“And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, and the world seemingly most indifferent. Emmanuel. God with us.” Taylor Caldwell
Christmas 1862 – Fredericksburg, Virginia: John Paxton woke Christmas morning to snow covering his bedding. Without a tent, he had pitched his mat, covered himself with his wool blanket, and slept very little. Shivering, hungry, and miserable, the 18-year-old dejected private in the Union army regretted he had signed up to fight in the war.
To make matters worse, the captain shouted, “Moore, McMeaus, Paxton, Perrine, and Pollock fall in for picket duty.” The five soldiers trudged through a foot of snow a quarter mile to the northern bank of Rappahannock River to begin their patrol. To his buddies, young Paxton whined, “So, this is war? We are supposed to shoot that thin, starving soldier dressed in gray just across the river?” He shook his head. “So, this is war? Tramping up and down my fifty yards on this riverbank with frozen feet and an empty stomach on Christmas Day?”
Five months earlier, John Paxton, a resident of Washington, Pennsylvania, had been a junior at Washington and Jefferson College located in his hometown. He planned to be a preacher and had yet to think much about joining the Union Army to fight the Confederates. Then, in July, his math professor, Jeremiah Frazer, signed up with Company G, 140thPennsylvania Regiment, and a handful of his students, including Paxton, followed.
To Paxton and his college friends, war meant bands playing for handsome young men in parade lines with crisp, new uniforms and shining brass. But that had changed two weeks earlier during their first real action in the war at the Battle of Fredericksburg, December 11-13. General Ambrose Burnside’s Army of the Potomac, with 130,000 men, had attempted to cross the river on five pontoon bridges, hoping to surprise the Confederates.
General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, 80,000 strong, had beaten back Burnside’s troops. With 12,500 Union casualties and 6,000 Confederate losses, the battle was another victory for the South and a shocking end to a bloody year of the Civil War.
With light snow still falling, Christmas was a distant memory for John Paxton. He ran in place and pounded his arms on his chest to keep warm. He wondered what his family was doing at Christmas back in Pennsylvania. He thought about stockings over the fireplace and candy, turkey, and sweet potatoes. He remembered the pretty face of the girl he left back home.
Paxton spotted a rebel soldier on the other riverbank 200 feet away. He lowered his rifle. “Hey, Johnny Reb,” Paxton yelled. “Hello yourself, Billy Yank,” came the reply. “Merry Christmas, Johnny,” Paxton waved. “Same to you, Yank,” the young rebel soldier smiled. “Say, Johnny, you got anything to trade?” Paxton inquired. “Parched corn and tobacco,” Johnny said. Paxton had coffee and sugar to share.
They crossed the river on the rocks and swapped coffee for tobacco. That Christmas day, one-half mile from the small town of Fredericksburg, an informal, unauthorized truce happened between the soldiers of the two armies. They traded coffee, sugar, tobacco, salt pork, hard tack, persimmons, and newspapers. They had snowball fights. Some played cards, while others swapped stories of Christmas back home.
A Union band came down to the river and played “Yankee Doodle” to the cheers of the soldiers in blue. When a Johnny Reb yelled, “Hey, ain’t you got a song for us,” the band played “Dixie” to the cheers of the Confederate soldiers. The band concluded with “Home Sweet Home,” which brought cheers and tears on both sides. Later, as darkness approached, soldiers crossed the river and returned to their respective camps. Tomorrow, the war would begin again.
More than two million men had gone off to fight in the Civil War, leaving their families at home, but that had not stopped Christmas from coming. The Christmas truce of 1862 at Fredericksburg, Virginia, offered a time to pause and reflect on the important things. Soldiers in blue and gray celebrated Christmas and their hearts were a little lighter and the weather perhaps not so cold. For a few hours, the common bond of being Americans and a divine spark of humanity overcame the ugliness of war.
Some very sad times in that War. Many others too. Merry Christmas Pete.
Very good story Pete. Hope you guys have a Merry Christmas!🎄🎄
I have always loved that story. I first read it when I was a kid growing up in East Lake. My mother made me read books, I mean made me until I started reading Civil War books. She never had to make me read again!!!
Happy New Year to ya’ll.