Browsing named entities in Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Harvard Memorial Biographies. You can also browse the collection for December 25th or search for December 25th in all documents.

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Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Harvard Memorial Biographies, 1852. (search)
little to eat except bread and potatoes. Still he writes:— I am having a pleasant time, the climate seems very healthy, and the weather is superb. Of course I want to get off as soon as possible, but I am quite contented to take things as they come. They however remained at Ship Island only about ten days, and were then transferred to New Orleans, where Captain Hooper was assigned to duties in more immediate connection with Headquarters. On December 28th he writes:— On Christmas day I received an order appointing me to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Major Bell, the President of the Sequestration Commission, (who went home with General Butler,) which separates me at once from the Adjutant-General's office, and gives me an office of my own, and the partial control of an interesting and to me wonderful institution. . . . . It is far from being an unimportant thing in this vicinity, and I find my hands as full of business, and my thinking powers taxed qui
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Harvard Memorial Biographies, 1860. (search)
m Annapolis are very graphic, but must be omitted for want of room. The call for the Seventh Regiment extending only to thirty days, he applied for and obtained a commission as Second Lieutenant in the Second Massachusetts, and left with that regiment for the seat of war in July, 1861. The following extract will give a glimpse at his first year's life in camp:— guard-tent, Second regiment, camp Hicks, near Frederick, Md., 3 1/2 A. M., Dec. 25, 1861. dearest mother,—It is Christmas morning, and I hope it will be a happy and merry one for you all, though it looks so stormy for our poor country one can hardly be in a merry humor. I should be very sorry to have a war with England, even if we had a fine army, instead of a pack of politicians for officers, with their constituents for rank and file; and all the more so, of course, thinking that we shall have to take many whoppings before we are worth much. War is n't declared yet, but does n't it look very much like it t
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Harvard Memorial Biographies, 1864. (search)
tand alone there was something of the unripeness of youth, time would have mellowed the fruit. He was thoroughly alive to the elements of romance in a soldier's life, as appears in the two following passages from his private notes:— On Christmas night (1862) I crept into my bed, and floated off into the fairy-land of dreams and fancies, until sleep threw its spell over me, as is my boyish and absurd wont. But suddenly my waking dreams seemed almost to haunt my slumbers. The softest mer 15, 1863. November 30, he sent a pencilled note from Mine Run: We assault the enemy's works at eight A. M. We are to charge up an open slope half a mile long. December 3. Back at Brandy Station. No defeat, but disgraceful failure. On Christmas-day, 1863, Major Birney married Laura, youngest daughter of the late Jacob Strattan, of Philadelphia, —a lady with whom he became acquainted when both were pupils at Eagleswood. It is harder for him now to be away from home than it ever has be