The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-12-26
GEN. BADEAU ON CHRISTMAS.
Recalling Some Famous Holiday Sea-
sons in a Long and Eyentful Life.
christmas with Grant in the Field, in the
White House, and on His Last Christmas
christmas in England and Cuba.

events, and characters and scenes, and years
that often have no other bond, for memory is
like thread OH which man may string his va
rious experiences at his will | have spent
Christmas in camp and Christmas in English
country houses, Christmas IN captured toWn,
Christmas in a palace az Havana, Christmas at
the White House at Washington, Christmas in
London dining with ambassadors; Christmas at
The Century Club, in New York; Christmas in
hospital wounded Christmas at Delmonico's,
Christmas at Grants house when he knew he
was doomed to die. hardly know which ghost
or picture first to summon from the past.
Famous holiday times l can recall at the Centu-
ry Club, in New York, in my earlier days. The
crowd Of gay and promising men that gathered
there when Richard Hunt and Launt Thompson
and Church, and Bierstadt and Booth and Stod-
dard were rolicking young fellows, seem to me
in the retrospect, more brilliant than any have
known on the same spot in late years. | remem-
Der more than once. that thirty or forty OF us
determined TO see the old year out, and the long
board was stretched across the double room,
and very good punch was brewed and very
good songs we're sung. and stories told
rose and sung "AuId Lang Syne," and
''here hand and there hand" were given
and exchanged. The handsome faces glowed
and the 1.-the forms we're full of spirit and
strength, as the artists. and poets and orators
pledged each other in all the pride and gayety OF
youth, and genius and Christmas time-nearly
thirty years ago. Alas! How many OF those
forms are bent, or, mayhap, crumbling now;
how many of those smiles have faded, how many
faces are wrnkled if not forever chap-fallenY
Where be your gibes now? your gambolsi your
songsq your flashes of merriment that were wont
to set the table on roar2 How many, now, to
mock your own grinningf
When the war broke out became soldier,
and there was an end to clubs and club dinners
for awhile. My next Christmas was passed in
South Carolina. accompanied Sherman on his
expedition to Port Royal. and in December,
went with accommodating party to the interior.
Returning to our camp, at Hilton Head, found
one Of my messmates i'll with the fever of the
country His other comrades on Shermans
staff were absent other duties, bat was
only a volunteer aid-de-camp then, without
rank or pay, and could command my own
ame. I remained with my friend and
hursed him until he recovered, and that
was the beginning of an intimacy OF more
than twenty years. That man was Horace
Porter, with whom l passed many night on
Tybee island. under the Same blanket during
the siege of Fort Pulaski; who shared my tent,
or his cabin, all through the Wilderness cam
paign, and the long year at City Point; with
whom. under Grant, | marched to Appomattox;
with whom / messed for four years after the
war, in Washington. and who, at another Christ
mas lin 1864 invited me to become his grooms
man. / was wounded at the time, and unable to
travel 10 Albany, where the marriage took place.
My wound was in the foot, and when made my
excuses Porter with flash of the wit that is
known at hundred dinner tables, declared he
could hardly expect man to stand up with him
who had lost the use or his foot.
The first Christmas that Grant spent at the
White House dined there with him; others
passed while he was General-inchief, at his
residence near the Capitol One Christmas
dinner | remember with him, at the house of
Gen. Gallatin Lawrence, and once think we
went to children's party given by Mr.. Cerruti.
the Italian minister. Many a Christmas have
spent with the American minister In London;
sometimes it was General Schenck, sometimes
Mr.. Welsh, and once. l believe. Mr.. Pierre
point.
More often, however, took my plum pudding
in England with Thomas Hughes, the author
of TON Browns School Days" He and his
wife were among my earliest and latest English
friends; they had two boys only four or five
years old when first vent to London, types of
English children one with long golden red hair.
the other with golden yellow; both fair and
fat, and beautiful as vision of fairy land. They
we're dressed always in blue. with the shortest of
skirts and sleeves, SO as to show their legs and
necks and arms, and were called Pip and Plump.
They had other names, ! suppose, but I never
heard them; and Pip and Plump and | were de-
voted friends. There was always a plain family
dinner for them at Christmas, and a frolic after
wards, and was always welcome to both. There
were more children, older, whole brood of
them, boys and grls-but we three were the es-
pecal mates; Sir William Harcourt was my only
rival; he was Mr.. Vernon Harcourt then, and he
came too at Christmas. and brought presents
and lay on the floor and gamboled with the boys
Pip and Plump always returned my visit on
-. AZ L. -
late years almost greater festival in England
than Christmas itself. We had lunch and
snap-dragon afterward, and a Christmas tree
and they staid till dark. which comes very soon
in England in December, and then we went to a
pantomime. For at all the London theaters
there is pantomime at Christmas, founded on
Aladdin .Gy Cinderella pg Jack The Giant Killer
with EF9At deal of care and spendor. Trag-
edy, and even opera, give way to this entertain
ment ostensibly provided for the children, but
which the elders find it necessary to supervise
in very large numbers. confess that invited
half the children of my acquaintance in turn,
and thus went the round of the pantommes
Taught Pip and Plump to hang up their stock
ings, for the delightful legend of st. Nicholas is
unknown to English children. TO many little
friend have recited the exquisite lines
Twas the night before Christmas when all
through the house" and always to rapt and at
tentive listeners. In return they explained to
me the mysteries of snap-dragou, and darkened
the room after lunch and came in with sheets and
whitened faces to terrify me, while the blue
flames Of the brandy were blazing
At one of these froics had Mrs. Nellie Grant
Sartoris and her eldest child, then chubby bow
If three years old, to meet my English allies.
The grandson of Grant was dressed in white.
with white fur and white Shoes his hair was
long and flaxen. and we christened him Father
Christmas" as he stood under my green tree,
and picked off the bon bons and oranges, and
blew out the candles. When I first saw his
mother. little girl of eight or nine, playing in
front of her fathers tent at City Point little
thought should ever welcome her an English
matron with and English son in my own house
in England
But the old fashioned Christmas that Wash
ucton Irving tells of in the sketch Book" is no
longer celebrated in England, though in the
country some traces of the delightful festival
still linger here and there ! have been asked
20 Christmas parties at great houses where a
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