Thanksgiving in the Field – 1863 from “Death Piled Hard”

One of my pre-occupations is the cycle of novels that I wrote concerned with what I think I learned in life.  It is set in the American Civil War and called “Strike the Tent.”  Why?  If I knew why perhaps I could have set it in some other time and place.  I have been writing at this for a long time. In one of the books, there is the story of a French professional soldier (John Balthazar), an officer with much service in Africa, who is sent to America to “observe” Lee’s army for his government. Once here, he becomes ever more involved until he ends by being asked to form a provisional battalion of infantry from men nobody else knows what to do with. Line crossers, men from broken units, disciplinary problems, etc. He sets out to do that. In this passage we see his battalion going into Winter Quarters in November, 1863 south of Culpeper. Virginia. They have just made a long withdrawal to the south, away from the disastrous field of Rapahannock Station. Pat Lang

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“Throughout the army, soldiers started to construct their winter quarters. They had lived so long in the forest that they could build solid little houses of sticks and mud if they had a couple of weeks in which to work.  Small towns arose in the woods.  They filled up the forests that sloped away to the northwest from the foot of Pony Mountain. Smoke drifted in the wind, eddying and streaming, bringing an acrid bite of wood taste in the air. Oak and hickory, maple and poplar, the smoke brought the smell of their little communities so like those their ancestors had made in the beginning of their new life in America.  The men thought of Thanksgiving; some reached out beyond that to remember Christmas.  Balthazar watched his troops build their winter town. He had never seen soldiers do such a thing. In Europe, soldiers on campaign lived under canvas or in requisitioned houses. He thought their skill a marvelous thing, and told them so.

On the 26th they had Thanksgiving.  Smoot and Harris explained the nature of this feast to Balthazar, telling him of the memory of God’s providence to the colonists at Jamestown.  He heard them out, and sent hunting parties into the woodland.

Jubal Early came to dinner. He sat on a saw horse in the barn where they ate, a tin plate of venison and wild turkey in one hand, a tea cup of whiskey beside him.

The troops sat in the hay eating happily.

Balthazar had taken charge of the cooking, supervising the half dozen Black cooks that Harris recruited in Hays’ brigade.  The day the cooking started, Harris was pleased to have several men volunteer to help. Among them was Smith, the “D” Company commander. After watching his creation of an admirable kettle of turkey soup, Balthazar was sure that Smith, like Harris, was professionally trained.

Early complimented them on the stuffing, and said he had never had anything quite like it.  He accepted a second helping.  He had a chaplain with him, a French Jesuit who worked in the military hospitals in Lynchburg.

The priest and Balthazar chatted in their own language during dinner. The men listened to this with interest, turning from one to the other, examining their commander, seeking assurance of something they could not name.

After dinner, the priest offered his thoughts on the meaning of such a remembrance in wartime and the injustice of the war being waged against them by the North.

The soldiers listened politely.

When the chaplain finished his talk, Early stood up and announced that General Ewell was gone on sick leave for his old wound, and that he would be in command of Second Corps until Ewell came back. He said that they would be attached for now to corps headquarters.

You could see from the soldiers’ faces that they were not sure if that was good or bad.

The priest offered to say Mass if there were Catholics present. A number raised their hands and he moved off to a corner of the barn with them.  Balthazar asked Early if he wished to attend the service. After a moment’s thought, the general shrugged and said he could not see any reason not to do so. “After all,” he said, “the Pope has taken note of us.”  After Mass, the Jesuit asked if Balthazar wished him to hear his confession.  The answer was no.

A courier came at four o’clock the next morning with the news that Meade was across the Rapidan, and marching southeast through the Wilderness.

Balthazar had found among his men a soldier who had been a bugler in a regular U.S. cavalry regiment. “Reveille” sounded sweet and compelling in the darkness of the camp.”

Pat Lang

https://turcopolier.com/thanksgiving_in/

Comment: If you haven’t read Colonel Lang’s Civil War trilogy, you’ve missed out on a great experience. But that’s easy to remedy. Just buy the books and read them. Anyone who is a veteran will recognize much in these books. I know I did. Here are two of my comments to this “Death Piled Hard” excerpt made over the years.

November 28, 2013

Ah, now I know why I have such an affinity for Balthazar. Early in my time as a rifle platoon leader, I dealt rather successfully with a rehab transfer from another battalion. These rehab transfers were soldiers that would otherwise have been drummed out of the Army for various reasons. He quickly became a model soldier. My platoon became the repository for most rehab transfers from other battalions in the brigade. These soldiers and the rest of my platoon proved skillful and had far greater initiative than most other platoons… at least in the field. Those same traits were the source of frequent headaches in garrison. I’d like to think I’d do well in Balthazar’s battalion full of men nobody else knows what to do with.

November 27, 2019

Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow correspondents. I’m taking a day off from my housewrighting to cook a meal for my family and heal the wounds of the trade. It was a serendipitous coincidence when soon after I read Colonel Lang’s account of Thanksgiving in the field, I also received a Thanksgiving greeting from RPI referring to Thanksgiving and the Civil War. Here’s the pertinent passage.

“While the early history of Thanksgiving in the United States is well known — including the celebration in 1621 of the Pilgrims’ first harvest in the New World, alongside the Native Americans who had taught them survival skills — what is less well known is that Thanksgiving was celebrated only intermittently until the Civil War. In 1863, after several important victories by the Union Army, President Abraham Lincoln established a national precedent that continues today, by proclaiming that the last Thursday in November be set apart for all Americans to celebrate the country’s bounties and blessings. Although President Lincoln originally delineated the observance to be on the last Thursday of November, the date of celebration was changed by Congressional resolution, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in December 1941, to the fourth Thursday in November.” 

“The remarkable proclamation, which is believed to have been drafted by Secretary of State William Seward, acknowledges the suffering caused by the Civil War. However, it also recognizes “fruitful fields and healthful skies,” the peace preserved with other nations despite internal strife that they might have seen as an invitation to aggression, the progress of industry despite the costs of war, the increase of the population despite the wasted lives on the battlefield, and the expectation, despite the nation’s wounds, of a “large increase of freedom.” In its enumeration of reasons to be grateful amidst turmoil, it is inspirational.”

As I commented several years ago, Thanksgiving is a special time for soldiers. It’s when we officers don our dress blues, or whites in my time with the 35th Infantry, and man the mess hall chow line to serve the Thanksgiving meal to our troops. I would not be at all surprised if much of our current Thanksgiving emotions and customs are rooted in the experiences of generations of soldiers.

TTG