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Christmas in the 1860s

First published: The State, December 1975

(Excerpts from a paper written by Mrs. James E. Malone, and read before the United Daughters of the Confederacy Dec. 3, 1925, in Louisburg.)

... Here (in Louisburg) where we were fortunate enough to escape the horrors, which so many suffered at the hands of an invading army, we generally had something to eat. A Christmas dinner would consist probably of a ham, a turkey and chickens, while the result of hog killings also played an important part. We knew nothing of canned fruit then, but we had potatoes, sweet and Irish, carrots and parsnips, and cabbages, and collards, and dried fruits and pickles. For our desserts we had to depend on sorghum to sweeten them. Ginger cakes and fruit cakes were usually good, for the sorghum was not unpalatable in them, and there was always a supply of peanuts, walnuts and hickory nuts.

We of course had milk, and for syllabub cream was abundant, and the flavoring of brandy or whisky was not lacking, but you can imagine that home made molasses did not sweeten it very deliciously. Coffee was of course out of the question generally, though my mother had some during the entire war, but it was kept safely out of reach, to be used only in cases of sickness, as was some sugar also. Some of the substitutes for coffee were horrible, I thought. Sweet potatoes cut into small blocks and dried, and then parched and ground.

The mothers of that period must have known many a heartache when the Christmas Season drew near, and their ingenuity was severely taxed to fill stockings for unsuspecting little ones. Let me recall a Christmas of my childhood: I was fortunate in having a doll house, made by one of our carpenters. Some furniture for the dining room had been made by the same carpenter, so to my delight I found in my stocking on Christmas morning a set of doll mats that I thought very lacy and lovely, which I know now were only unbleached cloth fringed out and threads drawn in little squares. I also got a balmoral skirt in brilliant colors, and a comb with red beads around the edge. There was also a lovely little basket made of cake with a pasteboard handle, then the whole iced and ornamented. The comb and skirt remain to this day a mystery, but occasionally things were brought here from Wilmington, that vessels running the blockade had carried there. As I have already said, my mother kept a small quantity of sugar hidden away. She evidently encroached on that little supply for the cake basket. I was delighted with my gifts.

For fireworks, I’ve seen my brother and his boy friends making preparations during the day for the night’s display. Balls of cotton were wrapped until very hard and soaked in turpentine, and with old gloves on their hands they tossed these lighted balls through the darkness, while we watched with great interest, thinking them beautiful.

I think of it all now, and to me it was wonderful that such a spirit of brave cheerfulness prevailed. Homespun dresses were worn with pride — bonnets covered with remnants of old silk dresses and trimmed with homemade feather flowers. Shop shoes with home knit stockings and home knit gloves were thought to be things of solid comfort. And yet on special occasions old trunks were ransacked and costumes constructed which now would be considered grotesque in the extreme, we then thought beautiful. Nobody was ashamed to wear anything they had, and no one was ever laughed at. A common cause drew all hearts together then, adversity made sisters of our women and in each was a spirit of helpfulness that made itself fit.

-Mildred W. Malone, Louisburg