An Iris Awaits: A Civil War Christmas for a Present-Day Christian

Recently, I discovered the diary of a Civil War soldier from Wisconsin named James Evans. He was imprisoned from 1864 to 1865 in a Confederate prison camp not far from where I currently live. As a lover of history, I was excited about the find, but I became ecstatic when I realized that the prison camp in question was the same one in which my 3x-great-grandfather Vasa Jones had been imprisoned during the same time. (For more about Vasa’s story, see my earlier post on Family History and Faith.) So of course, I had to read it.

As I did, I was overcome with the harsh realities of war, the humanness of the conflict, and the very present, personal nature of what we now refer to as “history.” For instance, James’s entry on Christmas Day 1864 reads, “My Christmas dinner, piece of bread two inches square piece of meat one inch square and a pint of turnip soup. Better days are coming. Warm as summer.” There’s something about talk of food and weather that humanizes history and makes the past seem not so very far away. Indeed, James’s diary highlighted not just how much things have changed but also how much things are the same in our twenty-first century world compared to his of the 1860s.

This idea was brought home even more when I looked inside the New Testament that accompanied the diary. Hidden within its pages was the newspaper clipping pictured below containing a poem entitled “God Knows Why.” A quick Google search of the first line revealed that the author is Nettie Vernon and that the poem was also (first?) published in an 1861 edition of Arthur’sHome Magazine.

James H. Evans Papers, Special Collections and University Archives,

J. Murrey Atkins Library, UNC Charlotte

As I read the stanzas, tears sprang into my eyes. Here was something written by a woman over 150 years ago, kept by a prisoner of war in his Bible, and preserved through the decades in an archives where I happen to work, where I happened to find it, and where its words pierced straight through to my heart as if it they had been written yesterday. The lines convey a deep, yearning yet resting, consciously trusting faith—faith that God is sovereign and that in the midst of pain and suffering and unanswered questions, He is still good and is in control, working out His perfect purposes in kindness toward us.

The final stanzas, which show the faith of a citizen in her Civil War context, reminded me of another Civil War poem that we now sing as a Christmas song—one that happens to be one of my favorites, whether sung to the original 1870s melody or the “new” 1950s one. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned the words to “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” while the Civil War raged, and again the lines not only humanize the Civil War experience but also carry as much meaningfulness for us today. As you read the stanzas below, let yourself feel the poet’s deep yearning that, taking stock of the painful chaos of his world, presses through the bitter questioning and reeling confusion until it comes to rest in the trustworthiness of God and the promise that His purposes will prevail.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet the words repeat

Of peace on earth, good-will to men.

I thought as how this day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rung so long the unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Till ringing, singing on its way,

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime, a chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth

The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound the carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent

The hearth-stones of a continent,

And made forlorn the households born

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;

“There is no peace on earth,” I said,

“For hate is strong and mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men.”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men."

As we enter this Christmas week, many of us with pain and questions wrestling inside, let us be encouraged by the faith of our brothers and sisters in Christ in centuries past. Let’s take a cue from men and women who experienced a Civil War Christmas like Nettie Vernon and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who, in the face of a country literally torn apart, of communities and even families turning on one another, of unspeakable brutality, and of crushing grief, fell on the all-wise and all-good Rock of Ages to hold them steadfast through it all.

Why? Because the good news of Christmas is still just as good as it was in the 1860s and on the very first Christmas over 2,000 years ago. God willingly broke into our broken world; He waded through all of the Wrong and took our punishment upon Himself so that our souls and our world could be restored to being Right. “He himself is our peace” (Eph. 2:14), and just as He came the first time as promised, so He is coming again as promised to bring everlasting peace on earth and good-will to those who are in Him.

Merry Christmas, everyone! God has come, and He is with us!