Company for your misery:
Next time, hide the staple gun ~ and the cat. (^:
Posted on 12/27/2003 11:05:06 AM PST by Ragtime Cowgirl
The spirit of Christmas has survived through the ages, uninterrupted by winter weather, national calamity, world wide poverty, or even WAR. So was it true in the darkest days of our Nation;
During the gravest hours in our country's history, in a nation at war with itself, many Southern diaries tell the story of Santa running the blockaded ports in Dixie to fill children's stockings with what little the parents could spare to make the day special for them.Even the stoic General Sherman, allowed and encouraged his soldiers to play Santa to the impoverished Southern children by attaching tree-branch antlers to their horses and bringing food to the starving families in the war ravaged Georgia countryside.
The most famous Christmas gift of the war was sent by telegram from William Tecumseh Sherman to Abraham Lincoln on December 22, 1864.The gift, of course, wasn't the guns, the ammunition or the cotton, but the beginning of the end of the Civil War.“I beg to present you as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with 100 and 50 guns and plenty of ammunition, also about 25,000 bales of cotton.”
A Christmas 1944 Telegraph from the War;On 4 November 1944, whilst serving in Burma, my grandfather, William Ellis sent a telegraph to his wife to arrive in time for Christmas Day, it read:
'My own darling,My grandmother kept this telegraph until her dying day (1999) even though William died in 1966. It is now framed and hangs on their son's wall.
With this I send my very best wishes for Christmas and the New Year. Although I am far away from home at this Christmas year, still in my heart, as always you seem especially near, but you must know today that all my love for you comes with this wish for Christmas and for all the New Year too.Love from Bill'
Dorinda (Ellis) Garfield
Whenever I am asked to ponder on the sacrifices of our troops, I think of the loneliness that inspired their love filled letters written to their family and loved ones back home.Sullivan Ballou's letter, abbreviated below, to his beloved wife Sarah, July 14,1861 Camp Clark, Washington DC, as it was read on the PBS series The CIVIL WAR by Ken Burns series....
Dear Sarah:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days - perhaps tomorrow. And lest I should not be able to write you again I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I am no more.I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing - perfectly willing - to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this government, and to pay that debt.
Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but omnipotence can break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly with all those chains to the battlefield. The memory of all the blissful moments I have enjoyed with you come crowding over me, and I feel most deeply grateful to God and you, that I have enjoyed them for so long. And how hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes and future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and see our boys grown up to honorable manhood around us.
If I do not return, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I loved you, nor that when my last breath escapes me on the battle field, it will whisper your name...
Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless, how foolish I have sometimes been!...
But, 0 Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they love, I shall always be with you, in the brightest day and in the darkest night... always, always. And when the soft breeze fans your cheek, it shall be my breath, or the cool air your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.
Sarah do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for me, for we shall meet again...
Sullivan Ballou was killed a week later at the 1st Battle of Bull Run.
Sullivan Ballou was killed a week later at the 1st Battle of Bull Run.
Of course, Carlo, he is a Dragon Fly.
Where did we get the idea of mutilating a plant's reproductive organ in order to guess if somebody loves us?
Company for your misery:
Next time, hide the staple gun ~ and the cat. (^:
Warning, may send Lazamataz over the edge.
On the other hand, it may inspire Saddam to spill the WMD secrets.
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