The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-12-23
From the New York Sun.

From the New York Sun.
n EEING all the people buying Christ
mas things now" said veteran
- of the civil war, "makes me think
of some Christmas experiences of my
own-first. of the time when I used to
hang up my stockings by the fireplace,
sticking forks through them and then
jamming the forks into a crack under
the mantelpiece, where Santa Claus could
get at them handily when he came down
the chimney; and then of time when
we were grown up and Santa Claus came
to us in the army.
1.-THE regiment 1 served in put In good
part of it's time in states on the South
ern Atlantic seaboard, in South Carolina,
Georgia and Florida, where with water
transportation to us, we could be got at
rather more easily than troops not SO
far away. but at interior points; and so
while you couldn't have things shipped
to you there as you could to this town or
the other in times of peace, still you
could get things there pretty well, and
the patron for whom our company was
named when 1t was first recruited, back
in the town in which it was raised, used
to see to it that at Christmas time there
was delivered to us big box filled with
things from friends at home.
1--WE no longer bore his name in the
army, for from the minute we were mus
tered into the United States service we
had become simply Company S-and-So, of
such and such a numbered regiment, Of
such and such state volunteers, but We
never forgot our friend at home, and
surely he never forgot us. and at Chris
mas time he used to see that our COM
pany got that box.
"Well in advance he would announce in
the home papers that on such and such
date a box would be sent to the company.
and if friends or relatives of members Of
the company would bring in the gifts
they wished TO send they would be care
fully packed and duly shipped. And then
the people used to bring in the things;
and though, somehow, never thought OF
1t then, l have thought often since, With
what loving care and tenderness must
those Christmas gifts have been prepared
those things sent from home to their
soldiers in the field!
when everything was all in our friend
" packed, and then he'd hike the box
down to New York, and there the quar-
termaster's department would put 1t
aboard an army transport and bring it
down to us. So Santa Claus wasn't COM
ing to us, with his pack on his back
down the chimney but in a box in thu
hold of steamer.
when we got our first Christmas box
we were on an island down the coast
there, drilling some and doing guard and
picket duty, but largely engaged in bulli-
ing corduroy roads through swamps by
day, and by night in hauling by hand
with a whole regiment on the ropes
heavy mortars and guns over these roads,
and also, under the same friendly cover
of darkness, in building masked batteries
I'm which the said guns and mortars were
mounted, all this in the course of besieg-
ing a fort occupied by confederate SOL
diers on another island.
''It was plenty of hard work and not
much play, and most of the freight thas
came to u.s. besides the usual commssa-
nv supplies, was guns and mortars and
powder and shot and shell and the vari-
Gus material of war; but one day there
came ashore on lighter, from a trans
port anchored off, along with barrels OF
pork and kegs of powder, that Christmas
box from home for us soldiers.
I'VE hauled it up from the beach ard