“Darling Nellie…Did Kris Kringle bring you anything last night? I don’t believe he comes down this way at all for I haven’t heard anything about him. I haven’t any thing to send you for a Christmas present so I will put in 25 cents and you may get what you want or what mama thinks is best…A Merry Christmas to you from Papa.”
He wrote a separate letter to his wife: “A Merry Christmas to you dear wife.
Since I cannot wish it you by word of mouth, I will by word of pen and paper. No doubt you are enjoying yourself finely to day with the abundance of good things which are so plenty and so cheap in the peaceful north.
“A few extras would not go badly in this region to day but as they are not comestible we content ourselves with what we have and by tomorrow no doubt we shall feel as well as though we had stuffed ourselves full of roast turkey and plum pludding.
“I’ll tell you what we – that is Capt.
Gasternicht and myself, propose to have to day for dinner. First the universal ‘sowbelly’ (bacon) and coffee, then boiled beans with bread and butter. This last is an extra, the result of the captain’s foraging expedition outside of the picket lines yesterday. He succeeded in getting about 3/4ths of a pound of white stuff they called butter and a canteen of milk all for the small sum of 50 cents and had to go three miles for that….”
A year later, Albert J. Blackford from Clinton was resting in camp near Columbia, Tenn. He was a captain with Company F of the 107th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, which mustered out of Camp Butler near Springfield. His regiment had been battling the Confederates throughout Tennessee. On Christmas he wrote to his wife. His letter is also at the ALPL.
“When I look back over the last year and think of the danger I have passed through, the many hardships and privations I have endured, I wonder that I am living today, for I have seen so many good men shot down, so many die of sickness. I have seen so many, very many fresh covered graves, that I feel I have indeed been fortunate.”
All three men were fortunate; each survived the war.
Contact Tara McAndrew at tmcand22@aol.com.
