Civil War,1864, the winter was rough for the wives and mothers left behind while the men-folk went off to fight for the Confederacy. Just a little ways from where I live, in Tennessee, along Bledsoe Creek, where it runs into the Cumberland, Confederate cavalry rangers were making raids into and around Gallatin, keeping the pressure on the Yankees who had occupied the County Seat of Sumner County.
In a small log house by the creek, a young mother holds her baby to her breast, wrapped in a wool blanket and trying to absorb any small amount of heat from the rock fireplace as the wind howled outside and more snow piled up around the door. Food was almost gone, with the Yankees scouring the countryside, taking the chickens, hogs, cattle and horses with them as they roamed from farm to farm searching for Rebels. Our area of Tennessee was a hotbed of Rebels and the home people that supported them, and the Gallatin area suffered greatly under the Union occupation.
It was the night before Christmas, surely somewhere, but in Sumner County, it was just another night of terror, listening for the sound of horses coming along the trace. This young mother was no threat to anyone, but she and her baby were subject to be punished, just as if they were on the front lines, because her man was a rebel. The baby shivered and started to cry, the sound muffled by the heavy blanket, and the mother started softly singing, "Hush little baby, don't you cry, you know your daddy is bound to die, and all my sorrows, Lord, soon will be over.........". As she was singing her song, she caught the distant sound of hoofbeats, and sang on to cover her fears…..
Meanwhile, about 10 miles North of Gallatin, camped along a tributary of the Cumberland River, the small band of Confederate cavalry, led by John Hunt Morgan, the very ones that the Yankees were searching for, were huddled around a small fire in the wooded draw, trying to escape the cold winds of December with the stinging sleet and snow. The men were lost in their own thoughts and homesickness, as one of the men, from somewhere in Alabama, pulled out his harmonica and started softly playing, as across the campfire another young boy from Mississippi started singing….”Oh I wish I was in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten, look away, look away, look away….Dixieland.” Somehow, in the music, the bitterness of war seemed to retreat, for awhile, on a lonely Christmas Eve night.
The Yankee patrol passed on by the little log cabin of the woman and child, leaving them in peace for this night, and as they rode through the woods trail one of the men from Pennsylvania started singing, somewhere toward the back of the line of horsemen, his rough untrained voice, choked from the cold and barely audible, yet fitting for the song and the mood of the night, started the song that touched these men so far from home. “Glory, glory, Hallelujah, glory, glory, Hallelujah, glory, glory Hallelujah….His truth is Marching on…”.
Yes, just another Christmas Eve night on the frontier, 1864, as our forefathers and mothers tried to make it through in whatever way they could. Music was a part of all of them, singing to make the night terrors go away, facing an uncertain dawn and even harder times. Brave men and women who stood on their principles and beliefs, on both sides, and withstood unbelievable hardships.
Today, once again, Tennessee is feeling the cold winter winds to remind me of those terrible times so long ago. Our country was torn apart then and it took generations for the wounds of Civil War to heal. But, heal it did, and our country became the great Nation that it remains today. May God bless and protect us all in this New Year of 2013.
Stan
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