Dunn, 109th Pennsylvania, wrote several letters home in December to his wife, Temperance, from head quarters of the 2nd Brigade 2nd Division of the Twelfth Corps at Wauhatchee, Tennessee. Unlike winter quarters in Virginia in 1862 when it was possible to send to Washington or Alexandria for something good to eat, he feared that they would have to make Christmas dinner from the usual rations: ”4 pounds of boiled pork, 4 pounds of boiled beans. Bean soup. One raw onion each. Hard Tack soaked in cold water. Coffee with one small spoonful of sugar per cup.” Instead, he wrote home on December 25th:
Christmas is almost over, and feeling some homesick, I concluded to write you in thought before going to bed. We have had a more pleasant time today than expected. Col. Walker took dinner with us, making four at our table. We had a good roast beef and soft bread that we managed to get baked at the Division Hospital. An old native who likes his bitters brought us a pound of butter in exchange for this very needful beverage. We also managed some condensed milk and preaches in cans, Taking everything together, we had a dinner almost as if we had been at Aquia Creek…I wish you have enjoyed Christmas and that Old Santa Claus has not forgotten to make his yearly visit to fill all your stockings with many pretty things.
His four children at home ranged in age from eleven to two.
