God Rest Ye Merry, Soldiers: A True Civil War Christmas Story
by By McIvor, James
Category: History , United States , Civil War Period (1850-1877)

By the second Christmas of the Civil War in 1862, the childlike optimism the soldiers carried with them into conflict had faded. These were after all young boys who had just spent Christmas away from home, sleeping in frozen puddles and scraping together bacon fat and hardtack for their Christmas feasts. Many spent Christmas Day writing letters to their families either lamenting their sorry conditions or saying their final farewells in anticipation of the battle to come. The enemy had begun to seem, more than North or South, the war itself.Then just after Christmas in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, a small miracle occurred. On the eve of the bloody Battle of Stones River, the Union and Confederate armies set up camp within shouting distance of one another. To raise their spirits, they began a combative volley of patriotic tunes - "Yankee Doodle" drowned out by "Dixie." Then a Union band began to play "Home Sweet Home." A Confederate band chimed in, and soon every regimental band and every soldier, Rebel and Yankee alike, swelled the chorus.Filled with soldiers' letters - marked by humor, yearning, and courage - as well as Christmas poems and songs from the period, God Rest Ye Merry, Soldiers is a testament to the soldiers' legacy: the hope that even the deepest divisions of a nation torn apart by war may someday be healed.