Custer County Republican. (Broken Bow, Neb.) 1882-1921, 1905-02-02
Christmas Day in the Army.

Christmas in the early days" said
Addison Ballard, was not like the
Christmas of this day. l was raised
in Warren county, Ohio, and in a
neighborhood of welltodo people, and
here is what | received from my par
ents as a Christmas gift: One big
red apple, a little sack of choice hick
DRY nuts, one pair of knit mittens and
a homemade knit comforter to wear
round the neck.
I'm addition, myself and brothers
were given jointly 1 cents worth of
powder, which was inserted in
corncob and exploded, or in hole
bored in a log. In the latter case
other boys joined with their allow
ance of powder to have greater eX-
plosion. For candy we had maple
sugar and for a special treat the
young people of the neighborhood
climbed the hills near our house to
hear the boom of cannon fired in Gin
cinnati fifteen miles away"
Il was that sort of Buckeye boy
myself" said the sergeant, "but of
later date. | wore red or a red and
white comforter as late as the year
before the war, and my Christmas
gift from home in 1862 was a pair
of closely knit red and black mittens.
We were then in camp at Nashville
and the mitbens were a great comfort,
but were regarded as a standing joke
by the boys. We were rather cozily
quartered and We began to prepare
for Christmas week in advance.
Some of the boys went ten and
fourteen miles east and south from
camp looking for geese or turkeys,
chickens or rabbits. Those who went
outside our lines came back excited
and anxious. They found everywhere
indications of a general advance on
Christmas day, and they didn't like
it. On Dec. "a we knew that we
would spend Christmas in camp, but
that we would advance in battle or
der on the morning of Dec. &c. Know
ing this and knowing that three day
rations were to be cooked and car
ried in haversacks, the boys wer1
not as merry ON Christmas day, 1862,
as they had expected to be.
THE whole army moved toward
Murfreesboro on the morning of the
Goth, and as we passed waiting regi-
ments | saw several pairs of mitters
not unlike my own, and | knew that
the good mothers at home had
tt ought, of our cold hands. One man
l saw wearing a red comforter, such
as | had worn as boy, and | WON
dered if he came from the old home
neighborhood Five days after that
as our brigade emerged from the CO.
dars at Stone River, pursued by the
rebels, | saw in the rebel line two
men wearing red comforters.
"One of these wore the comforter
around his neck, with ends crossed
on his breast and carried down to his
belt. The other wore the comforter
around his neck with ends flying.
wondered if these were, like my mit-
tens, Christmas gifts from old-fash-
toned homes. | knew later because
the rebel of the red comforter fell,
not five steps from where l went
down, with two wounds. 1t was very
cold that night, and the wounded in
blue and gray began to creep toward
tho little depression in which | was
lying and snuggled close to keep from
freezing.
Some one took my mittens out Of
my pocket and put them on my al
most helpless hands, and someone
else able to use his hands lifted my
head to his lap as he sat on the
ground, and | felt the ends of knit
comforter brush across my face. 1t
was fresh and new, and he said it
was a Christmas gift and he had
worn it in battle because his mother
had sent it. That led the freezing
men, huddled together like shivering
hogs, to talk of Christmas and their
people at home, and | found that my
man of the red comforter was of the
same stock as myself, his family set
Ting in Tennessee, mine in Ohio.
He had a pair Of mittens like my
own, and the customs of the two
homes were not unlike. We did not
freeze that night, and were carried
off the field next day, but in such con-
dition that / never knew how we
were removed nor what became Of
the men who came to me that night.
Some of them did not recover, was
told in the hospital, but | was in.
formed that not one or the dead wore
a red comforter All this came back
to me yesterday when | came across
white army hospital blanket with
my initials worked in red in one cor
ner. 1t was my blanket and / re-
menberGd that as the letters went
into shape forty-two years ago tear
fell from any mothers eyes for every
stitch taken. / lived, however, to
carry that blanket through the war"
Chicago Inter Ocean.
Man Cbar,ers oF Hrast coIdi.rs