war story

According to the December 25, 1575 issue of Harper’s Weekly, Americans were using evergreen garlands and wreaths more to decorate their homes for Christmas. The decorations might have been changing, but people still yearned to go home for Christmas.

looking a lot like Christmas

Harper’s Weekly December 25, 1875

Harper’s Weekly December 25, 2025

not only in dreams

Ira D. Sankey was a well-known and outstanding 19th century Gospel singer. He spent much of his career providing the inspirational music to complement D.L. Moody’s preaching at Evangelical meetings and church services. According to Anna Talbott McPherson, on relatively balmy Christmas Eve in 1875 Mr. Sankey was a passenger on a Delaware River steamboat. One of his fellow passengers recognized him and asked if he would sing a song. Sankey assumed he would sing a Christmas song, but after a prayer decided on “Savior, like a shepherd lead us.” After the song a man approached the singer and asked if Sankey had ever served in the Union Army and done picket duty on a bright moonlit night. Sankey remembered several bright nights. The other man said that he had been a Confederate soldier and saw Sankey on picket duty on a bright night. The Confederate thought to himself that the picket was done for and took aim with his musket. At that moment Sankey raised his eyes to heaven and began to sing “Savior, like a shepherd lead us.” The music touched the rebel soldier, so he took his finger off the trigger and decided to let the doomed Yankee finish his song before his certain death. When the rebel heard the words,

“We are Thine, do Thou befriend us;
Be the Guardian of our way.”

he recalled his mother singing those words to him many times. After the song the Confederate found it impossible to take aim again. He thought to himself, “The Lord who is able to save that man from certain death must surely be great and mighty.” On that night in 1875 the former rebel soldier asked Sankey to help him cure his spiritual sickness. It is said that Sankey helped him find Jesus.^[1]

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the story. It’s out there on the internet in many places, but I haven’t found a primary source and some of the facts don’t really line up. Some say the Christmas Eve was in 1876 instead of 1875. Anna Talbott McPherson’s book has Sankey in the Union Army in the spring of 1860, but the war didn’t start until 1861. According to The American Evangelists, Dwight L. Moody and Ira D. Sankey Moody and Sankey were conducting meetings in Philadelphia from late November 1875 until early January, so Sankey would have been close to the Delaware River. It is written at the Moody Bible Institute that Sankey volunteered for the 22nd Pennsylvania Regiment Infantry, which was a three month regiment from April 23, 1861. You can read a PDF of the story at Scriptural Truths.

Christmas Eve

I got the Harper’s Weekly 1875 material from HathiTrust.

From the Library of Congress: Andrew Melrose’s Christmas Eve; Currier & Ives’ 1876 greeting.

to you and yours

1. ^[1]McPherson, Anna Talbott, They Dared to be Different. Chicago: Moody Press, 1967. Pages 22-24. ↩