War Activities
On the first Christmas Day during the war, Lincoln hosted a Christmas party during the evening; earlier that day, he spent many hours trying to legitimize the capture of Confederate representatives to Great Britain and France, John Slidell and James Murray Mason (the Trent Affair).
In 1862, the Lincolns visited injured soldiers at the various hospitals. Many Union soldiers in 1863 received gifts "From Tad Lincoln", as Tad had been deeply moved by the plight of Union soldiers when he was taken by his father to see them. The gifts were mostly books and clothing. The most famous Christmas gift Lincoln ever received came on December 22 when William Tecumseh Sherman announced the capture of Savannah, Georgia.
Military exercises also took place on December 25. In 1861, a blockade runner was caught by the Union navy, and there were two skirmishes in Virginia and Maryland. In 1862, there were several skirmishes, and Confederate general John Hunt Morgan engaged in his famous Christmas Raid in Kentucky; on that single day, Morgan's men destroyed everything he possibly could of the improvements that the Louisville & Nashville Railroad had made along 35 miles of track from Bacon Creek to Lebanon Junction. There was also a military execution for desertion that the soldiers were forced to witness. In 1863, Union forces destroyed Confederate salt works at Bear Inlet, North Carolina; there were also several skirmishes between Confederate artillery and the Union navy on the Stono River and near Charleston in South Carolina. In 1864, the Confederates fiercely repelled the Federal assault of sixty warships on Fort Fisher, while in the western theater of the war there were several skirmishes fought.
Read more about this topic: Christmas In The American Civil War
Famous quotes containing the words war and/or activities:
“This is not Johnson’s war. This is America’s war. If I drop dead tomorrow, this war will still be with you.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“...I have never known a “movement” in the theater that did not work direct and serious harm. Indeed, I have sometimes felt that the very people associated with various “uplifting” activities in the theater are people who are astoundingly lacking in idealism.”
—Minnie Maddern Fiske (1865–1932)