Artist Winslow Homer depicts soldiers' joy at receiving holiday boxes from home in this 1861 Harper's Weekly illustration. From Harper's Weekly , January 3, 1863. This sad year brought forth the war's impact full force with battles at Shiloh, Manassas, and Antietam, and campaigns in the Shenandoah Valley and the Peninsula. Many Fredericksburg, Virginia citizens were homeless or fled their town just prior to Christmas. Harper's Weekly illustrator Thomas Nast, a staunch Unionist, is now depicting Santa Claus entertaining Federal soldiers by showing them Jefferson Davis with a cord around his neck.
More moderate illustrations show soldiers decorating camps with greens and firing salutes to Santa.
Officers of the 20th Tennessee gave their men a barrel of whisky to mark the day. But there were other more somber occurrences recorded for Christmas 1862. One account tells of soldiers being forced to witness an execution for desertion and another grim letter describes how men firing their weapons in a funeral salute were mistakenly punished for unauthorized holiday merrymaking. Back to Top 1863 Children still found Christmas morning joyful in this 1864 Harper's Weekly edition. This year saw the battles of Gettysburg and Vickburg and the beginning of the end for the Confederacy.