ON THIS DAY: Friday, Dec. 27, 1861

Headaches in Camp

During the war’s winter hiatus, many soldiers complain there is nothing to do but “drill, eat, and sleep.” For the officers, however, it’s not that simple. Trying to keep order and maintain morale among thousands of energetic young men who are homesick, bored, and restless is a constant challenge.

At Camp John McLean near Cincinnati, the 75^th Ohio has been slow to fill its ranks. Higher authority has decided to speed things up by merging another partially filled regiment—the 79^th Ohio—into the 75^th. The men of the 79^th come from the vicinity of Athens and the coal-mining region of southeastern Ohio. Like many other Civil War regiments drawn from distinct regions, they have a strong sense of their own identity and oppose losing it to the 75^th.

Sgt. Oscar D. Ladley of the 75^th writes his family that the angry men taken from the 79^th threatened to return home. “They seem dissatisfied since they came down here and threatened to leave last night whether or no, and if we attempted to stop them, they would ‘clean us out’ and then go,” Ladley writes his mother and sisters.

However, Col. Nathaniel C. McLean of the 75^th, son of the Judge John McLean (for whom the camp is named) and a Harvard-trained lawyer, used his formidable powers of persuasion last night to talk the rebels around and, Ladley writes, “I think they are quieted down now.”

At Camp Union, Fayetteville, western Virginia, Lt. Col. Rutherford B. Hayes has a different problem with some men of the 23^rd Ohio. A disagreement arising from gambling arises. (Pictured above: “Gambling in Camp,” by Winslow Homer) Two men from Company C complain two other men misled them. Hayes shows the complainers no sympathy, saying they had allowed themselves to be misused as “stool-pigeons” (he means “decoys”), but he orders the other two men to contribute their ill-gotten gains to the Company C common fund. “It will be used to buy gloves and such other comforts as the Government does not furnish for all the company,” the Solomon-like Hayes pronounces.

IN NATIONAL NEWS: American pick up their newspapers to learn that Confederate envoys Mason and Slidell, forcibly removed from a British ship by the Union navy, are being freed. That defuses an escalating crisis between the Lincoln Administration and Great Britain—much to the disappointment of the Confederacy, which had been hoping the Union would be forced into a two-front war.

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ON THIS DAY: Wednesday, Dec. 25, 1861

Merry Christmas!

It is Christmas in a divided America, 1861, and everyone tries to make the best of it, some more successfully than others. (Pictured: "The Soldier's dream of Home," by Currier & Ives, ca. 1861-65.)

Lt. Col. Rutherford B. Hayes writes Lucy from Camp Union, Fayetteville, western Virginia: “A merry Christmas to you and the little stranger (I suppose he is a stranger to you no longer)—and to all at home. At this home-happiness time I think of you constantly.”

Hayes dines in the sergeants’ mess of one of the companies of the 23^rd Ohio, sharing in “an eighteen-pound turkey, chickens, pies, pudding, doughnuts, cake, cheese, butter, coffee, and milk, all abundant and of good quality.” Later, in his own quarters, Hayes entertains a dozen officers with oysters and crackers, and retires at 11 p.m.

Sgt. Oscar D. Ladley, stuck with the 75^th Ohio while it fills its ranks at Camp John Mclean near Cincinnati, yearns to go home in Yellow Springs but lacks the money for train fare. “I don’t like [camp life] nor never did,” he grumbles, never mentioning Christmas in his letter home. “It may look romantic to an observer, but to one who has to go through with all the hardships connected with it, it will make him think home in spite of himself.”

Cpl. Robert H. Caldwell and the 21^st Ohio in Kentucky are given Christmas Day as a holiday, free to visit brother soldiers in neighboring camps or explore local curiosities. Caldwell and another soldier elect to explore a large cave about a mile from camp. They spent most of the day investigating the cave’s many rooms, sometimes crawling on their hands and knees, returning to camp “well satisfied” with their excursion.

Another corporal in the 21^st, William Shanks, records in his diary, “We have a good dinner and I go out and take a walk for the first time.”

THE BIG PICTURE: Lincoln’s Cabinet spends four hours, from 10 1.m. to 2 p.m., discussing what to do about the Trent affair. That evening, President Lincoln entertains a number of guests for Christmas dinner, advising one of them afterwards that the Trent affair has been settled satisfactorily.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author’s book, go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg