history’s stories
Christmas 1862 By Ralph “Tuffy” Hicks
Prior to the War Between the States, Christmas was not celebrated as an official holiday in the United States. In New England, the holiday was a time for fasting by the Puritans with their strict rituals. In the early 1700's Massachusetts punished the colonist who observed the Christmas holiday, even as it became a state it was years before the holiday was observed. It was not until around the 1820's that stories such as "A Visit from Saint Nicholas (1823) that began the ideas of gift giving and celebration within the family of dinners and celebrations. Just prior to the beginning of the Civil War songs began to become. popular such as "Jingle Bells" (1857). In the South in cities such as Charleston and New Orleans the citizens began to decorate evergreen trees such as spruce and pine a tradition that went back to Germany in the Middle Ages. It is written that the first Christmas tree lot was in New York in 1851 . 1862 brought the Civil War to the forefront with the thousands of deaths and casualties at the Battle of Sharpsburg (Antietam), with the Battle of Fredericksburg just twelve days before Christmas that would change the day forever in the United States. The Union Army under General Ambrose Burnside had well over 100,000 men camped in Stafford County while the Southern Army under General Robert Lee had over 60,000 men in and around Fredericksburg. Prior to the battle many of the Town of Fredericksburg citizens were trying to carry on their lives not knowing when a battle would take place. Many of them felt that it would be after the Christmas season as they had prepared for Christmas, however they were given orders to leave their homes just before the battle which took place on December 13, 1862. It was declared a victory for the Southern Army as the Union retreated back across Rappahannock River. As both armies would remain in camp during one of the coldest winters on record in 1862-63. Many of the soldiers both North and South would write home and write in diaries. Many of these letters and diaries have survived the past 158 years and tell of their living conditions and feeling during the long and lonely winter in camp. Soldiers on both sides would write home about how they remembered celebrating the Christmas holiday. One passage from a wife to her husband in the Southern army she wrote, "Never before had so sad a Christmas dawned upon us". A Union officer received a letter from his wife stating, "I am so nervous and lonely I could not write". Many of the letters and diaries reflected that the Battle of Fredericksburg made them reflect on times past and prepare for the future once the war was over. The media was involved as Harper's Weekly a popular paper published Christmas stories and illustrator Thomas Nast drew the image of Santa Claus that is still famous today as a bearded Saint Nick. By the end of the Civil War Christmas had become idealized vision of "over the hill and thru the woods to Grandma's house we go". MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM OUR HOUSE TO YOURS…… Tuffy & Anne
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December 2020
Front porch fredericksburg
What’s in a Rock? Rappahannock Freestone By jon gerlach On the south bank of the Rappahannock River, just downstream from the Blue and Gray Parkway, is a cluster of massive s a n d s t o n e boulders. It's a favorite place for kayakers to pull up for lunch. Beyond the beauty of the place, the rocks speak to the rich history of stoneworking in early Fredericksburg. From roughly 1725 until the mid-1800s, sandstone outcrops were quarried and commercially exploited in the Fredericksburg area. Thanks to the work of historian Noel Harrison, today we know of at least eight quarry sites within five miles of town where Rappahannock freestone - the local manifestation of Aquia sandstone - was mined during that early period. Ironically named, "freestone" was quarried using slave labor. Day after day could be heard the "clink, clink, clink" of iron chisels driven into the yielding rock by slaves laboring in tiresome quarries. To be sure, early Fredericksburg was built largely by slave labor. Many foundations in town were built using Rappahannock freestone. The Old Stone Warehouse and the first floor of Town Hall/Market Square are excellent examples, as was a mansion (now gone) known as Mannsfield. Stones salvaged from the Mansfield ruins are found today at Gari Melcher's Belmont. Fredericksburg is known worldwide for its famous Stone Wall along the Sunken Road, which sheltered Confederate infantrymen while they methodically destroyed successive Union assaults on December 13, 1862. The Stone Wall was built long before the war, from Rappahannock freestone quarried in the woods behind what is today the National Cemetery. Never to be forgotten, the Slave Auction Block on William Street was also made of Rappahannock freestone. Behind the Mary Washington Monument on Washington Avenue is the massive sandstone outcrop known as Meditation Rock. This was a peaceful getaway for the mother of George Washington. There, a brass plaque reads: "Here Mary Ball Washington prayed for
the safety of her son and country during the dark days of the Revolution." Local Fredericksburg sandstone came in several grades of quality and commercial value. In its common form the stone was coarse with abundant pebble inclusions (as seen at Meditation Rock), best suited for the rubble method of making foundations and stone walls (as seen in the Stone Wall). Less common but better grades had a finer, more uniform texture, suitable for use as durable dimensional stone (such as the walls of the Old Stone Warehouse and Town Hall/Market Square), and hearthstones, door stoops and window lintels (visible in many buildings on Caroline Street). Perched at the pinnacle of commercial value was the rarest of all: a dense, finegrained sandstone suitable for crisp gravestone carvings (as seen in the Masonic Cemetery). The stories of the quarry workers, stone dressers, and gravestone artists are long forgotten - dust to dust, as they say - for there are few written accounts of their lives and work. Notably, these unsung laborers and artisans created a permanent legacy that will survive for generations to come, a rich part of the built environment of historic Fredericksburg. So … what's in a rock? ... Legacies in stone.
An attorney and retired archaeologist, Jon Gerlach chairs the Architectural Review Board in Fredericksburg. "Stone Wall" by Jon Gerlach